I am truly grateful for your insights. I am entirely with you on this issue of guilt. I want to comment on what Gabriel is saying a little bit so I share my thoughts and experience on this:
"Yep, I was talking about the WAS' need to feel their guilt and stew in it in order to think about their role (central) in their unhappiness and, to a lesser extent, in their mutual role in the R probs."
- You dont know how true it is with my WAW. At first, in classic WAW mode she blamed me for everything. (It actually bordered on ludicrous, she blamed everybody, my parents, my sister, my cousins, our friends, called everybody weird, said she had nothing in common with anybody, including our really good friends). Then, in the past year, it has been nobody is to blame. Now she says she cannot find her way back to the M. In other words "it's not you, it's me". But things change with her on a weekly basis so clearly there is a lot of internal turmoil.
" Most theory on identity formation (Marcia, Erikson) talks about the need for the person to 'go thru the fire' - facing distress, discomfort regarding one's one darkness - in order to come out of this process more fully aware and committed."
- This is an incredibly apt insight. I have always felt that my W did not have "her own personality". She often adopts the personality of the group in which she finds herself. This has been the case ever since I have known her. When she was in the engineering field she hung out with a lot of engineers and tried to fit in that group. That was when she met and she really enjoyed "geeky engineering humor", scientific ideas and insights etc. Then, after she switched to law, she started scoffing at those things that she previously enjoyed. When she got into academia and started hanging out with the ivy-league crowd she got snooty herself but in a very uncomfortable, fake kind of way. Right now, I think she is actually becoming uncomfortable with that crowd also (there are some colleagues who are eccentric in that crowd and they are getting on her nerves). Meanwhile, motherhood has cast a whole another spin on her personality. She does not know how to balance everything. David Deida points out that women with an essentially "feminine essence" (and my W is definitely one of them) become strained when they have to accentuate their masculine aspects as they fit into the workplace. I see this in my W definitely. So, I am quite sure that my W, as part of midlife evaluation, is doing a lot of identity work. Now, how she turns out when she comes out of the tunnel, I dont know.
" I'm hoping that some of the exploring done in the MLC mode is a revisiting of the adolescent work most of us completed, leading the WAS back to a sounder identity and hopefully, a realization that the LBS was a positive option for them (assuming hard personal work and improvement by the LBS."
- Again, Gabriel, this is an excellent insight. Completely in line with Peter O'Connor's book on midlife crisis. He draws a lot of his insights and thoughts from Jung's work. I have no psychology training, but I believe that Carl Jung had an MLC and laid out theory on what happens to people in midlife. What I am most surprised about is that MLC does not seem to be an accepted problem in the psychiatry community as far as I know. I.e. there is no therapy for it. O'Connor (a spychiatrist) has a whole chapter devoted to the effect of MLC on marriage which is very insightful.
Regarding adolescent work, what you say is absolutely true, a large part of my personality was already formed after I passed through adolescence. I had a rebellious (not in a bad way), deep adolescence. I was quite tormented and thoughtful. I have not changed much in the adulthood in a substantial way from a spiritual standpoint. My family was very tight and my parents were very involved in my upbringing. My W on ther other hand had little parental supervision and had an essentially wild adolescence. Her personality did not get "fixed" during adolescence and so she has not truly "found" herself yet. My relationship with my W was the only "real" long-term relationship I have had. On the other hand, my W had several short-term and at least two "long-term" boyfriends (3-4 years) whom SHE broke off with. All of these reflect to me an internal unrest for her that she has been unable to resolve. I am not sure what makes her happy at this point and the truth is neither does she. I want a stable family and home and to raise children and make them into good human beings. I dont think she knows how and if she can work in that system. She is easily bored with steadiness. Stability has not appealed to her as much as to me.
I know I am rambling here but I hope I have laid out some things that may provide grounds for thought and discussion.
UD
The 3 laws of DBing:
1. PMA is critical to DBing.
2. Since drop in WAW's PMA leads to drop in LBS's PMA and vice-versa detachment is critical.
3. Validate to raise WAW's PMA and GAL to raise LBS's.
