Firstly there is an element of venting here for which I apologize !!
I originally posted here 4 years ago following my wife's affair which appeared to be part of the perfect script of MLC.
After 6 months of DB'ing she stayed with the family briefly returned to the relationship with more attachment and then started avoidant behaviors to put distance between us again. I carried on with the best DB techniques for 4 years, really until my children were old enough to cope with a family breakup
However after 20+ years together the behaviors listed below suddenly came into focus and with hindsight go back to the start of our relationship:
We are now separated and I once more feel as happy and optimistic about life as I did before we married. My feelings of anxiety, sadness, anger, and various psychosomatic symptoms have gone.
Is this your partner too?
Always Appears Perfect: Always charming cool calm and collected in company.
Never Angry: In her eyes and her families view anger is a sign of mental illness. She is never angry always calm and controlled.
Always Late: Will keep you waiting 15, 30 minutes 1 hour+ and it is never her fault. Meeting ran late, traffic was bad, no parking spaces, sunspot activity, phases of the moon or any BS etc etc
Unreliable / Obstructionist: will cheerfully and enthusiastically agree to a request (never offer to help) only to either just not follow through or do the request so badly you will have another mess to sort out. Never help with any project which is important to you even if it benefits both of you.
Won't Complete What She(/he) Starts: Will start a project and give up when it gets difficult again leaving you to sort out the mess.
Never Clearly States What She(/he) Wants: Remember its the husbands/wifes job to make the wife/husband happy and to give clues would be cheating. 'If you loved me or were a good person.you would just know.'
Always Covertly Sabotaging: Never lend her anything to which you may attach importance especially sentimental value it will get lost or destroyed.
Always The Victim: After a lifetime of stupid behaviors and failure guess what:none of it (his)/her fault: Did badly at school, my parents fault, 'they didn;t make me work hard enough'. Poor career choices not my fault 'my dad applied for that job for me.' First marriage to someone she claims she did not even like, 'fails' – 'not my fault my dad made me marry him. Married me - 'I only married you because my dad wanted me to marry a xxxxx'. Had an Affair – 'not my fault you made me do it by not putting me on a pedestal /he targeted me/I had a crisis and could not help it.
Withholding Sex – 'its normal to make love every 6 weeks all my friends do the same / I am so tired after looking after the kids / this house and garden are too big to look after, I am so tired / yes we may have had a fantastic day in one of the most beautiful places in the world all by ourselves but I will just turn my back on you now and go to sleep / I know I have paraded myself in front of you in my lingerie but DO NOT expect to make love / how can I make love to you if you do not make me happy everyday!'.
Don't Participate in intimacy: I will just lie here thanks while 'you do it to me'.
Always The Victim, always telling half the story, surrounding herself with slightly or more than slightly oddball dysfunctional short term fiends who understand what a terrible marriage she is in and can give her the impartial informed advice she needs to have new positive outlooks and leave her dreadful marriage.
I realized in 2000 that my wife was not the person she pretended to be that all my research and efforts on low libido would never work. However with 2 children aged 7 and 5 who I wanted to see grow up and needed at least one parent who could get emotionally attached, I decided to stick with it. Work on it listen to some of the gripes and complaints and work on things.
So after changing jobs living in a smaller house in a different with a live-in maid, children now 18 and 16. all the same behaviors (and excuses about intimacy).
It took 20 years to realize exactly what the problem is called (but I would still stick it out again for my sons.)
From my research seems likely my wife has an Avoidant / Dismissive type personality and part of this is Passive Aggressive Behavior.
Then more research took me to look at Passive Aggressive behavior and once again W appears not only to have read the MLC script, but read and and memorized Scott Wetzler's excellent book on P A behavior. In fact I think she may have written it under a pseudonym.
I have called a halt to this and removed myself from being an active partner in these abusive behaviors. She still calls, comes around arranges meetings to try stick it to me, now I know the rules of the game doing the opposite of what she expects causes so much confusion, fear and annoyance I now enjoy the 'confrontation'.
Why do they run? They run to find another victim. If you won't let them abuse you, they will find another innocent sucker to fool, with their perfect personality, and then stick it to them without them even knowing. Why are the OM / OW so often pathetic losers? Is it because they are co-dependent? They will want to help rescue H/W from such a terrible marriage to such an awful man/woman.
What has kept me sane for 20 years is being successful in my career and knowing that women find me attractive even if my W does not. (No I have never been unfaithful, my vows are promises I made to myself!).
Passive Aggressiveness is the result of childhood issues. MLC is about childhood issues. Narcissism seems very similar to P A.
My wife has been to one counseling session where she has admitted these behaviors but still denies them to me. She has asked me not to try to 'fix' her she is 'happy' as she is. She is 'happy' to stuff her anger inside her and never get so attached to someone so that she can never ever be hurt.
My advice is if you think your spouse is in MLC please also research Passive Aggressive behavior.
'Frequently, the victim of passive aggressive anger is unaware that he or she is on the receiving end of clandestine resentment. The victim of this resentment often reports feelings of anxiety, sadness, anger, and various psychosomatic symptoms. Because the victim is seen as frustrated and irritable, that person may be wrongly identified by others as the angrier partner. Meanwhile the passive-aggressive spouse tries to paint a self-portrait of a calm and relaxed person.
If your spouse has an affair:
The ultimate act of Passive Aggression is when they realise that you are no longer compliant to them so they then embark on an affair. There are always plenty of eager needy desperate people willing to tell them whatever they want to hear, to lead the cheer squad when they deliver their standard old passive aggressive speech about how great they are. If someone is sufficiently desperate for a partner they will simply turn a blind eye to the fact that the person that is telling them how wonderful, reliable and honest they are is doing so behind the back of the person that they are committed to and that trusts them not to. Passive aggressive people do not seek and find emotionally healthy people, they simply find the next needy co-dependent person that is open to their particular line of BS. If you do decide to try and save your marriage then so many of the good Divorce Busting tactics are similar to dealing with Passive Aggressive Behaviors.
My tactics/advice would be/are.
Get a life, P A is covert abuse, realize this and do not allow yourself to be a victim. These people are nasty covert abusers DO NOT return to a marriage until THEY see the effect their behavior has on you and your children, do not under any circumstance aid them in abusing you. You do not need to be in an abusive relationship. Do not under any circumstances enable your own abuse.
Do not always believe you are loved (at the moment). 'The sad thing is, you can be made to believe that you are loved and adored by a person who is completely unable to form an emotional connection with anyone.'
Before you confront them build up a good network of friends reconnect with your family (the P A will seek to distance you from your family and friends ). Confront them (let them know the effect on you and the feelings it causes you to have) let them know, preferably gently/subtly, the game is up. Let them know unequivocally you know what their tactics are and that they will NOT work anymore. Be aware that 'Due to their own lack of insight into their feelings the passive aggressive often feels that others misunderstand them or, are holding them to unreasonable standards if they are confronted about their behavior'. However in my opinion they must hear an unpleasant truth rather than a pleasant lie, if they are to change. Do not under any circumstances let them play the victim. They and they alone are responsible for their actions subconscious or conscious.
If they want to find another victim there is nothing you can do to stop it – stay detached, stay silent they only want to abuse you and hurt you in any way they can.
Do not fear separation it will be good for you if you recognize and want to stop enabling the covert abuse.
If they wish to confront those issues be supportive BUT this is not your problem to fix, this is not your fault, stay detached. Remember they want to take their childhood anger and frustration out on you. They are masters of covert, devious and dishonest behavior, this is a whole lifestyle for them. They have been practicing this for many many years to get their unfulfilled childhood needs met, Do not believe anything they tell you, actions will speak louder than words.
If they decide to stay as they are in the 'safety' of avoidance, once YOU recognize the damage they have done to YOU and your family through their years of P A covert abuse I think you will find it easy to move on with very little sadness. Remember this is not your fault. They are the losers they have probably lost a loving caring partner and will never know the joy of a close intimate relationship with another person.
They must want to come through this themselves, this is their problem. This is their unresolved childhood anger, they must deal with it to become true adults and have appropriate adult relationships. Stay silent stay detached, do not get sucked in to the P A battlefield they will not give up until they destroy you, they have to win any fight. Do not try to fix them. See Six Stages of MLC by Hearts Blessing – Depression/Withdrawal and hopefully Acceptance: http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=109249
This is a wonderful post. I thought I was nutts, but my STBX falls into all those categories too! Thank you so much for that validation and information.
It hit home when you said you can believe you're loved by someone that is completely unable to make an emotional connection with anyone.
As I look back, he did tell me he feels numb or angry but not happy. What I see now that I've gotten distance is a very good actor. Doing and saying all the right things, but really not able to grasp the true concept of caring and loving someone, or considering others to be human with feelings.
you have my sympathy I know how you have suffered.
Realizing that you could never achieve a normal fulfilling relationship with a P A partner who is unwilling to change, is very liberating.
For me the past is no longer so nostalgic in the light of my realization. I have been conned! Shame they don't teach us the signs at school.
They are masters at covert abuse, great actors. Being on the receiving end of P A behavior really is crazy making. You seem to act with your instincts (which are correct) but then (they convince you too) your thoughts tell you your reaction is illogical and unreasonable?
Did you find yourself getting angry, getting a convincing show of 'genuine' confusion and distress from YOUR 'victim', then apologizing for YOUR unreasonable behavior, and then sinking into depression at how badly YOU behaved towards such a nice calm loving person, and finally agreeing with them just how unreasonable your emotional requests are?
The worst thing is there are support groups for other types of (and illegal) abuse. This covert mental abuse is just as nasty if not worse because it is so insidious and if you let it it will destroy you mentally.
Did your H have the same condescending arrogance as my W.
My W has always taken it as a right 'to be happy every day'. She claimed to be a happy person and it was me who made her unhappy. I now see she has carried a low level depression throughout her life. The PA will always externalize both their hoped for source of happiness and the reasons for their actual unhappiness. Nothing is in their control they are not masters of their fate nor captains of their souls.
Unless they change they will never achieve happiness. My wife wants to find the person who will make her feel secure. Not realizing her part in her own unhappiness and insecurity.
The shame is PA behavior apparently responds well to therapy and as we see here people who come through MLC do find the inner peace and contentment they have missed all their lives.
My W tracked me down yesterday to tell me 'none of this is your fault I am to blame for everything'. Genuine or manipulative, you can't tell with a PA partner.
I am ambivalent if she comes good and becomes a loving partner I will be pleased. If she chooses to continue as before, well I ain't missing much!! I will not grieve for the loss of this relationship, it really was an illusion. I suspect she is already on the hunt for the next victim.
Incidentally neither of my sons seem to miss her presence, and they too have most likely been on the receiving end of some PA mind games.
Kimmerz I wish you the very, very best and I hope you find your own inner peace and happiness, if you have not already. Remember you at least ARE the master of your fate and the captain of your soul.
What you say about PA behaviour makes a lot of sense. It explains to me why there are [at least] two types of MLC behaviour from the WAS. Some are 'nice' and some are 'nasty' But the aim is the continued engagement of the former spouse.
Even after all of this time my xh still does not entirely leave me alone. Sometimes nice, often full of anger [Why??? it is insane, he has all he claims he ever wanted]
These people are toxic. It doesn't matter if you are kind, loving, accepting, confrontational. Anything you say or do will be twisted into their mad script.
It is abuse, and in the early stages of posting here, there are often clear signs of trauma from the lbs.
I have never been treated as badly as my xh has treated me by a friend, let alone a close one. I am not nursing that hurt, simply stating a fact. He lied, betrayed, abused and stole from me, without shame or compunction. This is not normal behaviour, but the whole time he was telling me it was my fault. Occasionally they change the track and say it isn't us it is them, but do not seek to change themselves. Indeed they regard any attempt to change as an attack on their personal integrity.
Oddly enough I think anger at their behaviour is an appropriate response. Not to remain angry, but to recognise that victims of abuse need to go through a period of anger in order to move on: to recognise that what happened was not right, not their fault. By all means fix ourselves, but part of that fix is to stop, once and for all, enabling abuse.
you are right, when the penny dropped I was extremely angry I told my PA W that she is in fact not the nice person she thinks she is.
At they moment I would happily have not had anything to do with her again. Sadly life is not like that.
Her reaction was to go to a counselor with a list of my observations about her behavior to prove me wrong. The counselor told her that if that is the way she has behaved he was not surprised that I thought she was Passive Aggressive.
One month ago she said 'I am in a crisis I am not the person I thought I was': very encouraging. She said she would speak to the counselor/therapist again.
She has not and now says she does not need fixing. Back into the tunnel. Any real admission of imperfection is emotional suicide to the PA they cannot do it. Yesterday she admitted 'everything was her fault'
My opinion is that as they have built a life around covert actions, lies and deception you must not ever ever trust a word they say. They have no integrity. They will tell you something different everyday to try to manipulate you. You are right they are toxic.
You would not stay with a physical abuser why should any of us put up with mental abuse. Angry, damn right I was angry when I realized what had been done to me for 20 years.
Passive Aggressive spouses do not want the truth 'they can't handle the truth'.
My opinion is as both MLC and PA are routed in childhood hurts they are really pretty much connected. The passive aggressive will at some point carry out the crisis behaviors and either change or not. My W would happily carry on her PA behavior for ever had I not stopped enabling it. She had an affair because I stopped chasing (and therefore enabling) and got on with my own life - she needed a victim. There is a crisis now because I called a halt to enabling.
You are right they will always claim to be 'happy people' but still continue the PA behavior. They equate never getting their anger out as being happy. It looks good to the world but it is just a facade, another lie. They still need a target for their PA behavior. To deal with a PA is to deal with an illogical child.
I am not sure there is any fix we can do to ourselves to stop us being punished for something that happened before even we met our spouses. I suspect most of the victims are very nice kindhearted people, not necessarily co-dependent. who ride the roller coaster for a variety of reasons. The only fix is as you say to stop enabling.
We can only learn the lessons and move on older and wiser.
It is an odd thing - I always knew that my xh was PA, and I knew that it was rooted in his childhood, I also knew that his MLC was also a result of his upbringing, it wasn't until I joined up the dots that I saw it with SUCH clarity. Thank you.
When I meant 'fix ourselves' I meant recover from the abuse, and deal with any aspects of ourselves WE do not like. For too long I was the person my h wanted. Our marriage endured because much of it was also what I wanted to be.
But the appearing to wake up and apologise profusely, mixed in with other weird behaviours, including a requirement that I take full responsibility for the demise of our marriage, and a lot, and I mean a lot of verbal abuse, post bomb I can see as part of a pattern.
And you are right, anything that requires them really looking at themselves is right out. They might pay lip service to it, but do not engage. The behaviour appears as narcissism at times, but I have always been wary of that label, because there are things about narcissism that do not fit. They exhibit narcissistic type behaviours, without, I think being full blown ones.
They adore being victims. When my xh 'flipped' and went into MLC, he changed dramatically, but I can now see covert behaviours that became overt, and out of control. That is what he now seems - PA out of control, so it is visible. It is actually quite frightening. Utterly unpredictable. That is the only thing you can rely on - the entirely unexpected.
4myfamily and bea, This post is the lighthouse in the fog for me! I can't tell you what a relief it is to have validating factors to compare to!
Stand back and look at ourselves, and our feelings, and just see how confused, hurt and well CRAZY we feel when dealing with these people! Yes, I've always been the one to apologize. I've taken the journey of working on myself to the extent of saying it was all my fault, apologzing, sending heartfelt emails to him several months ago, to only have NO RESPONSE!!! His excuse was " well I just don't know what to say or if Im supposed to say anything?" .
Well what I know now compared to what I knew then is big. What I know now is that when a person is a long term relationship with such a PA, then WAS, what is truly considered unhealthy and abnormal.....feels NORMAL to you. When we get the chance to stand back and really learn what's going on, and see the forest for the trees and see what truly healthy and normal is, that's an awakening. This has happened with me over the last month because I've developed a good friendship with a very emotionally healthy and available man. And I literally don't know what to think. I was almost brought to tears because he told me he enjoyed listening to me.
My PA/MLC is the type that likes to "sandwhich" his PA ,covert/overt, narcissistic abuse. It's as of this last two years he's become outwardly angry and verbally abusive, when he never used to be this way. I finally called him on his cake eating behaviors and emotional ups and downs. That's when he directly went to his next victum that I think he's been keeping an eye on for years because he knows she's and easy target. She's been after him for years anyway. She's proven how gullable she is to him, and he knows exactly how to control her. Apparently she does everything but chew his own food for him, and that makes me sick.
Yes my stbx's reason for leaving was extreme depression and needing to go and find his " happy". Well he was a mess, quite frankly acting very bi polar before he left, and still does. More on a mania high, which mania also has huge irritability shifts and spewing. And that's what he does. Happy high, then snapping at me for things that I couldn't make up if I wanted to. Then he got on a real high and blew thousands of dollars. Now that his thousands of dollars are gone, he's now blaming me that it's my fault. I mean the reasoning with these people....
Yes Bea they seem to continue to always keep us engaged. It's happened again now with my STBX, and I realize it's always going to be that way to a certain extent because we have youn children together. I've been going through some serious "revisiting" of strong emotions lately because we've resumed contact. He acts as if nothing has happened. He's being very "sweet" but I have now learned that "sweet" is a covert PA behavior that will serve as an MLC Spewing 2x4 later.
I think what I really have to work on is that I will always care about this man, but accept he is not a whole man. He is just part of one. And I think he's so scared of himself, all he knows to do is keep running, controlling his external life in order to think that's what's making his internal well being taken care of. If he can manipulate everything and everyone into doing what he wants, then he's in total control, and then he's ok. If it doesn't go his way, we switch the emotional button and turn it off. And it's done, and no longer his problem to deal with.
"Did you find yourself getting angry, getting a convincing show of 'genuine' confusion and distress from YOUR 'victim', then apologizing for YOUR unreasonable behavior, and then sinking into depression at how badly YOU behaved towards such a nice calm loving person, and finally agreeing with them just how unreasonable your emotional requests are?"
Oh good lord, this is dead one. Shockingly dead on. The whole summer leading up to my XH leaving the first time, he fluctuated between drinking and then getting black moods filled with rage and anger, and then the next day, crying and apologizing or buying me things or taking me somewhere nice to dinner, and pleading with me to see that he was REALLY just troubled on the inside and that I needed to figure out what to do to help him, and then he'd say things like "if you REALLY LOVED ME you'd be able to KNOW INSTINCTIVELY what I need to feel loved and happy..."
Yep. This is him in a nutshell. And I ran myself ragged dealing with the PA behavior and he still left, and then all I could figure was that I had failed at doing what he needed for us to stay together.
We were separated 4 1/2 months but dated for most of that time and had a sexual relationship. When he did come back, pledging for it to be forever, I didn't believe him because I could see that his behavior was still PA...and I think because I'd learned to live without him on some level, however minor, I just stopped taking the abuse, and I'd call him on it immediately, not in a mean way, but in a "hey, what's going on here" way...and when I stopped taking the abuse, culminating in a very big fight where I said to him in a letter, "I think we really need to go to marital counseling as we can't do this on our own", that was precisely the time frame down to the week that he claims he "noticed" OW at work and started to confide in her in an EA.
HE RAN BECAUSE I STOOD UP FOR MYSELF.
He's with her not out of true love, but because she was an escape hatch on his ship which was spiralling out of orbit. I wasn't taking the P-A anymore and he knew it.
WOW this has been empowering. Thank you :-)
M45 Bomb 6/09; EA 6/10; Divorced 1/11 Proud single mom of 7 little feline girls and one little feline boy "Fall down 53 times. Get up 54." -- Zen saying
Hey Antonia! I am so relieved and happy to have this thread to think over. It's amazing that generally the same thing happened with your xh, that has happened with my stbx.
We stoop up for ourselves and said NO MORE. And what did they do? They ran.
You know what gets under my skin? It sounds as if your XH was aware he had some big issues he needed to get a grip on and work through. At the same time he placed it in your hands and made you responsible for his happiness. Well my stbx has done this too.
I guess this is rational trying to understand "irrational" but why on earth can someone sit there and admit they need some work, but then turn right around and run from it? I said to stbx the day before he left. " why don't we try counseling instead of taking all that money and pouring it into a motel room for you to live?" His response : "there's no doubt I need to see a psychiatrist, Im sure I do. But that would've helped 2 years ago, not now. I have to go and find my happy again."
To translate: " You're right. I also acknowledge I need to work on some issues that I have. But I really don't want to deal with this, it's too intense. If I go out on my own I can probably find things, and people (OW) to distract me from my issues, feel in total control, therefore I will be happy. Then I won't need counseling because Im in control."
Yes this has been empowering. I feel so much better with this new insight to things and acceptance is feeling alot easier. I think it takes alot of validation for us LBS before we can really get to a place of accepting and believing it really wasn't all our fault, and we didn't cause this. At least I know that's how it works for me.
You ask how hard can it be to do something? Well, I do not want to defend the MLCer but how many people do you know who are very overweight? And the solution for most people [I know there are some genetic conditions] is to eat a better diet and exercise more. And yet they remain fat.
Well that is the only way I can understand it. They see there is a problem and it could be fixed but not easily and not without effort.
I also agree that PA people have a fear of therapy because they hand over control [in their eyes], and also because the patterns by which they have lived for so long, and which they see as essential to their survival, are likely going to be challenged. They cannot really see the possibility of it improving
