On the way home from work tonite (I seem to do my best reflecting during the commute home for some reason) , I had sorta a revelation I think into what may drive our S to move forward as like nothing ever happened.

Basically, it is a defense mechanism that our S's use to avoid the guilt that they must feel for knowing they have caused us such hurt. Understandably, the feelings associated with that guilt must s*ck just like our feeling about being betrayed. They don't want to keep feeling that way, so it probably works for them to pretend it never happen. It continues to work for them as long as we "play" along by not making any references to the betrayal ... and there lies our catch-22 ... because we continue measure their actions now in reference to their betrayal as our defense mechanism (DM) to prevent the possibility of being hurt again. Unfortuantely, our DM appears to be not very affective and doesn't work, because in order for it to work it would mean a breakdown in their DM, which will make them feel like crap.

I hope that made some sense?! Do others agree?
If so, there seems to be a conflict of interest in each others DM being used to help deal with the hurt. If this is the case, it seems we need to discover another means to nuture the healing. Any ideas on what these means could be?
The obvious one would be in MC where both can feel safe enough to let their DM's down to work together on the healing process, but what can be done when S doesn't want to participate in C for whatever reason?

LL, I hope you don't mind me placing this here, but I hope we can both benefit from any advise given on this and it was your post that got me thinking along these lines.

'til later,
KAW