WOW! 4fam and Sleeper. You just described my W to a tee! My head was/is spinning trying to catch up with that craziness. 3 months after she got pregnant she dropped the 1st bomb and we/I worked so hard to have that baby. I had to do some pretty humiliating things to see if I was the cause of us not getting pregnant.
I think that she was trying to make up for her past abortion (previous relationship) and would not admit that it affected her as much as it did. Combine that with apparently a previous relationship with power and control problems and an identity crisis and you have the roller coaster dejure. Bon a Petite!
I will need to read this entire thread as it seems pretty good. Maybe it deserves a sticky?
M:35 W:33 M: 5 yrs. Daughter: 2 yr .7/11/10 D Final: 8/7/12
I think that she was trying to make up for her past abortion (previous relationship) and would not admit that it affected her as much as it did.
Hi Tested Metal,
Now that is very interesting. As a teenager my W was in a relationship with someone she liked, he was not as keen. She got pregnant as a teenager and had an abortion. She gave me some BS reason about the reasons, but I now feel this was her way of trying to seal the deal with him. Of course it all went horribly wrong in true PA fashion and caused lots of family friction.
I too feel she has unresolved issues over this. Certainly my own views on abortion have changed after having children. Three and a half years ago she said 'I often think about that little baby..'
A quick internet search brought up the following: 'When a woman or adolescent girl has been coerced into having an abortion, typical reactions include feelings of betrayal (by partners or family members), anger, depression, sadness, and breakdown of trust and intimacy in relationships.'
'"Suppressed mourning" has very negative outcomes, often leading to feelings of numbness and/or hostility and anger, and to difficulties in forming future relationships and in bonding with later-born children.'
Interesting background but not a lot you can do to help them cope if they see themselves as perfect individuals and refuse to seek professional help.
My X bought DOZENS of early preg tests. Read books ad nausium. She seemed dedicated to our kids and that was the major indicator things weren't right at bomb. She wanted to be with OM more than our kids.
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With hindsight I should have looked closer at the family of origin.[quote]
X's brother had all X's issues in industrial strength. Meetng him cnfirmedcmtbworst fears/suspiscons. If I had met him pre marriage I would not have married her.
[quote]Her father was rejected by his own father.[quote]
X's father died when he was very young. His stepfather never accepted him. His stepfather and mother sent him away to military school when he was very young. X looks like her father. It was her father who abused her and her brother. Only since split has she realzed her brothers issues with her are in part because she looks exactly like her father who abused them both.
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All her family used the word my a lot.[quote]
OMG. It was always "my" children, "my" house, "my" business, even "my" bedroom. I found this to be odd and on more than one occasion said ,"don't you mean our bedroom?". She just looked at me with a blank expression and didn't reply. She refers to the house OMH and her built as "my house". The kids say they fight fairly often and OMH usually walks away and doesn't engage her (could be hs passive-agressive and she met her match, lol).
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...wonder what damage has been done to my own children.[quote]
DD is hyper-sensitive to quarrels. I've noticed she does no want me and X to fight. We haven't in years so she either has memories or she relates OMH and X's fights to ours.
This thread continues to ring more bells - I think family of origin is crucial, unless the person realises how messed up that family is, and addresses those issues. And Ihave seen people do this.
Now, my xh managed to suppress a LOT of his PA behaviours for a long time in our marriage [my eldest son commented that his father had not visited the effects of his awful upbringing on his children when they were growing up] It was as he became older and started to need to make real life transitions that the [always latent, as I now see] PA behavious kicked in, and kicked in big time, so that he had a total personality change. Everyone comments on it, who knows him. He is like another person.
When he was younger and much less evidently PA he freely admitted that his upbringing was awful. Now, as a full blown PA he gets angry when anyone suggests that his upbringing was less than perfect. His mother [who I got on better with than he did, who supported me fully, but was very very messed up] died about 18 months ago. Now he tells people how much he misses her! This may be true, but the image of caring son is hardly accurate, as I used to phone her, call her and generally keep in contact.
He also came to see his nightmare father as the victim in the marriage, rather than the master of PA behaviour. I think the rewriting of history that we see in MLC comes from a number of PA traits, including the need to be right, and the need to be at the centre of their narrative. They don't admit they were wrong, but simply that they have changed their point of view. It isn't the same thing at all, although it sounds the same.
'I used to love you, but now it isn't what I want' 'I never really loved you, I thought I did' 'It didn't work out'
Classic PA phrases, centred on the self and their needs, and if possible blaming the other for the failure of the relationship. Even if you have written proof and photographic evidence that things were different than they said, they will discount it all if it doesn't fit their narrative. That is why they seem at times like someone with Alzheimer's They seem to be talking about another reality, and they are. It is theirs and it doesn't relate to any external realities. My children [all adult] found it very disorienting. 'But dad, we were there;, it wasn't like that' was met with 'You didn't know what I was feeling inside all that time . . .' For him the clincher.
When he was married to me, and I fulfilled his emotional needs, his family were awful in his eyes, and I maintained the contact between them, but when I became demonised then his family were rehabilitated. They are all somewhat crazy, but they do see the horror of their upbringing. Interestingly they were all over each other when he first left [family reunions and all of those things my xh refused to attend] and I am sure I was blamed as the one who kept him away. Now I notice a real falling off of contact. I think even they have noticed the cracks.
My eldest son said 'Dad does normal for about 2 hours, and then the cracks show' I have very very little contact, but a minor family crisis occasioned him to call me about 6 months ago, and we talked for quite a while on the phone. After the call I felt as if I had been talking to someone who was emotionally like one of those Escher drawing - you know that initially LOOK normal , but there are staircases going up and down and all kinds of weird perspectives.
And as for the overwhelming need to be right. yes he prefers to lose his whole family and pretty much all he had rather than admit he might be wrong. It would kill him emotionally.
Im finding it pretty interesting that many of us are seeing the patterns in their family dynamics and upbringing.
My xh, well he's never talked alot about it, but everything he did share indicated several things. The happiest times were with his paternal grandparents and that side of the family. Rightfully so, that side of the family are just wonderful. The saddest times with his mother and his step father. Don't remember any good memories he's ever told me. As I step back, I can tell he felt ignored, and insignificant. Very angry at his mother.
Such a bell ringer as we see the PA/MLC patterns are all about unfullfilled needs as a child. His biggest complaint and catalyst for leaving: He felt so alone, unloved, insignificant, and not as a man. His mother has always been concerned for herself and very co dependent in all her relationships. The co dependency that people are supposed to make her happy.
I now see how my xh placed me to fullfil things he needed from his mom that he didn't get growing up. But as life went on, we grew up and matured, and had our own family. As our roles evolve with age and ever growing families, I think it was him that was standing still, or perhaps so frightened of change he dug his heels in refusing to evolve with life. As the kids and I grow and change, he saw this as an abandonment of him.
What I wouldn't give if we could all take this knowledge and place some magic spell upon their heads and they understand and know. I feel that my xh strives to understand this, but he can't. Or when he does get an inkling, it's too intense and it's easier to run back to square one and stay there.
Fwiw I think one of the 'fault lines' in MLC is that some of them do know there is something the matter, and others absolutely refuse to see this. You see it with posters here - spouses who know they are conflicted, realising they might be making a big mistake. Then there are ones like my xh who has remained adamant that there is nothing the matter with them [and it is the rest of us that have got it dead wrong]
Bea, I think you are correct about the fact that some do know that something is wrong and others, just run and sweep everything under the rug and hope it will all go away. For example, when my xh was on his way out the door the final time, he said to me "I might be making the biggest mistake of my life, but I have got to do this right now". At the time, I thought he was just crazy, but the pieces of the puzzle are starting to fit together.
I do wonder just how long it will be before my xh's PA behavior appears in his current marriage to the ow. Right now, it appears that she goes along w/anything and everything that he wants to do. Unfortunately she's suffering from chemo right now and wonder just how this is all going to play out in the end. His mother was a clingy, needy woman who wanted someone to take care of her. Wonder if the wifey's situation will bring those memories back to the forefront of if he'll be the devoted husband that he wants everyone to think he is.
Sit quietly, the answers will reveal themselves when you least expect them to. The past is gone, the present is a gift and you need to focus on today, allow the future to reveal itself when it is ready.
Snodderly, I think this neediness issue is interesting.
If it is neediness that the MLCer/PA can cope with and even feeds what they need, it seems to work. And I think a lot of dramatization goes on here too. But if it is neediness they hadn't counted on then they can't cope.
My xh couldn't cope at all when I was ill a couple of years back [he was long out of the door at that point, but he got really mean , because I think he was actually angry because I was ill. He sees me as 'non-needy'. In fact when he left me he said, almost angrily 'You will be all right' But if I am at risk of becoming 'needy' then that isn't OK in his world.
He liked the OWs neediness however because he could play shining knight on a white steed. So it could be that it is partly how the drama plays out for them. As long as they can continue to play the part they want, and it satisfied them emotionally then they seem to stay with it.
Real demands from those who are actually important to then [as opposed to a convenience] seem to deeply frighten them. My xh went into a complete tailspin when middle son broke up with his serious gf [whom xh had met] It was as if they had split up after a long marriage [Instead of being together around two years]. He 'saw' them "together", and couldn't manage them not being. It could also explain why so many of them are destablised if we start to date. That scenario, for most of them, is not the one they signed up for. And so on. Interesting material here.
Bea, I agree w/you 100%. Your xh sounds alot like the one I had.
Sit quietly, the answers will reveal themselves when you least expect them to. The past is gone, the present is a gift and you need to focus on today, allow the future to reveal itself when it is ready.
Just an update on my personal situation. 4 years ago W had an affair 4 years of DBing had no real effect other than a sticking plaster. In December we agreed to separate I wanted to go to stop enabling the PA behaviors but she insisted she be the one to go.
The PA must have a target for his/her behaviors, true enough the first sucker that comes along becomes a target. less than six weeks separated and she has started a physical affair with a man who my son says looks like a woman, and very effeminate? She hardly shopped around. Literally first opportunity.
This will be fun to watch!
If this is MLC how usual is it to have replay behaviors 4 years apart?
