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#993512 04/14/02 08:57 AM
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<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Life is not a fairy tale, people with personality disorders rarely change.<hr></blockquote><p>Mornin' SNL.<p>I see this as a recurring theme in many of your posts. ( duh!)<p>I.e. sociopaths, etc.<p>I wanted to enjoy the oppurtunity to move this to it's own thread, and see if you want to talk a little more about the patterns you see that prompt you to offer this description.<p>For me, this is not an opportunity to prove I'm "right", or have been "wronged", but perhaps to see some things moving forward that I've missed in the past. <p>I wanted, if possible, to enjoy your description independant of "situational tensions".<p>Thanks.<p>Just left church, now off to the gym. Spirit and body.. I love Sundays. [img]images/icons/smile.gif" border="0[/img] <p>Dan<p>[ April 14, 2002: Message edited by: Family Man ]</p>

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Brother, you're gonna pass up a solicitation to expound on patterns evident to ya...<p>Say it ain't so.<p>I have just about lost my faith in that which we used to depend upon...<p>What is this world commin' to?<p>Dan

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hmm, missed the early morning post, sorry. A recurring theme cause I seek understanding of why people behave the way we do. And I read a lot about this stuff as well. The fact is marriage is a strange institution, is not an evolutionary behaviour (procreation is, but not marriage as we practice it, lifetime monogamy). It is a mergeing of procreative behaviour, with a choice to give up some reproductive opportunites in favor of other percieved benefits. This obviously requires the participation of at least two people of opposite gender (there are other marital models, I will stick with monogamy though). If we assume humans are all unique (and indeed we are) then we all have different behaviour....by observation and applying certain criteria we establish what is "normal" ie healthy behaviour....as one ranges from there (call these traits) you cross a line where the trait is now a disorder (essentially is a balance issue, and intensity issue)... this is not a clearcut line of demarkation by any means, it is a continuum, and is a bit situational as well (meaning our behaviour varies with stress essenstially).... but regardless it is a very real phenomena. <p>One can observe that the more polarized ones behaviour is (ie disorder) the less capable the person is of interaction with others (assuming we all gravitate to fairplay as a norm, and we do). So in that sense it is helpful to identify and lable individuals behavioural characteristics, and make decisions based on that. This is not value judgements of worth, or right or wrong, it is a pragmatic assesment made so one can make proactive choices that are healthy for oneself. We all have "traits", and probably some degree of disorders too. When the behaviour dictated by the disorder becsomes unhealthy, affecting our capacity to function in society we say someone needs "counselling", in hopes they will recognize the imbalance and take actions that may help mitigate it...but like eating healthy, losing weight, turning off the TV, none of us fully respond to such intervention, and that is part of the issue as well. As the disorder intensifies it moves further down the continuum to narcissim, addictive behaviours (such as sexual addiction, pathologic lieing etc,) and finally you enter the realm of sociopaths (and their destructive brethern psychopaths). One of the characteristics of the continumm is as you move down it, you see less and less capacity to understand or be concerned about the effect of your behaviour on ohters, you truly become the center of the universe. Clearly all this is relevant to marriage. Since marriage is about (hopefully) mutual nurturing, personality disorders can and do inhibit this happening. One may be perfectly "normal", educated, good employee, model citizen, supportive family member, neighbor, all around great person and have a personality disorder, but mild enough it does not impact your ability to relate under those situations....BUT in a marital circumstance your limits are reached, and you are not going to have the capacity to give "self" for anothers benefit. <p>No longer are you an independent entity, acting on your own behalf, or quid pro quo with others...now you are expected to give without a clear exchange of value, many cannot, and will not do that. They are going to gaurd, manipulate, and protect themself, keep score if you will...and depending on their reality, their level of disorder, that score may or may not be acceptable to the partner, and conflict will ensue. The point here is focus, the person is focused on themself, that is the first characteristic of a personality disorder IMO (and keep in mind I am a layman, I am sure more learned academics would shred my analysis, but I am comfortable with the gist of this), they are focused on what is in it for them. And in fact most marriages are actually accomodations, that is the basis of HNHN, providing the tools to reach agreement.... and if both parties are willing it will work BUT, if one of the parties is not as willing (they are further down the continuum) they will manipulate for the better end of the deal. Hence the importance of assessing exactly who you are married to, (and yourself for that matter). If you are at a psychological disadvantage then you have to ask yourself is this worth it. In order to do that one needs to fully understand how personality disorders work, manifest themselves, and likelihood of change, and how to assess that change.<p>The conflict manifests itself as control, abuse, neglect, anger, addiction, etc. and we have lots of books to help identify the behaviour patterns associated with these things, whereas in the past we did not....we also have a socio-economic system that gives people more options to opt out of unhealthy marriages, or fix them as well...the key being to no longer expect less out of a marriage (physical needs, and procreation) but expect more, (safety/nurturing), etc.<p>Obviously well-balance people, who marry folks they fit well with are going to have successful nurturing/healthy/safe marriages, and will not be hanging out on marriage builders...so we have troubled marriages here, and most of them are cause one or both parties have serious personality disorders, or very antagonistic traits/disorders (the borderline stuff). MB seeks to provide assistance by at least defining how a successful marriage looks, and trying to get people to emulate it, and become accostomed to behaving that way...but they clearly state if personality disorders are present this is of limited efficacy, and a committment to individual counselling (and change) must really occur first, hence the plan a/b divorce path. If you cannot be married to who you are, at least you can heal, and do a better job of selection in the future. The inability to apply successfully MB principles in a marriage essentially validates that the marriage is unsafe, probably has significant disorders present, and should end for the well-being of the people in it...the shock maybe being the final push for the change needed in one or both as well.<p>Sorting this all out is confusing, people are not particularly logical, or self-introspective...often living in denial, fear, etc. all this is fodder for manipulation by personality disorders as they strive to get what they want for them, not for the marriage....and it is why I address it so often, people (from my observation) are way to unwilling to apply tough love, and leave marriages that are unhealthy, thinking someday they will change.....observation of human behaviour since time began reveals people don't change much, and if they do it will be obvious, that doesn't happen much here. One can stay in an unhealthy marriage, it is a choice, done for percieved value to kids, fear of being alone, not able to take care of self, fear this is the best they can do, so they try to make peace with it, where do you draw the line...well is an individual choice. My comments are simply to help people be aware of the choices they are making, and the repercussions.... In general I think if a successful marriage, is possible, it will happen realtively quickly....there are exceptions of course, but even then it did not usually happen until divorce (and mean it) was on the table, or happened.


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