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Feeling internalized pain, Punkin. Seems to me that most NPDs are not prone to nor capable of empathy or given to introspection. The world is at their service. I hope this clears things up for you in respect to pain and NPD.

Caveat: I am not a therapist so I could be off the mark here.

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gag and Lance-I agree that if you periodically go back and read posts you can gain new understanding from them. Trying to understand MLC, at least for me, has been difficult...you do gain new understanding as you move through this.

pie-happy_again's posts really helped me as well.

hpb-Thanks for posting the link to Favoritewierdo.

Wonka-

Originally Posted By: Wonka
I will need to look up the "acceptance" phase as outlined in HB's thread to see how my acceptance progressed.
If you get the opportunity to do this and share your thoughts, it would be so appreciated. As I say, we all know that each MLC experience is unique but there are still similarities. Your perspective is so helpful in giving us LBS's a clearer idea of what our spouse is going through.
Originally Posted By: Wonka
These are the clues to why your MLC spouse acts in certain ways. It was as if the "growing up" process was interrupted and the brainwaves or the memory bank was stuck in gear. I could be wrong...but it seems to be the universal signpost of the MLCer.
So during your MLC, did you feel like you were stuck as an 11 year old kid or did you feel like you matured during the process?

Originally Posted By: Cyrena
To get beyond the teenaged thinking, the C worked with my H to recognize the difference between what his teenaged brain was telling him ("Why shouldn't I have an OW if I want one?") and what his mature brain thought, and how to keep switching back to the second one. It was a HUGE battle for H to get to the point where his mature brain was fully in charge, and he felt so proud of himself for fighting the addiction of listening to the teenaged brain.
Do you think your H could have made it through without the help of a C?
Originally Posted By: Cyrena
My rule of thumb became, as long as H was still addicted to the drama, he wasn't "done."
This is something that all LBS's should remember. Also, their words mean nothing until their actions back them up.

Originally Posted By: Wonka
Don't read too much into the timeline of bomb dropping. Some occur at the very beginning of MLC and others near the end of the MLC. All are dependent on how far the MLCer has struggled with internalized pain and confusion.
This is interesting because I always thought the bomb was toward the beginning of the crisis. Wonka's seemed to be nearer to the end.

punkin-Do you think your H has NPD?

Everyone, thank you so much for the posts. This is some great information. Please keep it coming.

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Upside, I've often wondered what would have happened if my H hadn't seen a C. Certainly, he was making some progress without one. He didn't tell me a lot of what he discussed with the C, but he did say, "I should have done this years ago!" The counselling seemed to resolve a lot of issues for him. Even though the C told my H, "I don't believe there is such a thing as a MLC," he did diagnose him as being depressed, work on his childhood issues like physical abuse from his mother, help him do grief work for his mother and others who had died, teach him to engage his mature brain, explain how the relationship with the OW was a fantasy (and gave him a deadline to decide between us), teach him how to handle withdrawal from OW as if from any other addictive substance, and get him to take a family-first stance at work. I'm sure it would have taken a LOT longer for him to get through all these issues without professional help, because he'd never been given the tools he needed before.

I considered myself to have been bombed on the day of H's Awakening, when I finally got him to admit he'd been staying in another town regularly not for work but to spend time with OW, and that he was glad I finally knew about it, and that it wasn't really a "friendship" he had for her.

However, his actual bombing (the closest he came to ILYBNILWY was the day he 4 months later told me that "something was missing" and maybe he should move out. He claimed that since he'd met OW, he didn't have feelings for me, and was sure he wouldn't get them back because the day he met me he stopped caring about his highschool girlfriend, and broke up with her and never cared for her again.

The odd thing was, he'd broken up with his former girlfriend a good 2 to 3 years before I met him and was quite ready for another relationship. Because I could see how confused he was in his thinking about that, the actual bombing seemed likely to me to involve a certain amount of confusion as well.

This bomb was somewhere in his Depression stage, about 3 1/2 months before he decided to work on the marriage. These were also the months of intense C for him. As Wonka said, the timing of the bomb can vary a lot owing to personal circumstances.

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Is it possible that they get this NPD thing in MLC and then go back to normal after ?


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Originally Posted By: pie
Is it possible that they get this NPD thing in MLC and then go back to normal after ?


Many of them do have a ton of similarties of NPD.

Yes, it's possible. The ones that do make it out can return to normal.


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After my H had been tunneling away for several years I started thinking, "How sad that I never realized how selfish he was BEFORE we got married." Later, I read lists of "Controlling Behaviours" and "Passive-Aggressive" traits, and saw that he was exhibiting pretty much every one.

However, post-tunnel, he's not exhibiting these traits. It was his depression which led him to behave in these ways, rather than a permanent mental disorder.

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I have had many discussion with others off these boards about NPD and MLC. It seems that some personality disorders are learned responses. MLCers certainly exhibit the signs of NPD and other non-empathetic behaviours, and my therapist, having met my h, thought he had a borderline personality disorder.

FWIW I think they hold it together for a long time. Snodderley talks about 'masks' and [looking back over my marriage] that this was certainly correct for my h. The borderline personality traits, carefully held in check for 10, 20, 30 even 40 years, seem to take over. Others have called it Jekyll and Hyde, where Mr Hyde gets into the driving seat

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Originally Posted By: Cyrena
"something was missing"


My H has said this same thing every time he has left. What are they looking for????

Seems like your H has a smart counselor actually trying to help him. My H's counselor basically just sits there and listens to what ever he wants to talk about and how it made him feel. I have not heard him mention anything about figuring out his issues from the past.


Kissak

"What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee." Psalms 56:3
M-37 H-37
S-10, D-15
M- 1993
First bomb- 12/23/06
Came and went too MANY times!
Gone again 10-25-10
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Yes, the more I read, the luckier I realize I was in getting such a wonderful C. I found out later that the C had also had an EA earlier in his marriage, and had learned and grown from that experience. I think it really helped H to feel connected to the C--that he wasn't judging him for what he himself had also done.

As for the "something missing," I think it was his personal happiness, or a sense of peace. Until he accepted that he was not responsible for his mother's beatings, he felt a guilt that "overlaid" the guilt he felt towards me. He described a strong internal feeling of pushing me away ... so obviously there was going to be something missing in his attempts to connect with me.

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I wonder about my H's childhood with his own mother. She was an alcoholic and his parent divorced because of that when he was very young, maybe 4. He was raised by his dad and stepmom (who has always been very hard on him, favoring her own children more). He would only see his mom 2 months out of the year. She didnt really come back into his life until we had our son back in 2001. Now, she has all of a sudden disappear again. We havent heard from her in almost 2 years. I know there are stories of him looking for food at neighbors houses for him and his brother when he was just a kid because she would be out with some guy or just passed out drunk. I wish he would open up to the counselor about all of this. Alot he wont even talk about or I wonder if he even remembers. His stepmom as told me most of what I know about his real mom.

I feel like this has alot to do with things.


Kissak

"What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee." Psalms 56:3
M-37 H-37
S-10, D-15
M- 1993
First bomb- 12/23/06
Came and went too MANY times!
Gone again 10-25-10
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