Midlife Crisis Or Marriage Meltdown - Amazon Web...

I’m often asked how to deal with a spouse as they seek divorce and attempt to end the marriage. Should you back o� and give them space, shower them with gifts, keep saying “I love you”? If you’re frozen in your tracks and really concerned about doing all the wrong behav-iors, this article will help you decide what to do based on where your spouse falls on the “Chaos to Purpose” scale.

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Where Were You Raised On TheCHAOS TO PURPOSE SCALE?

Midlife Crisis OrMarriage Meltdown:

How To Make Sure This Marriage Is Your Last- Larry Bilotta -

might not see is that everything your spouse is doing is based on how much pain they experienced in their �rst 10 years of childhood. THIS is the driving force of their actions, their emotional condition and how they react to everything around them.

The more childhood pain your spouse experienced, the more you must change the way you deal with them in their troubled emotional state. The Chaos To Purpose scale will help you identify where your spouse grew up and thus, how to

deal with him or her now. The scale goes from 0% at the worst to 100% at the best.

This scale describes the zones of how parents (dad in most cases) handled the emotional develop-ment of their children.

Was Your Spouse Raised in the Purpose Neighborhood?

This is the 80% to 100% zone of the scale. Notice on the graphic that Dad is the most important programmer. That’s because we

receive most of our emotional security from our fathers. In the Purpose Neighborhood, Dad is involved, helping you succeed even as he shows that he cares. Notice at the far right, Mom and Dad enjoy each other. This is a critical part of producing successful kids and the Purpose Zone �nds mom and dad demonstrating what a happy intimate relationship looks like.

That’s because your �rst ten years is the time when the synaptic connec-tions, the lines between your brain cells, are being imprinted perma-nently for a lifetime. The imprinters are your dad and your mom. But since dad is the one who creates the majority of our emotional security, we pay the steepest price when he produces the troubles of the next two areas of the scale. So in the Purpose Neighborhood, parents enjoyed each other even as they made you feel important and valuable by actively talking, teach-ing and directing what you experi-enced as a child.

Back in those days, your spouse saw what a great relationship looked like. If your husband or wife was raised in Zones 1 or 2, he or she is most emotionally resilient and you’ll �nd him or her to be more �exible in handling relationship problems that come up in your intimate relationship.

Was Your Spouse Raised in the Twilight Zone?

The Twilight Zone ranges from 50% to 80% on the scale graphic. It’s here that your spouse was not

raised with an actively involved dad who taught and took an interest in his child. Instead, mom and dad in the “Twilight Zone” were just trying to survive. They provided food, clothing and shelter to the kids but that was about it.

I have personally completed over 1,000 private one hour interviews of men and women in troubled marriages. When I discover they or their spouse was raised in Zones 3 or 4, the phrase I heard from the vast majority about dad was “He was gone a lot” or “He was a worka-holic”.

Worse yet, when dad was home nights or weekends, most of these guys watched TV, went out with friends or believed that they worked hard and needed a break. That means there was little time to take an interest in their children as people who desperately wanted dad’s love.

This is one form of emotional abandonment and I recorded the actual words of the children of these dads. These fathers were providers only and did not believe that children needed to hear “I love you” or have play time with dad. They created a lot of pain that few of their kids ever dealt with prop-erly. The pain of that emotional rejection arrived in their adult years and went directly into their intimate relationship.

In the “Twilight Zone”, mom and dad did not take a unique interest in the future of their child so they did not consciously teach the kids morals and values. All of that is ignored. This left the child growing into adult life without a moral code, for example “Under no condition will I cheat on my mate.” Or; “When my spouse is troubled, I will help him/her maintain our connection.”

Twilight Zone kids don’t have a dependable set of moral values to apply to their intimate relationship with you. In e�ect, their brains do not carry a positive value system on how to treat and relate to their intimate relationship.

In place of a positive value system that automatically kicks in to govern their intimate relationship, they have an automatic disconnec-tion system that turns on and is aimed at you, their spouse.

If your spouse was raised in the Twilight Zone, Zones 3 or 4, then you should con�rm this is the case and I will explain what you need to do in a moment.

Was Your Spouse Raised in Chaos?

Zones 5, 6 and 7 cover 0% to 50% and form the Chaos Neighborhood.

I often tell people I was ‘raised by wolves’ because I and my siblings were left to fend for ourselves while mom was out drinking and dad was out gambling. Fortunately, I married my wife Marsha and after 27 years in a marriage made in hell, she pushed me hard to leave my childhood programming so I could become the man I am today. We’re now happily married over 40 years.

As you look at Zones 5, 6 and 7, you see that dad either completely exits your life as a child, or he’s actually destructive toward you. Never believe that your childhood is just a memory that has no e�ect on your adult life. It not only has an e�ect, it IS the e�ect. That’s because as a collective body of instruction, your brain’s synaptic connections form a kind of “machine” that has a life of it’s own.

It works actively in real time to respond to present day events and connect them to childhood events. In the case of the Chaos Neighbor-hood, the connection to chaos means that you will be literally taken over in the moment to relive what you saw your parents do. In other words, you will handle the situation exactly the way they did and you’ll have no idea you’re doing it.

The Chaos zone is the worst place to grow up. This is where kids

experience various combinations of emotional or physical abuse, divorce, abandonment and other traumatic events during those �rst 10 years while their brain was forming. If your spouse was raised in the Chaos Neighborhood, you must treat him or her di�erently than you would a ‘normal spouse’ or even a Twilight Zone spouse when they reach the point where they want to end your marriage.

Let’s look at how you should alter your plans according to where your mate was raised.

WHAT TO DO IF YOUR SPOUSE WAS RAISED IN THE PURPOSE NEIGH-BORHOODIf you married a man or woman who grew up in the purpose neighborhood, they have programs in their brain that cause them to believe an intimate relationship is based on honesty, openness, give-and-take, forgiveness, laughter and other related positives. That’s

because people who are raised in this area of the Chaos To Purpose scale have seen all of these good things in their mom and dad’s marriage.

If your spouse was raised in this neighborhood, and you’re going through a rough patch in your marriage, the thing to do is create a surprise event for him/her.

Do something such as creating a giant card that says “Get Well”. Inside it could say something like “The opportunity of a lifetime awaits as we mend our di�erences on February 24 and 25th having fun together at XYZ event. Then attach the actual tickets to the card. Pick a comedy show with a comedian you both like, or a Laugh Your Way To A Better Marriage seminar or some other event you must travel to together. Make it a fun event you will both enjoy it. This is the way to get your spouse’s attention.

The reason you do this is because a person raised in a better home is more �exible and more willing to solve di�erences in constructive ways. He or she is emotionally secure as a person and that means emotionally �exible and less prone to be angry or hold long grudges. As we’ll see, growing up in the other two zones creates a big void in emotional security that could have allowed more successful problem solving when it comes to emotions and the intimate relation-ship.

If your spouse is a woman raised in a Purpose home:Your wife wants you to create a stable life, make her feel safe (�nancially and emotionally), and �nally she wants you to make her feel she is FIRST, not second in your life. If you did not make her feel safe as your �rst priority, then you need to �x that as soon as possible. Going to an upbeat weekend marriage event is a great way raise your awareness together and see each other in a new way.

If your spouse is a man raised in a Purpose home:

Your husband wants you to tell him how good he is at all the things he does, give him free time for his sel�sh pursuits without guilt and make him feel that he ful�lls you sexually (you should pursue him sexually). If you ended up putting all your time and interest into your children, career or social circle, then you need to �x this right away. Get your husband to attend a positive and upbeat marriage event to mend those broken fences in your marriage and set aside some special time for the two of you.

You can do this because of one thing; the Purpose homes you grew up in…80% to 100% on the Chaos To Purpose Scale, means that you can easily �x any relationship problem together. You both have the good “brain software” to do it. But if you were raised in a Purpose home, yet your spouse was raised in a lower zone, the read on.

WHAT TO DO IF YOUR SPOUSE WAS RAISED IN THE TWILIGHT ZONEIn sharp contrast to a spouse who grew up in the Purpose neighbor-hood, you must do something quite di�erent when you marry someone in the Twilight Zone. It’s all because of their childhood ‘source code’. Your spouse is now doing what dad or mom did to him or her but they are not aware of this. Let’s look at three ways this program-ming could have been installed.

In the Twilight Zone, your spouse might have been programmed in their childhood to live one of three ways:1-To be a victim2-To be emotionally disconnected3-To be confrontational

THE VICTIM SPOUSEA victim spouse believes that life is a deck stacked against them and it can’t be won. They are programmed to give up and be victimized by forces they can’t

control. They attract victim circum-stances where they always some-how end up getting the short end of the stick. The more you press with urgency about your future relationship, the more he/she will feel like a victim of yours.You didn’t see this coming – and without realizing it - you’ve become the physical source of your spouse’s emotional pain (their victim-ness). You certainly are not, but it doesn’t matter because your spouse believes you are.

A victim spouse needs you to work at making them feel safe with you. Physically safe and emotionally safe. Victim spouses saw their program-mers expect bad things around every turn, so if you really do love this person, SAFETY is the key. That means taking time to remind them and show them that everything is going to turn out ok. Remind them that they are valuable. Every problem can be solved. The victim needs ongoing reassurance and lots of patience.

THE EMOTIONALLY DISCON-NECTED SPOUSEIf your spouse was programmed to be emotionally disconnected, then you may have noticed that it was di�cult to get close, to talk about di�cult subjects without a bad emotional reaction or shutting down. That is the mark of a person programmed in childhood for emotional disconnection. This is also the person who shuts down when there is any sign of con�ict.

Begin to think about all the ways you have not created safety. Yelling,

being critical, judging, sarcasm, all contribute to increasing the message that your dad cut you o� and so am I. If any of this came out of you, making this person safe is your top priority. It will require a lot of focus on your part to change your ways of relating to your emotionally disconnected spouse.

FOR THE VICTIM AND EMOTION-ALLY DISCONNECTED SPOUSE: MAKE YOURSELF SCARCEBecause of the programming found in the Twilight Zone childhood, even while you make your spouse feel safe when you can, you must also act to make yourself scarce.

Don’t be so available for telephone calls, don’t text and don’t appear places where your spouse is. Plan on doing this for eight weeks in a low key and relaxed way. You are creating a “You Vacuum” so he/she feels something important has gone missing. Just don’t be so present so often.

I’m saying this because you have been turned into the physical source of all of your spouse’s emotional pain which means that every time you speak or act in typical habits you’ve had, the pain will increase in your spouse.

To Become Scarce;1-Don’t be so present in your spouse’s life.2-Keep your distance for 8 weeks.3-Don’t keep checking on your spouse and never check cell phone records, and don’t ask friends for information.4-If you are to give your spouse a

real vacation from you, then be serious about it and �nd other things to do. (If you keep reappear-ing, you’ll continue reinforcing that you are the source of pain.)

WHY MAKE YOURSELF SCARCE?If you’re not occupying your spouse’s every waking thought, won’t they just forget about you? This is a common fear when I give this advice to people whose spouses are running away. They try to involve themselves in their spouse’s lives too much, and they fear loss.

By creating a sudden “You Vacuum”, your spouse (raised in the Twilight Zone), will start to wake up that YOU are gone. THE PAIN IS STILL THERE but it takes about two months for them to realize that.

These two months are not time to work on any kind of marriage. You’re in no shape and your spouse is in no shape to work on your marriage. Now is the time to fall back and retreat.

After the two months is over, you can initiate a small amount of

contact such as a single text with the line “Are you still there? – Me.” Wait for the response. Even if it’s more than a week. Don’t send any long messages during these two months. Remember, you’re giving your spouse a kind of vacation from you. You’re giving your emotionally disconnected spouse the opportu-nity to realize that “My spouse I thought was the source of my pain, must not be the source because he/she hasn’t been around, yet I still hurt.”

Look back in the recent past and you will see that one of you was gradually disconnecting from the other. One of you was gradually making your “thing” (children, career, friends, etc.) more important than the person you married. You may not have noticed but that’s what was happening in your spouse’s eyes. If that was you, now is NOT the time to smother your victim or emotionally disconnected spouse with words of a�rmation and a�ection.

THE CONFRONTATIONAL SPOUSEIf your spouse was programmed to be confrontational, as in; “Prove you love me! Fight back!”, then your spouse is being pushed from within to create con�ict in order to prove there is love.In his or her mind, con�ict equals love.

This is a person who would get mad at you in a variety of situations because the program in their brain requires them to. Depending on where you were raised, this is a real challenge that requires professional

help. By professional help, I mean you need a Marriage and Family Therapist who is trained and certi�ed to work successfully with feuding couples. This is no easy job and any therapist will not do. Here is the link to �nd certi�ed members of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy.

https://www.aamft.org/iMIS15/AAMFT/Content/Directories/Locator_Terms_of_Use.aspx

IF YOUR SPOUSE WAS RAISED IN THE CHAOS NEIGHBORHOODThis Chaos Neighborhood is troubling. Let’s look at what your spouse experienced: Some combi-nation of emotional abuse, divorce, abandonment, physical abuse and other traumatic events during those �rst 10 years at the hands of some very troubled adults.

Dealing with a Chaos Kid is not like dealing with the other two zones described above. In other words, if you are married to a man/woman who was raised in the Chaos Neighborhood, you are “Not in Kansas anymore.”

You are de�nitely in the land of OZ. You are in an entirely new and strange surrounding with a whole new set of rules. That’s because when this adult has his or her childhood come after them with a vengeance, you will NOT see the person you married. The point when your spouse falls prey to their ‘dark side’ and enters into a midlife crisis is when you see the sudden transition from the person you fell

in love with to someone you can barely recognize.

SAVING YOUR SPOUSE FROM THE MONSTER WITHINSince struggling marriages contain RESENTMENT, one of the �rst skills you will need is to control your own negative feelings. With your nega-tive feelings out of the way, it’s MUCH EASIER for you to do the GOOD you are learning to do.

Without this skill, the resistence to creating positive vibrations for your spouse may be more than you can accomplish leading to a lack of e�ort and eventually….a FAILED MARRIAGE. -Larry Bilotta-

P.S.If you’re thinking to yourself things like “My spouse would never meet my needs, is involved with some-one else, is hostile to me, then you should be aware of the 5 signs of a midlife crisis:

5 Signs of A Midlife Crisis:1-They say what they don’t mean, and what they mean, they don’t say.2-Their needs are more important than yours.3-They sell themselves as someone they are not.4-Any good thing you do or say they take as a threat.5-They want what they can’t have and what they have, they don’t want.

Listen to my free teleclass to get clarity on what you can expect should your spouse be in a midlife crisis now. In the teleclass I cover the 2 rules that if broken, can add fuel to the �re, sabotage your marriage and put you on the fast track to divorce. This Tele-Class will show you how to weather the storm and shorten your spouse’s midlife crisis. Listen to the free audio teleclass at:surviveamidlifecrisis.com/teleclass

P.S.SIf you have lost your spouse’s heart, but are still committed to winning them back without his/her coopera-tion, watch my free one hour video presentation to end your anxiety and �nd calm in the middle of chaos without manipulative or controlling behavior. This video is based on what I used to stay happily married over 40 years in this age of divorce.

Watch The Video Presentation Here:FOR MEN: top20questions.com/menFOR WOMEN: top20questions.com/women

Zone 1Zone 2Zone 3Zone 4Zone 5Zone 6Zone 7

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