We live like monks, roommates.

[formflier]

I also have thought a lot about patterns I saw in childhood.  Generally I would say all were "healthy"

My Dad generally was the final say.  Yet I do remember times when my Mom said something to the effect of "this is a big deal for me" and I have no memory of my Dad ever saying no or not in some way bending over backwards (acts of service guy) to make the big deal come true.

The "big deals" were rare and from where I sat, my Mom was very obvious about appreciating my Dad "seeing things her way"

If I "look for dysfunction", I do have memories of my Mom complaining people didn't like her or that people "thought" this that and the other.  My Dad made heroic attempts to talk her out of those thoughts and convince her otherwise.  As you can imagine... .it didn't go well.  But... .I'm talking about a handful of memories over a childhood. 

I don't blame my parents at all... but I think I have a clear view of how i was "predisposed" to do the things I did... .until I learned a better way.

FF

[Notwendy]

I think it is important to look at our FOO's for patterns, not to blame our parents, but to find things we grew up with - our version of "normal" that isn't really functional in the relationships we have now.

In ways, my FOO was so obviously dysfunctional, it would even be hard to find a pattern. However, some things worked. Our basic needs were met- we kids had clothing, shelter, food, health care and education. We have a lot to be grateful for as well as some dysfunction to work on.

Compared to my FOO, my H's family looks completely normal and as far as he is concerned - it was.

Yet, when I read the Passionate Marriage book- the line that we tend to match others who match our dysfunction in some ways really stood out to me. I think in many relationships-we tend to look at the other person's FOO issues. I wasn't doing that because- well my FOO had plenty and his looked normal. I had made the assumption that I was the problem in our marriage issues since I had the dysfunctional FOO.

It's an important aspect of co-dependency work to focus on our own issues and not the other person's, but I was intrigued at the idea that our FOO's matched somehow. They could not be more different in many ways. But then I also began to appreciate that two ends of a spectrum may be similarly dysfunctional. Conflict was overt in my family. His family appears to have no conflict- that is because no body directly confronts each other when there is a disagreement. Yet, every family has conflict. My mother would rage when angry. His mother would smile and be resentful. Mine has BPD, his has co-dependent tendencies. The family patterns matched, even if his mother is completely different than mine is.

Beyond understanding this- it had to take me back to my own issues to work on, as that really is the most effective way to deal with FOO issues for ourselves. What neither of us learned well in our FOO's was how to resolve disagreements and conflict in an emotionally more functional way as neither of our parents knew how to do this either. Not their fault, they did the best they could with what they knew to do. Now we have to learn to do better.

[Cat Familiar]

Like you, Notwendy, my FOO was obviously dysfunctional. I so desperately wanted to figure it out, that I became a psych major in college and did graduate work later, until I realized that my career path was not a good fit for me and that I didn't have the wisdom or life experience to be a good counselor. But I still hadn't figured out what the heck was going on with my parents.

When I was in graduate school, borderline was defined as a much more extreme pattern of dysfunctional behavior, so it never occurred to me that my mother might fit in that category, since she was able to hold a job (for a while) and could appear relatively normal to outsiders. I just saw my dad as coping as best he could with her erratic moods and then escaping into his own world.

So, many years go by and my mother is widowed and I'm now taking care of her. I realize that my dad must have been a saint to tolerate her for so many years. She passes on and some years later my curiosity finds me learning about BPD and ultimately landing here.

Holy Sh!t! My mother was a borderline. Wow! So is my ex-husband, with a touch of narcissism too. And oh no, so is my current husband. And maybe even the guy I dated in between marriages! Well, history repeats itself. Now I realize that my initial comfort with these people was repeating a familiar family pattern.

[Cat Familiar]

I did a lot of counseling after the end of my first marriage. It seemed like I was crawling out of a hole I'd been in for years and awakening to a new world, which was unfamiliar and for which I was unprepared.

It wasn't until recently when I read a book about how Aspergers manifests very differently in girls that I finally got the full picture of my family. I had always been socially awkward and shy and I attributed that to skipping a grade and then moving to a much more affluent neighborhood, where there were a lot of "mean girls".

Reading about Aspergers in females, the lightbulb went off in my head and it all made sense. Previously I thought that my poor social skills were due to not having modeled good skills from my mother, but now I realized that yes, indeed, I'm an Aspie.

I had spent years trying to learn the skills that I didn't have, so I was largely able to "pass" as normal. But once I realized that I was an Aspie, it occurred to me that my dad was too! It completed the family picture and now it all made sense.

I think, as an Aspie, and able to tune into my own interests so thoroughly, that I've been able to tolerate behavior that others would have immediately rejected from the get go. And because it felt like "family" I didn't see anything unusual about it.

[formflier]

Foo patterns.

As I sit here reflecting on similarities in choices between my Dad and I... .

We both married first generation college students that were trying hard to break free from a "tough upbringing"

My Mom's mom was pulled from school in the 8th grade to be the family seamstress.  Imagine really large poor farming family where you "grew your own labor".  That was the work grandmother did all her life. 

She made sure my Mom got really good grades her entire life... .scholarships to college and then onto advanced degrees.  My Mom was college professor for 43 years. 

I married a "first generation" college student.  She was... and still is... only college graduate in her family.  Many have gone and dropped out.  Anyway... .that "model" made sense to me.

I have no memory of consciously thinking that at the time... .but the pattern seems striking to me.

FF

[Cat Familiar]

Notwendy, I received my copy of "How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About it." Thank you thank you thank you for suggesting that I read this!  

I realize now that all those attempts I've made to "talk about things" and "try to fix things" were experienced by him as excruciating attacks.

And all the ways I've invalidated him without realizing it: not accepting his help, making decisions without consulting him, not being interested in some of his interests. Living on rural property, there are so many things that I know how to do, am capable of, understand and do. He seemingly has no interest in learning, me teaching him (good grief, I can only imagine how that would go), or doing, yet they need to be done. So either I do it, or I hire someone.

Then when I do hire someone for say, building something or repairing the well pump, then I'm conversant in the language, while he's completely oblivious.

It's like we've switched the traditional male/female roles, except he doesn't do any of the "female" stuff either!  

I really get how disempowered he must feel after a successful professional career as an attorney.

Wow!

[Notwendy]

Isn't that book an eye opener? My H sees attempts to "talk" as attacks and also questions. After I read the book, I stopped that approach. My H is so much happier - and more relaxed. Sometimes he even tries to talk to me more these days. This is not shutting him out - but the book was helpful in showing me that my way didn't work with him. I had to stop expecting it to.

If career is what your H was successful at and he doesn't have something he's successful at now- I can see how he would be depressed. Work isn't only about money- but the professional friendships and sense of accomplishment too. It's up to him but he may want to do sometime - pro bono work for charity, teach a class, something that gives him a sense of pride.

[Cat Familiar]

I think with both my husband and me being Aspies, that talking can so easily go astray. So many default habits of mine, such as making suggestions, were received as criticism or that he assumed I thought that I was smarter/better than him. It totally confused me because in my mind, I was just making conversation and trying to be helpful.

Even thinking that I might value someone else's opinion more than his is a huge violation in his world. For example, I recommended a chiropractor who has really helped me get through a concussion I experienced earlier this year.

He went to see him and thought he was a charlatan. This has happened with nearly every health care practioner I've had a good experience with.

So tonight he mentioned that this chiropractor said that he had a scoliosis and he adamantly denied that he did. I questioned that it might be a mild one, and I have a mild one that's never really been problematic. And then he blew up, "You believe him instead of me?"

Of course I immediately quit talking, but it was surprising how triggering my belief in this chiropractor was to him. What I didn't say was yes, I'd believe him over your opinion of your back, which you cannot personally see.

But it was a good opportunity for me to realize how triggering it is that I would choose to believe someone else's opinion, particularly the opinion of someone he doesn't like.

[Cat Familiar]

If career is what your H was successful at and he doesn't have something he's successful at now- I can see how he would be depressed. Work isn't only about money- but the professional friendships and sense of accomplishment too. It's up to him but he may want to do sometime - pro bono work for charity, teach a class, something that gives him a sense of pride.


I think it would do him wonders if he actually did some volunteer work. Like many lawyers, he's totally burned out on the career and his law license is inactive, but he certainly could teach. He's been a student of Buddhism for decades, so he could teach that too. And he previously taught at a law school and supposedly really liked it and his students allegedly liked him as a teacher. (It was before we were together, so I don't have any direct knowledge of that.)

But he seems to have not a single community minded bone in his body. He did volunteer as a board member for a non-profit that I had warned him about--the executive director, the dysfunction of the board--I had written a newspaper story about all the crazy things that had gone on with this organization. He discovered the crazy for himself and mostly I think he was disappointed because he didn't feel like all the work he had contributed was valued.

This seems to be a theme for him. Any charitable act on his part comes with strings and if he isn't appreciated ENOUGH, then he's very upset and that's the end of it for him. So, I've learned not to make suggestions about these sorts of things, because inevitably, he's disappointed and if I've suggested it, I'm to blame.

Having been a lifelong fixer, enthusiasm coach, basically a way of thinking my codependency was a good thing, I'm finally understanding that if he wants to do it, he will. Actually, with him, since he's such a "polarity person," I could probably get him to volunteer for all sorts of things by telling him not to do it. But I'm not going there either.