1. They Don’t Waste Time Feeling Sorry for Themselves Mentally strong people don’t sit around feeling sorry about their circumstances or how others have treated them. Instead, they take responsibility for their role in life and understand that life isn’t always easy or fair.
2. They Don’t Give Away Their Power
They don’t allow others to control them, and they don’t give someone else power over them. They don’t say things like, “My boss makes me feel bad,” because they understand that they are in control over their own emotions and they have a choice in how they respond.
3. They Don’t Shy Away from Positive Change
Mentally strong people don’t try to avoid change. Instead, they welcome positive change and are willing to be flexible. They understand that change is inevitable and believe in their abilities to adapt.
4. They Don’t Waste Energy on Things They Can’t Control You won’t hear a mentally strong person complaining over lost luggage or traffic jams. Instead, they focus on what they can control in their lives. They recognize that sometimes, the only thing they can control is their attitude.
5. Don’t Worry About Pleasing Everyone
Mentally strong people recognize that they don’t need to please everyone all the time. They’re not afraid to say no or speak up when necessary. They strive to be kind and fair, but can handle other people being upset if they didn’t make them happy.
6. They Don’t Fear Taking Calculated Risks
They don’t take reckless or foolish risks, but don’t mind taking calculated risks. Mentally strong people spend time weighing the risks and benefits before making a big decision, and they’re fully informed of the potential downsides before they take action.
7. They Don’t Dwell on the Past
Mentally strong people don’t waste time dwelling on the past and wishing things could be different. They acknowledge their past and can say what they’ve learned from it. However, they don’t constantly relive bad experiences or fantasize about the glory days. Instead, they live for the present and plan for the future.
8. They Don’t Make the Same Mistakes Over and Over
Mentally strong people accept responsibility for their behavior and learn from their past mistakes. As a result, they don’t keep repeating those mistakes over and over. Instead, they move on and make better decisions in the future.
9. They Don’t Resent Other People’s Success Mentally strong people can appreciate and celebrate other people's success in life. They don’t grow jealous or feel cheated when others surpass them. Instead, they recognize that success comes with hard work, and they are willing to work hard for their own chance at success.
10 They Don’t Give Up After the First Failure Mentally strong people don’t view failure as a reason to give up. Instead, they use failure as an opportunity to grow and improve. They are willing to keep trying until they get it right.
11. They Don’t Fear Alone Time
Mentally strong people can tolerate being alone and they don’t fear silence. They aren’t afraid to be alone with their thoughts and they can use downtime to be productive. They enjoy their own company and aren’t dependent on others for companionship and entertainment all the time but instead can be happy alone.
12. They Don’t Feel the World Owes Them Anything
Mentally strong people don’t feel entitled to things in life. They weren’t born with a mentality that others would take care of them or that the world must give them something. Instead, they look for opportunities based on their own merits.
13. They Don’t Expect Immediate Results
Whether they are working on improving their health or getting a new business off the ground, mentally strong people don’t expect immediate results. Instead, they apply their skills and time to the best of their ability and understand that real change takes time.
Formerly Workinprogress H :55 M :over 29 yrs. Together : 33 D : college D : adult BD and left : May 2013 Separated Experimenting/Replay
This little essay spoke to me...I not only experienced stress or trauma during my life, but both starting from childhood. Both parent's were abusive, so I not only witnessed physical abuse of my siblings, but also received it.
My parent's divorced and that too was traumatic. I had to deal with my daughter's socio-emotional and mental challenges, and that too was traumatic. It is hard to hear you will not have the normal stepping stones of your child's childhood. That you will live in constant stress due to that child's ongoing challenges and crisis'.
Add to that the situation where we had to sell a house of 15 years, to having another go into foreclosure, to husband losing jobs, and now this with the possibility of losing my nest again, because of MLC! I guess I've lived my whole life with stress and trauma...NO WONDER I have anxiety issues! HA!
So the highlighted area of below not only spoke to me but screamed at me. I now understand a bit more why I have difficulty and why it feels so physical and at times impossible to shake off. I refuse to let this beat me anymore...I will not be taken down for what good may I be to my daughters, and for that matter the one who is experimenting?
Most of all I really have to get ahold, for myself, for my sanity. It will probably not happen as fast as I want, but I cannot let it stop me. I HAVE to fight...
Exhaustion
" The Emergency Response can only be maintained for a limited period; eventually continuous activation defeats its beneficial purpose and becomes more damaging than the stressor to which it is responding.
The length from prolonged stress to exhaustion may vary with individuals. Within the context of what I have seen with MLC and Standing, it typically takes a person 6 weeks to 3 months after Bomb Drop to recover some resiliency. Notice I said some resiliency; recovery is a gradual process. Those who do not begin to recover in 3 to 6 months reach emotional and physical exhaustion as the over-stressed body depletes its resources.
Exhaustion may be marked by prolonged panic, anxiety, difficulty with detaching and a greater tendency toward the victim mind-set. Though recovery is gradual, most people recover. If after several months you continue to have problems recovering, consider seeing a doctor and a therapist—something you should do soon after Bomb Drop in the Stress Response phase. Some of you may read about Exhaustion and fear that since it has been 9 months (or more) you are one of those failures who has failed to detach. This is why I wanted to stress that you notice some resiliency. You are not going to be fully recovered in 6 months, or a year, maybe not in two years. Other than those with an at-home MLCer, a person who reaches an extreme level of emotional exhaustion has made no baby-steps—not even baby-steps that they reversed a day later.
Recovery starts with the smallest of sparks and that mere speck of a spark may be the only bounce you show for a long time. Hold onto that spark. Exhaustion is both physical and emotional and your body may experience the physical consequences—see your doctor, please.
But in the context of resilience I am most concerned with those who yield to emotional exhaustion; they are typically more susceptible to learned helplessness and they give up. But they don’t give up wanting their marriage; they feel more distraught and may be more likely to act with desperation.
No one and no situation is hopeless. I am not trying to discourage those of you who are feeling this way. But I want you to know that you need more help than simply reading information and receiving some fluffy advice about this not being your fault and needing to focus on your Self. You may have been either emotionally or physically conditioned to susceptibility to stress by having periods of stress and trauma at other times in your life—childhood stress and trauma create the most susceptibility. You may have learned poor coping skills, but it is more important that you realize it may not be anything to do with your moods, behavior or choices. The physiologic stress response becomes more sensitive with activation. What that means is if you have experienced a lot of stress and trauma at other times in your life, your body will have a stronger stress response and may maintain the response longer than someone whose life has had less trauma.
See your doctor. Talk to a therapist. Join a support group. And for all of those, keep communicating. _________________________ Formerly Workinprogress H :55 M :over 29 yrs. Together : 33 D : college D : adult BD and left : May 2013 Separated Experimenting/Replay
Formerly Workinprogress H :55 M :over 29 yrs. Together : 33 D : college D : adult BD and left : May 2013 Separated Experimenting/Replay
Am I ? Is he ? Why ? Punishers , People Who Express and Punish.
"What is passive aggressiveness?
What are the typical reactions to my passive aggressiveness? What irrational thinking keeps me being passive aggressive when I disagree with others? How can I recognize when someone is being passive aggressive with me? How can I confront a passive aggressive person? If I find myself being passive aggressive, how can I correct this? Why is it useful to eliminate my acting passive aggressive? Steps to eliminating being passive aggressive.
What is passive aggressiveness? I act in a passive aggressive way when I:
* hide my hostility by seeming to be nice to someone I dislike, and am unable to be honest with the person.
* say I agree with something but don't follow through because I really don't agree with it.
* act opposite to what others are expecting.
* quietly manipulate to get my own way after voicing a completely different opinion, just to keep the peace.
* seek revenge by agreeing and looking "good,'' but never following through on my promises.
* tell people what they want to hear, even if I don't believe in what I am saying.
* try to please people by agreeing to their plan of action, yet actually doing the opposite.
* act one way, which is true to my inner feelings, yet say another.
* am out of touch with my inner feelings; the only way to know how I feel about something is to observe my behavior, don't trust my words.
* hate something or someone but am afraid of letting my true feelings show.
* feel pressured to act or believe in a certain way when I really don't want to.
* avoid conflict at all cost by giving in to others, then procrastinate and never do what I agreed to do.
* am angry but afraid to show my anger, so I quietly take my revenge by doing the opposite. "
How To Break The Cycle
" You don’t need to know the exact definition of passive aggressive behavior to recognize it. Because you’re not just looking at symptoms in what the other person is doing -- you can also pay attention to what you experience. There’s a certain way they say “Yes” that makes you crazy. Because you know they don’t mean “yes”… but how can you argue with somebody who says “yes” to you?
Passive-aggressive behavior in married couples is the topic of many comic strips and sitcoms. Typically, passive aggressive men are shown hidden behind their newspaper, muttering “Yes, dear” without paying attention. Or: passive aggressive women are shown outwardly complying with their husband’s wishes, only to thwart them as if by accident. Or: one spouse uses silence to control issues...
Dealing with passive aggressive people can be crazy-making. You feel dismissed, shut down, ignored… but in a subtle enough way that you don’t know how to react. At some point, you explode. Over time, this can turn into a vicious cycle: passive aggressive behavior begets anger and finger-pointing, which in turn begets more passive-aggressive behavior. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How to break the cycle?
Stop thinking of it as a deficiency of your partner (and your partner alone). Instead, think of it as a dance that the two of you are involved in.
Among the causes of passive aggressive behavior is fear of conflict. The more your partner sees you as a formidable opponent, the more they’ll take what feels to them like the cautious approach: they won't be confrontational, they'll hide their true feelings even from themselves, they'll try to get on with the program... and they'll end up being passive-aggressive.
As this happens, you feel increasingly irritated. You get angry, and they perceive as increasingly formidable... So their aggression gets even more buried, and manifests in more hidden ways...
Lead by example: Take responsibility for your own actions. Admit your role in the dance--the ways your partner may feel intimidated by your more overt aggression. Commit to making it safe for your partner to express anger (I say "express", not "act out" anger).
In the long run, bringing out the issues and feelings in the open will help you deal with them squarely.
What I'm talking about is "cleaning up" the communication: making the hidden aggression visible, so that the real underlying problems can be addressed instead of being hidden behind the ongoing frustrations of passive aggression.
Creating a climate of safe and open communication within your couple can go a long way toward changing the pattern of passive aggression, on the one hand, and anger and blame on the other hand. "
Both of us have passive aggressive tendencies. Both of us fear confrontation, rebuke, and abandonment...
Looks like some growing is in order! This will be painful, but I believe a necessary step in my personal healing.
I also need to help my girls with this too! His siblings also have issues with this. My oh my what a wonderful mess in which we live!
This is something I can work on...expressing disagreement, and anger. Also, being more approachable, open to dissent and disagreement.
And the growth begins...
Formerly Workinprogress H :55 M :over 29 yrs. Together : 33 D : college D : adult BD and left : May 2013 Separated Experimenting/Replay
^^^ that up there hit pretty close to home. Looks like W and I were both passive aggressive towards each other. You just opened my eyes to another one of my issues.
separated since 9/01/13 M-31 W-36 D-4 Move back home 12/26/13 3 months of tough times Finally in a happy M
Thanks for posting this Ambivalent! I needed this today. I go through feelings of being so strong and independent, sometimes followed by moments of feeling sorry for myself. I don't want to be that person.
Dwelling on the past is something that my husband and I do a lot. Why on earth should we worry about or be resentful over things that we did 13 years ago when we were only 20 years old! For one thing, we are not the same people we were back then.
M: 8 yrs T:14 Twins:7 S:5 BD:'NLILWY': Feb/2013 Mar/Apr/May: MC June: "living in limbo" Sept 12: H moves out Oct 20: reconciling Jan-Feb 2014:MC Feb 2014: separating, and H moved out.
Cue the music, I'm gonna digdigdigdigdigdig dig the whole day through!
Disney "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves"
Goals for the day:
shower
eat
gym
Petco
Staples
package and mail
project
DANCE CLASS
So DR-s what have YOU done for YOU today?
Did some more reading on MLC yesterday, read on passive aggressive tendencies. Kept my mind open and in a learning mode. Made some decisions, and hope it will ease some of the temporary stress. Have another interview this week.
We'll see how this one goes!
The next post will be some of what I read on MLC. Really put things into perspective.
Lot's to do, so toodle-loo!
<3<3's,
Ambi
Formerly Workinprogress H :55 M :over 29 yrs. Together : 33 D : college D : adult BD and left : May 2013 Separated Experimenting/Replay
" Male midlife crisis is a topic I know something about "
" My lovely, stable, considerate, witty partner of 19 years had one - bang on cue - at 40. David became withdrawn and unpleasant, started going to the gym, danced on his own till 3am (to the music he used to listen to at 21), took a lover, talked as though his logic had been ripped out and thrown away - I mean serious goobledegook - then ran away in the middle of the night. And finally, this man who'd never raised his voice to me - nor I to him - became violent.
It all unravelled - or, rather, he unravelled - with alarming speed. His midlife crisis (MLC) was florid, torrid, unexpected and overwhelming. It started when his mother was diagnosed with cancer just before he hit forty in December 2007. She died in April 2007 and 12 weeks later he ran away from home, walking off down the track, little bag in hand, like a 12-year-old...running away from home.
Over the next few months I watched in amazement each time we met to discuss what we would do with our home (here in France. ) He was unrecognizable, as if he'd had a personality and character transplant. He'd always been a man with plenty of integrity and part of that had been reflected in his dismay when we heard of families breaking up, husbands cheating, wives and children being hurt and abandoned. He worked as a social worker, too, often dealing with broken families where the children were hurt and troubled by family break up. Now he didn't care about any of that. His girlfriend was a married woman with a 4-year-old and a 6-year-old. Along with her, he broke up those kids' family and seemed totally unaware there was any problem with that. He was also unaware I was hurt. "Nothing" he announced "has happened to hurt you."
Well, apart from losing my partner of 19 years obviously...
It was as if he simply couldn't think or reason normally. And in fact, one evening he told me that indeed he couldn't think normally. "I feel as if my head is full of spaghetti" this 40-year-old man told me, speaking in the voice of a teenager. On another occasion he said the destruction of our life together was like watching skittles. "They were all fine and standing up" he said in amazement "and then this great big ball came along and knocked them all down."
Uhuh. A secret affair will do that to a longstanding relationship.
At one point when he was angling - perhaps - to come home, he also said that he couldn't trust his judgement about anything. He tried to sleep with me (no) at the same time as telling me his married girlfriend was the love of his life. In the next breath he'd say he only saw her twice a week and would "dump her" if she asked for anything more. One day he told me he'd like to live with his girlfriend "for 20 years then come home so we can enjoy our retirement together." He said he was going to go and live in Bermuda. Or Australia. Or Jersey. Or the west of Scotland. Or the east of Scotland. He recited those options within a half-hour conversation.
It was like listening to a naive unworldly teenager.
Many women focus almost entirely on the other woman and the infidelity when their husband's having a midlife crisis. But midlife crisis is about much more than the secret affair, the infidelity and the other woman. Cheating is one expression of a midlife identity crisis in which the man (most often it's men, though women have MLCs too) panics about what he's done in life and who he's become. The trigger/s may be a significant birthday - typically 40, 45 or 50 - or the death of a parent or friend. It may be the appearance of grey hairs or problems at work. Some theories also say that a wife or partner approaching menopause can panic a husband, reminding him that he too is aging.
Whatever the triggers, the effects can be very destructive. Midlife crisis is nothing like a reasoned midlife transition where an individual decides to make adjustments to an unsatisfactory life. Most people take stock at midlife and many decide to make changes. Whether they change their partner, decide to divorce and end their marriage, look for a new job or career or alter other aspects of their life, the changes are thought through. They may not always be wise changes and they won't always work out - but they're not made in the same way that people in MLC make changes. A man in midlife crisis tries to get back to his youth. He tries to shrug off his identity because he's deeply unhappy with it. In effect, he runs away from the life - and family - he's built to date. Because his middle-aged identity makes him so unhappy, it unravels and chaos takes the place of the personality and character he developed in the first half of his life. I'd describe what I witnessed as being not a nervous breakdown but a breakdown in an established identity.
Men in MLC may abandon their families with hardly a thought, get into relationships with girls younger than their daughters, take up with prostitutes only after their money (and fail to see that), become alcoholic, start abusing drugs and/or, as in my MLCer's case, suddenly become violent. They do many wildly irrational things and often talk non-sense. David once said he wanted to commit suicide and twice suggested I should. On a lighter note, I came home one day to find that he had put everything in our front room out in the garden. Books, furniture, carpets, lamps - everything. Used to his odd behaviour by now, I asked neutrally what he was doing. Busying about in a frenzy, he replied "It is not possible to clean a room without taking everything out of it." It felt like that might be a bit of a metaphor for what was happening in his head!
The fallout from MLC - divorce, family break-up, financial ruin, ill health and sometimes suicide - is highly destructive for individuals and more widely corrosive in society. "
Misspellings are not mine, this was copied and pasted. ;D
Formerly Workinprogress H :55 M :over 29 yrs. Together : 33 D : college D : adult BD and left : May 2013 Separated Experimenting/Replay
" Midlife crisis is a little researched but common problem. The jokey image of a man in midlife crisis (MLC) is that he'll dress like a teenager, start working out all of a sudden, buy himself a shiny red sports car or Harley Davidson and possibly ditch his wife for a younger girl, often a colleague or old flame rekindled by Facebook or Friends Reunited.
All those factors may indeed come into play. But MLC is a serious and destructive problem and at its root is a searing identity crisis. Although middle-aged women can experience midlife crises just as severely as men do, MLC is far more prevalent among men.
Midlife Crisis is an Extreme Version of Normal Midlife Transition
MLC generally hits a man with little warning in his late 30s or early 40s but can also hit during the fifties. Midlife is a time when most of us fairly naturally assess our lives and for some people that can be an uncomfortable exercise. Many of the hopes held in our youth may have been dashed by midlife - projects may have floundered, career ambitions may be unfulfilled. And midlife brings a natural sense that time is running out. However disppointing or frustrating those experiences may be, most people with reasonably good mental and emotional health can come to terms with them, perhaps making some changes or adjustments, and life goes on. In fact, a degree of transition in midlife is normal and necessary just as it is in adolescence.
Crisis at midlife is altogether different. In MLC, life's disappointments and frustrations are experienced as overwhelming and threatening. Everyone knows longstanding and apparently stable marriages that suddenly broke down and ended in divorce when the couple reached their forties or fifties, families that fell apart because the husband began an extra-marital affair and subsequently ran off. In MLC, what goes along with that behaviour is a peculiar, dramatic and often baffling set of personality changes. The infidelity in itself is not the defining issue. Rather, the acquisition of a mistress is one of numerous symptoms of chaos and confusion in a man's mind as he feels totally panicked by ageing, loss of youth, detachment and instability.
The Behaviour of a Man or Woman in Midlife Crisis Becomes Wildly out of Character
His tastes in just about everything from music to food to clothes are likely to change almost overnight. He's also likely, if he talks to his wife and family at all, to express views which are the exact opposite of the views he held for the first half of his life. He won't see any inconsistency in that either. He's likely to want and cause upheaval, may insist on selling the house or moving to another continent or becoming a carpenter when he's always been an English lecturer. Or he may just run away like a scalded cat.
He'll be extremely concerned about his hair, his looks and his body and preoccupied with sex. His sexual behaviour with his wife may change, subtly or dramatically, making her wonder what's influencing him. He may become highly secretive or simply announce he's seeing another woman and look baffled that his wife is so upset. There is almost always another woman in the equation when a man has a midlife crisis. Her value is often simply either that she is new and so she doesn't know who has been up until now or she's from his youth and brings his 'young' identity back to him. Either way, she's chosen because she accepts his new persona, which is often reckless and always unstable. He may also drink, experiment with drugs, engage in risky sexual activity and spend money he hasn't got.
Men in MLC become extremely selfish and develop a limitless sense of entitlement. He may have been a doting husband and father for 25 years but in crisis nothing matters except himself and his needs and wants. Not his wife, not his children and not the wider world.
Even worse for his wife is that she'll get the blame for how he feels. Men in midlife crisis are often very angry and rewrite the history of their marriages, 'discovering' that they were rarely or never happy. Unable to deal with the guilt of destroying their families they accuse their often stunned wives of making them unhappy.
MLC Can't Be Stopped or 'Cured'
For many wives, the most pressing question when faced with these developments in a hitherto happy and kind husband is how to help him stabilise and get the marriage back to normal.
Unfortunately, MLC doesn't work like that. A man in MLC is having a profound internal crisis and literally no matter what anyone says he'll go through it just as a teenager may go through a particularly stormy adolescence. It's a developmental crisis if you like. There's no short cut for the MLCer and no short cut for his wife or family either. He won't connect with any insights anyone offers him if they don't fit with the chaos swirling in his head.
One of the most helpful resources on the net for people whose partners are in midlife crisis is XXXXXXXXXXX insert Divorce Busting.com
People from all over the world, men as well as women, who were left reeling by a partner's personality change and wildly out-of-character behaviour, discuss their experiences and lend each other suport. Hearing the many hundreds of stories recounted there, partners are reassured to recognise the astonishing similarities in MLC behaviour right down to the vocabulary MLCers use. There are also people on the forum who have gone through midlife crisis and explain how fogged their brains were in their MLC years.
The best approach to a partner's midlife crisis is to occupy yourself with you, not him. Once he's in MLC you can only leave him to get on with it and try to protect yourself from the worst fallout. He'll be gone for some time. The man you knew may never re-emerge from the personality earthquake he's going through. Some MLCers do emerge and reconciliation between husband and wife, often divorced while the crisis is in full swing, does sometimes happen. But partners need in effect to start their relationship from scratch. Many more marriages end in divorce and family break-up due to male midlife crisis, with all the attendant emotional, social and financial pain. Homes are lost, children are hurt, wives are left unexpectedly alone at midlife. Whatever the eventual outcome though, understanding the mechanisms of MLC is a real help to a wife once her husband's entered the Twilight Zone..." I added the T.Z.
Formerly Workinprogress H :55 M :over 29 yrs. Together : 33 D : college D : adult BD and left : May 2013 Separated Experimenting/Replay
