Honest. Distance. These two ideas are not contradictory. Honest and distance works just fine.
I’m glad you appreciate the caution of trying to manipulate someone’s path.
Leading. Being a lighthouse. Is being a role model and shining an influencing example.
I see you moved from newcomers to MLC. Your last posts were leading nicely to detachment. And yes, a bit of a diagnosis towards MLC.
I’ve found MLC, or more accurately the belief or non-belief thereof, can be quite a heated discussion. For what it’s worth, I absolutely believe in MLC. And mid life transition. And many other emotional stresses and pressures that can lead to breakdowns and life altering decisions.
I’ve read your situation and I do believe your W is exhibiting traits and behaviours congruent with MLC. Confusion, depression, unrealized past trauma(s) - car accident at 17 resulting in the other driver’s death, ill relative (father if I recall correctly), and so on. She is exhibiting severe behavioural change and demonstrates much emotional decision making.
Crisis individuals are driven by their emotions. Completely consumed, beyond reason and rational thought. Almost everything they do is based upon their feelings. How they feel is why they do what they do. It is an irrational path. One that cannot be steered by rational discourse.
W needs to walk her path. Finish her entire crisis. And you were not invited. There is nothing you can do to make her journey quicker. However, there is plenty you can do to prolong it.
W will not accept any diagnosis of MLC or any other view that places her at fault or blame. Realize she cannot handle it. She is completely driven by pain and torment. She cannot handle being wrong or pressure. So she blames anyone who gets in her path. She needs to run and will mow down anyone who stands in her way.
Realize W’s emotions are cranked to eleven. She cannot handle her own emotions never mind your’s. In time, she might realize that she is still sad, upset, and angry AND Hoch hasn’t been involved. So, perhaps Hoch ain’t the cause. And then she might look inward towards the actual problem.
In the meantime, the LBS learns to back off, let’s go, and lives their life.
That is the basic path my friend.
Originally Posted by Hoch
I’m here now because I need advice.
Everything I will say to you will be the best I can be. And it will always be for you.
A great many things on one’s path are at first counterintuitive. Things will feel wrong and incorrect. And will until one realizes it is not. Have faith. Keep moving forward. And be patient.
Hoch, you have my attention. How can I help?
Originally Posted by Hoch
Our main issue is that she claims to be asexual, and “will never have sex again,” a card she plays whenever she’s cornered (about anything, esp financial irresponsibility. Ie, “me: you can’t spend like this anymore.” “Her: Well, I’m never having sex with you again, so this marriage can’t last!” Non-sequitur, distraction tactic. I don’t believe it’s real, plus I’ve found she’s been watching racy adult videos in her private time.
I understand you do not believe it’s real. However, W does “feel” it’s real!
Validation is needed.
Making something valid does not mean you agree or condone it. It just makes it valid. You are agreeing that their viewpoint is valid and real. Which it is. Everyone’s viewpoint is real for them.
I’ve a few items from reading your thread I’d like to bring up / discuss.
Originally Posted by Hoch
I’m definitely NOT ok being in a marriage with no intimacy. It breaks my heart. But with two small kids, a pandemic, and no financial savings, I honestly don’t know what other solution would be open to me.
Anything I can think of that would involve me pursuing a life with intimacy right now, seems like it would involve me not being in this house anymore and not putting my kids down to bed. Not having them come to me in the middle of the night when they’re scared. Which is the ONLY intimacy I have in my life right now. I feel like I’m sandwiched by two impossible situations.
I’m not ok with her disrespecting me, and I’m standing up for myself a day at a time. Right now she is being very cold because of it. I’ve even noticed lately, I had stopped wearing my wedding ring because I was so full of resentment. I reconsidered, decided if I was married I’d wear the ring regardless, and put it back on a few days ago. In reaction, she has taken hers off.
I just don’t know what I’m doing anymore.
“I feel like I’m sandwiched by two impossible situations.”
Feelings are fleeting. Do not make life altering decisions based upon them. (May want to read my threads if any of this resonates with you.)
Very few things are truly impossible.
Utilize clear language. Your mind is always listening. When you say something is impossible or you cannot do something, your mind will make it so. We craft our own realities.
“…I honestly don’t know what other solution would be open to me.”
You need not find a solution. Her path is (for the moment) irrational. Solutions come from rational thought. Resolutions bridge irrational and rational.
For the time being your resolution to this conundrum is to let her be, and be in a marriage with little to no intimacy.
You control only three things in this world. Your thoughts, actions, and reactions. Choose to be ok with this temporary lack of intimacy and you will be.
Resentment comes from unmet expectations. Keep your expectations at zero.
Hope is a desire for a positive outcome. Expectation is hope with a timeframe or deadline. And placing a deadline upon hope does just that - makes it dead.
Hope is timeless. It straddles desire and pragmatic, fantasy and reality. It is an incredible source of strength and can be an incredible trap when one does not realize the truth of hope.
Hoping and looking towards the future is really good. As long as one is still living the present. In fact, it makes the present and our decisions more meaningful.
By the way, hope, standing, and such - all for you. Stand for you. Hope for you. We all start out standing for our spouse and marriage. It’s the default. We are hurt and really cannot do otherwise. Eventually we heal enough to stand down. That is when standing really starts. It helps and is necessary to have a good handle on expectations and hope be then.
Originally Posted by Hoch
She is extremely unhappy. She hates me, and hates me specifically for our sex life. But like her mom before her, she won’t do anything to address her problems, except push everyone away and bury the problems.
It breaks my heart. All I can do is GAL, love my sons, and love her. I do love her unconditionally, for the first time. I don’t truly believe she is asexual, I think it’s a shield against intimacy and pain.
I love this beautiful, hurting girl.
Yes your W is hurting. Realize - hurt people, hurt people.
Her hatred is not the opposite of love. Hate is passionate. Indifference is the opposite of love.
W is projecting her pain, guilt, torment, and such upon you. How she feels has little to nothing to do with you. Seriously. It is from hidden long ago buried trauma(s) which she doesn’t even realize.
Things that are buried alive, always come back to haunt. She is being haunted by her past. One which she doesn’t even know or can at the moment acknowledge. A past pain so traumatic, from a time when she was so young, she could not face it. Could not accept it. So it was denied and buried. A perfectly normal response for one so emotionally immature.
Years later, a trigger occurs, which digs up these buried demons. And they will not be denied any longer! She still cannot face nor accept those demons, and she lashes out to those around her. For in her broken mind, you, the one who once brought such joy, must be the cause.
Her depression and behaviour is not about your sex life. It has nothing to do with it.
She is behaving like she witnessed and learnt growing up. She is behaving and ignoring and burying her problems and emotions, just like her Mom did. And failing at it.
MLCers were traumatized when emotionally immature and usually by someone in a position of authority. They become emotional stunted, needing to grow up from then. It’s just that they are doing it much later in life.
Absolutely she is unhappy. Thing is - You didn’t break her, you can’t fix her. Take that to heart Hoch. Believe it!
Unconditional love.
I have a different view from the wise posters who offered their views.
Unconditional love can exist between adults in a relationship. I do not subscribe that there are things one can do to make someone not love them. That would also imply there are things one can do to make one love them. An equally impossible thing. And given my views on impossible, I do not say that lightly.
There are things that one can do that would make one hate them. Absolutely! However, one can hate and love at the same time. Hate and love are both deep passionate expressions. And are not mutually exclusive.
Love is a choice. An action. A desire. It is an emotion. It is a thought. It is a belief. And it is beyond all that. Love is born and exists within our irrational realm. And it is born and exists within our rational self. Love permeates and fulfils. And it can become unconditional.
In fact, love is unconditional. If one loves conditionally, well that is their choice. A choice that limits love.
Love doesn’t turn on and off like a tap. Yes, one’s loving feelings rise and fall, like all emotions do. Yet, the respect, understanding, empathy, from love remain. Uncondionally remains.
The belief and direction of life and love remains regardless of others actions or words. Hurt, hate, and such are only temporary contrasted against love. Hate burns hot and eventual will burn out. Love is more an ember, flaring and calming as it cycles, yet it remains unquenchable.
This is not some starry-eyed infatuation type love. This is an enlightened type thing. A paradigm of the soul. Unconditional love leads to forgiveness.
That type of love only comes from within one’s self. There is nothing anyone else can do to create such a thing. Unconditional love towards others is an expression of one’s love of self. One’s respect of self. That, is extremely deep and quite unshakable.
I’ve found it’s quite rare. As is forgiveness. Society it seems, people it seems, struggle with it.
Love the sinner, forgive the sin.
That is completely for you. It sets one free.
Anyhow, just a few thoughts, beliefs, and convictions I figured I’d share.
Have a great day.
D
Feelings are fleeting. Be better, not bitter. Love the person, forgive the sin.
