Keep Wearing Wedding Band? [Thread #2]

[ForGump]

Wonka & CT1118 -- great posts, a great discussion. Your ideas really help me think things through.

Please forgive the clinical and academic nature of my ramblings below. This is my way of digesting everything I've been reading here, and to process what that means for my situation. My hope is that thinking this through would help me DB better. I'm not certain that it will, but I won't know unless I try.

My philosophy is that while it's helpful to come up with categories, ultimately human psychology is diverse and complex enough that individual psychologies and behavior patterns often do not fit neatly into categories.

1) WW & WAS vs. MLC

The main idea I learned from reading Wonka's post is that both WW and WAS value marriage as an institution, and their actions (going wayward or walking away) reflect their disappointment/disillusionment in something they WANT to value, something they "believe in." They are not having an identity crisis as a spouse. They WANT to be a spouse, just not to a bad or incompatible husband. In contrast, an MLCer is at a place where she does not particularly value marriage. She is not motivated by MARRIAGE not delivering what she wanted; she is motivated by the feeling that LIFE ITSELF has not yet delivered all she thought it should. They are having a type of identity crisis, about whether they want to be a spouse at all, and the feelings are strongly tied to their age and their aging physiology.

2) WW vs. WAS

Furthermore, I learned that the difference between WW and WAS is not just that WW involves an affair. There is a difference in attitude and maturity. WW's fog includes a strong dose of childlike rebelliousness, whereas WAS's sentiment is more of a capitulation. It's not all that irrational to give up after a long, losing battle with a bad marriage or a bad spouse.

Here is Wonka's list of risk factors leading to WW:

> 1-unfulfilled expectations,
> 2-unrealistic expectations of a M,
> 3-the burden of carrying the M on their backs, and
> 4-experiencing a series of disappointments that slowly erodes their love.

I think #1 and #4 are very rational phenomena, while #2 and #3 have unreasonable or unwise elements (boldfaced). If we fix the unreasonable elements, we could arrive at a list of risk factors for WAS:

> 1-unfulfilled expectations,
> 2-realistic expectations of M are unmet for a very long time,
> 3-spouse fails to carry his share of burden to keep M healthy, and
> 4-experiencing a series of disappointments that slowly erodes their love.

So, I would argue that a WW is someone who holds significantly immature views of how marriage works and how to address marital problems, and who reacts in an immature way to long-standing frustrations.

In contrast, I would say that a WAS is someone who has a fairly reasonable view of marriage, who is reacting fairly reasonably to a bad or incompatible partner (i.e., finally giving up) after trying to make it better for a long time.

I'm not saying WAS has done everything right -- just that relative to the WW, she has made fairly normal, mature efforts for a long time, and the problem is more with the spouse than w/ the WAS.

3) Is my wife WW or WAS?

Of Wonka's four WW risk factors, I believe my W has:

> 1-unfulfilled expectations,
> 2-unrealistic expectations of a M,
> 4-experiencing a series of disappointments that slowly erodes their love

And the emotional path she took also fits the one described by Wonka for WW:

> Their loving feelings for the H declines over a period of time.
> The WW enters into ... fantasizing about other men
> Cue OM on the stage. ... They are sucked into the heroin phase.

So my W fits WW fairly well ... but not perfectly. I think her expectations of M were not 100% unrealistic, maybe 80% unrealistic. And I think I did fail in small but significant ways to carry the burden. And I think her waywardness hasn't been 100% rebellious and immature. It has at least a certain layer of maturity and civility to it.

Since WW traits dominate, however, I'm OK to just call it WW.

3) Is my wife WW or MLC?

I must agree with CT1118 here, that WW and MLC are not perfectly exclusive. I don't think my W clearly accepts or rejects marriage. I think she feels both. She has said "maybe marriage isn't for me," but I think that was when she was feeling acutely guilty for giving up on our marriage which she recognizes has very good aspects. But I think she also believes that there is a better spouse out there for her. I think she is consciously or subconsciously replaying her mother's life, who went wayward in her 40's and after several years found a long-term second husband. So my W both wants and doesn't want marriage.

There is another strong argument for MLC: my W fears becoming middle-aged. She has expressed the disappointment in not being noticed by men any more, in losing the ability to have more children, and in the fear of having to go through peri-menopause and menopause.

So, I think there is a strong MLC component to my W.

4) What about psychological conditions and disorders?

I think BPD, narcissism, anxiety and depression all accentuate and exacerbate the problematic aspects of WW and MLC.

I think BPD helped my W and I fall in love faster, even though we have strong incompatibilities that should have given us pause. I think BPD and narcissism (both are rooted in intense insecurity) foster highly unrealistic views of marriage. I think BPD, narcissism and anxiety prevented my W from confronting and talking about problems in our marriage. I think narcissism and anxiety prevented us from finding and getting good quality individual and couples counseling. I think BPD worked as an incendiary agent when OM appeared on the scene and my wife fell into an EA -- it was a delusional fantasy, enabled by BPD and narcissism. I think BPD, narcissism and depression all accentuate her age-based MLC: her fear of losing attention from men, her fear of losing the ability to bear children, and her fear of becoming old.

5) My role

I don't want to write something so long and detailed without acknowledging, as honest as I can, my role in all of this. I acknowledged my failings in my marriage to a friend the other day, and she thought it sounded a little insincere. Well, I was sincere. Maybe I will learn more through this forum and through therapy, but I'm trying to be fully honest. This is from post #1 of this thread:

- I did suffocate her with too much attention.
- I did slide into a mothering role by helping her with everything she could not do for herself.
- I did emasculate myself by avoiding conflict w/ my W.
- I did emasculate myself by not letting my own character stand strong.
- I also failed often to tune into her emotional life and connect to her emotionally.
- I also failed often to tune into her sexual needs and connect better sexually.

I want to add to it:

- I saw some warning signs when we first fell in love, but I was in a fog (felt good!!!) so I did not slow down to understand the issues better.
- I failed to talk to my W about realistic and unrealistic expectations about M.
- I failed to see clearly her discontentment with our marriage.
- I failed to see clearly her fear of aging and mid-life.

6) How does this affect my DB?

I believe my W is mostly WW with a minor but strong MLC component, all exacerbated by BPD, narcissism, anxiety and depression. The fact that she doesn't seem to have a full blown MLC gives me a little hope. Maybe she won't be stuck in MLC for five years! On the other hand, the influence of BPD, narcissism, anxiety and depression are long-term, and unlikely to go away unless she, somehow, is treated professionally. And it's a catch-22: those conditions are themselves preventing her from getting help.

But, it's not all black-and-white. It's a matter of degrees. There is a possibility that the fog of WW might clear when the reality of a D hits. I think my W actually leans more towards believing in M, rather than not. I think I should keep working on being a lighthouse: the H that a woman would be a fool to divorce. I will have to keep reflecting on all of this.