Oh, I am so glad I read this post! Mach1, I think you hit it right on the head. They do look for someone to "fix" and yes it does take their focus and time away from themselves. My h spent over 3 months trying to rescue a 21 yr. old felon and drug addict by moving him into his apartment! It finally fell apart and h had many moments of clarity. That was when he was actually calling me and talking for long periods of time. Now, that I look back at it, he must have known he needed someone who was "stable" to give him advice on the mess he got himself in. He later confessed to me that it was a big mistake and he paid the price.
And now it finally makes sense to me that since they choose "losers" or people they wouldn't normally be friends with, they don't look broken to those people. Heck, compared to them, they are models of society! H has often said to me his friends support him, don't think I'm a nice person, don't think he should have married me, think he should dump me, etc. And THEY HAVE NEVER MET ME!!! One time I did reply to him that "oh, big news flash, your friend who has been married 3 times and currently lives with a man who beats her, is an alcoholic and drug abuser, has one son who is a felon and drug abuser (see above), and another son who uses her and causes one crisis after another for her....yeah, she is just the person I would go to for marriage advice!"
And now that I look at what I just typed it occurred to me how do I know all this about her? Because he has told me all of this during his moments of clarity!! During some very lucid moments a couple of months ago when he actually took me out to dinner. Now, he wouldn't throw scraps for the dog at me! He is in the all out hatred, cruel stage. And now I realize that's because he got rid of some of the problems he was focusing on. Now, all that anger and frustration is pointed at me. Why didn't I see this before? I was thinking rationally that he needed to move those kids out of his place and then he would have time for us. I couldn't have been more wrong!! That's what I get for looking at this rationally. LOL!
MLC'ers will often try to "fix" someone or something else. They often look for something more broken than themselves to have as "project" . It is a way for them to be moral with out actually being moral. ( If that makes sense).
Hmmmmm................so, is this why my H chose the OW - because her husband cheated and left her behind.....was/is he trying to fix her????? He feels sorry for HER! Sorry to chime in here, I just read that and found it amusing (in my situation)......
Me 45 M 25 yrs; T 31 yrs;bomb 8/15/06; moves out 7/18/08 D 18, D 14, S 12
No!!!!! None of that - just gave me a chuckle today, really - the thought of my H feeling sorry for a LBS and leaving me for her................truly just a LOL for myself.....sorry....
Me 45 M 25 yrs; T 31 yrs;bomb 8/15/06; moves out 7/18/08 D 18, D 14, S 12
Sooooo, two weeks ago I give my wife a small gift for Mother's Day (no card). I gave her a cross-stitch set, because I know that's something she enjoyed when she was a teenager. I tried not to make a big deal out of the gift, but I suppose some part of me was hoping it would appeal to some good place inside her, a place that's calm and not full of turmoil. In any case, the day before Mother's Day I asked if she'd mind if I took her out to brunch or something. She said she wasn't interested, but that she would come over for breakfast Sunday morning. She shows up around 8:15am. I was surprised because I wasn't expecting her until 9a or 9:30a. So, I give her the gift, and I'm expecting her to open it, look, maybe say thank you, and that's about it. Wellllll, she opens the gift, and literally spends a good 45 minutes just flipping through the instruction book, looking at the different threads, etc... She ended up staying from 8:15a until about 7:30p that evening, doing nothing but cross-stitching all day long!
Fast forward to last week Friday. It's after work and my wife and I agree to take the kids out to eat, and then to take our son together to his martial arts workout. When she stops by after work the first thing I notice is that she is not wearing her wedding ring. I got kind of nervous because, so far, she has worn her wedding ring every day since she moved out almost three months ago. Me, being the genius that I am, make the dumb mistake of asking her why she's not wearing her ring. Wellllllllll, she has a fit, get's kind of angry, throws some blame around, spews a bunch of....what did someone here call it?.....'fog babble' about how she can't trust me, etc...etc... My only defense was that our wedding rings are an important symbol for me personally, and that it bothered me to see her without her ring. She sorta goes off with the "you can't tell me what to do", "It's my choice to wear the ring or not" and so forth.
After that uhhhh.....conversation I was fully expecting that I would continue to see her without her ring. Nope. The very next day I see her with the ring, and have every day since. What gives?!
Testing the waters, she took it off and you noticed and said something. So rather than have that happen again she left it on or put it on the following day.
Buddy in her mind she ain't married.
You asking her about the ring she isn't wearing is reminding her that she technically still is, despite what she wants.
When we can justify making bad moral choices we tend to get pissed off at the people who remind us that we crossed a moral line we held in high regard at one point in time.
There are only a few reasons not to wear a wedding ring and her reaction does not point toward one of the more benign.
The cross stiching? Nice.
Did she have to spend alot of time in conversation with you while she did so? Interacting? Either way it was a nice safe place for her to be. It was a thoughtful gift.
Experience is a brutal teacher, but you learn. My God, do you learn. - C.S. Lewis
Life is usually all about how you handle Plan B. - Jack3Beans
Listen without defending; Speak without offending - FaithinAK
You all may be right. I still wonder though. How does this type of action (i.e. 'testing the waters') figure in with the overall scheme of things with MLC? I've read tons of experiences here that indicate the MLC spouse typically buys a one-way ticket to La-La land. With my wife, okay, maybe she is seeing how she feels without the ring on her finger. At the same time, why do alot of her actions and words suggest that she is far from letting go of her commitment to me? I know the ring's a big one (especially for a woman). However, although we certainly don't have intimate relationship/future talks these days, there's still alot of "we" in her words/actions.
As a few recent examples:
[list] [*]She'll come over and spend a couple of [intimate] hours helping me with landscaping. [*]We had an annual board meeting for our housing community last Wednesday. There was a big vote that could affect the parking status for house owners' vehicles. Long story short, my wife has zero obligation or emotional connection to this issue, yet gets very animated, wants to be part of the meeting, talks about how this issue will impact "us", how they (housing association) have no right to have access to personal information about "our" cars that park here (MY car parks here. HER car parks ohhhhhh, a few miles down the road.....in an apartment complex) [*]She'll show up and tend to a Rose Bush in our front yard for an hour, come in and have dinner as part of the family like she never moved out, then go back to her apartment. Huh?!?! [*]Today she spend about 20 minutes helping me trim some Mum's that I am growing in a pot on our deck. We joked a little, had a couple of laughs together...then she runs off and hides again in her little cave...
There's plenty more examples, but I'll leave it at that for now. The Rose bush example happened yesterday. When she showed up, she walked in the kitchen, grabbed a pair of scissors, and asked this curious question along the lines of, "Do you trust me to do this. I don't want to mess things up?" All along the last 8 months or so she's been [trying to] projecting blame on me. But, this quirky question made my 'Spidey Sense' shake like a 10.2 earthquake. My intuition told me it was a Freudian slip kind of a thing where she was trying to communicate/admit culpability [indirectly albeit], but it was coming from seem deeper sub-conscious level. Same thing with the ring. It's obvious she's testing boundaries, but I sense very strongly that this 'rebellion' is coming from maybe her MLC alter ego, or possibly because of influence from DJ in China.
I know, I know...grasping for straws and all that. My intuition usually never fails me though. Wellllll, except for that huge, gaping black hole where I missed the boat on my wife's EA with DJ starting last Fall... Okay, my instincts 'almost' never fail me...
I am wondering about something else. Do you all have any insight on what happens when those younger personalities emerge? What kinds of triggers could allow the 'children' personality to come out? A few days ago my wife was over for dinner. It was very clear and obvious that her crisis child was in charge. It kinda blew mind just watching her interaction with our 10-year old son. Some of the things she said, or better just the way she was interacting with him, gave me this image in my brain of a hormone-induced teenager flaunting rules, acting cool, acting like a know-it-all, etc... I just wonder how these different moods or personalities come out. What causes it?
I was thinking rationally that he needed to move those kids out of his place and then he would have time for us. I couldn't have been more wrong!! That's what I get for looking at this rationally. LOL!