@hoosiermama:And in the end, it doesn't matter a hill o' beans what the name of the "disorder" is...Having a label gives us something to hang onto and perhaps even something to help predict how the next few years will play out in dealing with the aliens we married.
And that's actually why I think it does matter -- even though one literally can't do anything about it, viz., no control, focus on yourself, etc. -- I find from my own POV that putting a face on the enemy (so to speak) helps to cope with it in some small way. I'd like to think, for example, that had I known it was MLC (if it was) and not pure WAWly cussedness, I'd have gone about things differently. At Zero Two Hundred, with my eyeballs caging, I'm honest enough to admit "probably not," but it's at least possible.
For example, I might have -- when we were getting along -- asked about how she coped with her mother's death, etc. Would it have changed the alien? Oh I don't think so. But maybe it would have changed the DB'ing I did(n't) do. Maybe not. Can't ever know.
But it's sort of like genealogy -- as Buddy Dude Man told me, one is happier learning, though generations after the fact, that Ancestor had an irreparable (given the technology of the age) brain tumor rather than continuing to believe he'd simply stuck a shotgun in his mouth and blew the top of his head off.
ok, then we're on the same page then. I like the term "putting a face on the enemy"--quite descriptive and accurate. the enemy being the "disorder" of course; the disordered spouses have their own set of faces already.
let me just tell you--no, no matter what you would have said to her, no matter how you handled her mother's death retrospectively, it wouldn't have changed anything. once the thing happens in their brains, they're on a course of their own and only time can change it. it has to run its course, and then you get to see what you're left with. except by then, of course, it's like Sherman's march to the sea.
if you're like the rest of us--and there's a syndrome to us, too--you'll do more post-mortem analysis than the coroner in Gary, Indiana (last I checked, the murder capital of the US). it brings a measure of peace. maybe even growth. otherwise it's a waste of suffering.
M60 H52 D20 M14 yrs OW-old gf from 1986 bomb-5/18/08 H filed for D-9/10/08 D final 4/24/09 xH remarried (not OW) 2012
I think part of the process is finding a reason why. Something that makes sense. For instance, something that many others have experienced too, that has played out in the same way. I wonder if it softens the blow, in some weird way. "Oh, look, x-zillion other people around her age who lost a parent went batsh*t crazy in pretty much exactly the same way!" Then, neither were you uniquely unsupportive nor was she uniquely evil and vicious. "We'll give you a complex and we'll give it a name....." (Thank you Andrew Bird.)
I just wonder if the naming of things makes a difference, really. At the end of the day, does it matter to the battered wife that her husband was abused as a child, and therefore........? All that matters is what you decide your boundaries are, what you are willing to accept in terms of consistent behavior. I mean, there's almost always a "good reason" why people do anything. Something driving them that they probably don't even understand. Do we really have to find an acceptable label to assume good will on their part, that they're doing their best with the cards they were dealt, or that they dealt themselves? Assume that. What does it cost? Because all that really matters is their execution. The road to hell, etc. Nobody expects the battered wife to stand still for the beating because she understands her husband and has compassion. Nobody expects you to tolerate the infidelity and disrespect. Compassion and empathy don't necessitate martyrdom; you're not stuck because you "get it." But neither are you freed.
IHMO. Nattering ends.
"Show me a completely smooth operation and I'll show you someone who's covering mistakes. Real boats rock." -- Frank Herbert
While I'd agree with Kettriken's view that establishing personal boundaries with one's WAS is more important than naming his/her issues, I think the compassion and understanding can form a useful basis for forgiveness--which is ultimately necessary, whether M reparation or D are achieved, in order to achieve closure.
Cyrena, I completely agree with you: compassion and understanding can form a useful basis for (necessary-to-move-on) forgiveness.
I just don't see the absolute need for the "find an official label" stage. I believe in trying to approach other people in your life from the perspective of, "They are probably doing to best they can with the mental and emotional tools at their command to protect themselves on some level, not deliberately going out of their way to hurt me. Whether or not I understand all the underlying mechanisms, it does make sense on some level."
If that's your default position, you don't need concepts like MLC, bipolar, bulimia, schizophrenia, PTSD, madonna/whore, ACOA, etc etc etc to rationalize and/or validate your compassion and understanding.
IMHO.
"Show me a completely smooth operation and I'll show you someone who's covering mistakes. Real boats rock." -- Frank Herbert
I don't know--for me it seemed to put some form to the chaos. Chaos is frightening in itself, just because you don't know what's coming at you next. And once there's a label there might be some marginal predictability, even if it's an abysmal situation to expect. Different things help different people, I think.
M60 H52 D20 M14 yrs OW-old gf from 1986 bomb-5/18/08 H filed for D-9/10/08 D final 4/24/09 xH remarried (not OW) 2012
I don't know--for me it seemed to put some form to the chaos. Chaos is frightening in itself, just because you don't know what's coming at you next. And once there's a label there might be some marginal predictability, even if it's an abysmal situation to expect. Different things help different people, I think.
I think that is very true. Uncertainty is one of the suckiest parts of the human condition, that's why we all try to control it as much as possible. And you do whatever you have to to get through the early stages in one piece, for sure.
I'm just kinda anti-label, myself, in general. I think a label often reduces a complex human being to a pathology. Upside: knowing how to deal. (Even if the diagnosis is incorrect, you *feel* like you have a game plan at least and aren't just thrashing about in the dark.) Downside: that pesky "reduces" thing.
I suppose the labeling can be a perfectly useful stage in the journey, as long as it isn't the ultimate destination.
"Show me a completely smooth operation and I'll show you someone who's covering mistakes. Real boats rock." -- Frank Herbert
I just don't see the absolute need for the "find an official label" stage. I believe in trying to approach other people in your life from the perspective of, "They are probably doing to best they can with the mental and emotional tools at their command to protect themselves on some level, not deliberately going out of their way to hurt me. Whether or not I understand all the underlying mechanisms, it does make sense on some level."
If that's your default position, you don't need concepts like MLC, bipolar, bulimia, schizophrenia, PTSD, madonna/whore, ACOA, etc etc etc to rationalize and/or validate your compassion and understanding.
Makes sense. Damn hard to do though, especially in the midst of a nasty divorce!
"Always go straight forward, and if you meet the devil, cut him in two and go between the pieces." - William Sturgis, clipper ship captain, 1830's.
@Kettricken: Something driving them that they probably don't even understand. Do we really have to find an acceptable label to assume good will on their part, that they're doing their best with the cards they were dealt, or that they dealt themselves? Assume that. What does it cost? Because all that really matters is their execution.
But you see my friend, I'm not "assum[ing] good will" or that STBXMRSSP is "doing [her] best." That's not what I -- and, I think, @hoosiermama -- am getting at.
For me it's about getting around the self-directed critique -- okay, old boy, hang on, it's not you... that sort of thing.
I've written extensively here about my concern that DB'ing, especially in the early stages, trends toward self-abnegation and -- though it's an extreme and not completely apt comparison -- a kind of ritualized self-abuse: Figure out what you did wrong; figure out where you were lacking; figure out why s/he left you; what's your problem; be the (wo)man only a fool would leave (because you're obviously not now); make changes to you (and what do those changes inevitably entail? Body image changes, self-image changes, attempted personality changes, etc. -- the cessation of the "you" being the "you." [Which begs the question how long those changes last post-D, but that's another forum on another website]).
