The clothing, their mannerisms, heck their ability to do math, devolves or time travels back to that age of their emotional trauma. My XW is basically her 18 year old self. Just far more brash and rebellious. So they a really troublesome teenager with a large bank account and the legal age to do whatever they feel like.
The other two personalities of XW that appear are her as 13 and 7. Over the years I’ve pieced together those ages correlate to two traumatic events involving a male relative. A man whom she showed an odd trepidation towards during our last family vacation to see her grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. (Her parents tossed her out of their lives when she was 18. They then cut all ties with her and I, and our future kids, when we got married. We never saw them again after that.) Who knew her trepidations was something stirring within her. The poor gal has some horrible demons.
I’ve found that if I pressured XW she’d fall back, shrink, withdrawal into former selves. Judgemental or contentious conversation from me and XW becomes herself of 13. Further pressing and she falls further to a young girl of seven. It’s wild and completely spooky! On one occasion I was arguing with her about some finances and she withdrew all the way to her seven year old self. The poor girl couldn’t even multiple anymore. On the flip side, she can be very happy. Days after BD, after tossing everyone away and moving in with OM, she showed up at the house to proudly show me a $100 cheque she got for agreeing to do snow shovelling for a person over the winter. She was so ecstatic! She had the world by the tail.
There were a few more incidents of her and I clashing where she’d withdrawal, shrinking to a young wee girl. Very sad thing to witness. I ceased such interactions and just let her be. Gave her to God. My goodness, it was so clear: I didn’t break her, and I certainly cannot fix her.
So, I just responded to her demands of separating and divorce. Let her lead at her pace. Never blocked her path, nor paved it either. Heck, her lawyer did more preventative measures forcing her to see two financial planners and a psychiatrist. Her lawyer even had her sign a waiver that she was going against his advice. She also had some surgery during this time along with a 3 week recovery period. Even with all that, the separation agreement was signed and done by 60 days after BD.
XW also filed for divorced a month before the one year cooldown period had elapsed. She even paid for it. Looking back it is kind of funny, I had gone to my lawyer to alter my will and he met me thinking I was there because of the divorce. I had no idea what he was talking about. Turns out I was going to be served divorce papers in the next day or two at work. My gosh, that would have been something. I was still very much hurt back then, it was only 11 months after that 3 hour BD at Thanksgiving.
Anyhow, I read over her divorce demands which contained nothing. No changes from the separation agreement. Just a divorce. She even wrote yet another letter, so two attached forms stating that I had sole custody of the kids. Complete responsibility for them. She wanted nothing to do with them. Really heartbreaking.
I asked some questions. Like could I stop this. Turns out, no. It only takes one to divorce. And it cannot be stopped. Contesting only applies to the terms of the divorce. Since XW had none, paid for it, waived custody, and so on, I could only sign. And even that didn’t matter. If I didn’t sign, the court would still adopt it. So I signed and sent the form into the bureaucratic legal machinery. Divorce is frighteningly efficient, especially compared to other legal things.
Interestingly, I visited S25 yesterday, we were talking about his master physics research and learnings. Quantum and computational physics; son has such passion. And is brilliant. Anyhow, he brought up that Mom had been doing her frantic pestering texts to speak with him. So he did talk to her. She, like always, had nothing to say. However, during her vague conversation she accused son of having no goals. She said, she has goals, like when she mows a lawn (she cleans a few houses and mows some lawns as employment). All son’s “thinking stuff” (yes that’s what she called it) is beyond her, and not really a goal.
Son and I laughed. My goodness! He is very goal oriented and driven. He is on track upon his 12 year university plan towards a PHD. What a goal! What drive!
He and a buddy solved some complicated problem a while back. This late night breakthrough of their’s, hours and hours something like 16 hours, was life altering. Son spoke with such passion of their work and struggle. He showed me - over forty, yes 40 pages of equations and work until they took a derivative of a derivative, got an identify of something or other, along with a bunch of other head nodding stuff as he is way on another level, and they actually found not only the solution, but how to actually solve such problems. A true eureka moment. As son said, that, along with other such moments, will remain with him forever.
Pffft! No goals.
Speaking of university, my eldest son has decided to apply to masters for architecture.
Hmmm, I seemed to have wondered off onto an update of my life. Sorry about that jess.
Point being, MLCers, they dress, think, feel, and behave like angry, brash, rebellious teenagers. They see the world as such. Like they are that old. Like they are/were back then. They weren’t married, didn’t have kids, etc. It’s how and why they have little to no empathy towards us and their family. They do know, somewhat, of when they are, yet they don’t feel it. They are consumed and feel their long ago lives and pain. Really wild stuff. Really had to fathom until you see it, witness it first hand.
Hope you have a wonderful Sunday.
D
Now, I should probably copy some of this over to my thread. Sheesh, what am I doing rambling on over here. It’s not like I don’t have a thread of my own. Just started typing and continued. Wow, kind of good I realized I guess. My my my, imagine if I just kept typing away. I’d likely put some humorous post post post speaking to the post I just posted.
Feelings are fleeting. Be better, not bitter. Love the person, forgive the sin.
