Because I recognize the fact that I have some definite issues with allowing myself to be vulnerable, I have been thinking quite a bit about the difference between vulnerable and weak. I have not solved the riddle but I am pretty certain that you can't be vulnerable when you are feeling weak. Gandhi made himself vulnerable. A mother bear protecting her cubs will make herself vulnerable. Martin Luther King made himself vulnerable. A playwright who threw herself heart and soul into her work is vulnerable to criticism on opening night. If she is differentiated she will know how to hold on to herself, ride her boats over the waves, when the criticism arrives but that doesn't change her essential vulnerability. So if Chrome is essentially feeling weak he will not be able to allow himself to be vulnerable.
I've been kicking this around in my head, and it may just be a semantic over-distinction .... but isn't there a world of difference between *feeling* weak and *being* weak?
I think everyone even vaguely self-aware has periods of feeling weak, tapped out, discouraged, worn down, unequal to the challenge. Comes with the prefrontal cortex, innit? It doesn't mean you *are* weak, overall, or even perceive yourself that way as a rule ...
OTOH, people who *are* weak (or just fundamentally believe they are) spend a lot of their time fighting off both vulnerability and accountability with any weapon they can find. Who hasn't known someone who has completely garbaged up their life and is overflowing with self-loathing but seems to spend all their energies in a spirited, often vicious, defense of their actions and pursuit of more and more fanciful reasons why none of it was their fault? They are so overwhelmed by their weakness and lack of internal confidence that they can't possibly bear to show vulnerability and give up the facade as far as others are concerned. (I should say, with reference to the previous sentence at least, BTDT.)
It takes a healthily-differentiated person to truly accept and be comfortable with exposing areas of weakness without feeling the compulsion to disguise or defend them.
Thus, paradoxically, allowing (or compelling) yourself to be seen as vulnerable during periods of "feeling weak" proves your essential strength....
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Chrome, don't doubt or second-guess your own priorities as compared to your FIL's. Self-doubt leads to defensiveness which leads to anger which leads to the dark side ... whoops.. Seriously, though ... your confidence in your decisions will lend you calm.
"Show me a completely smooth operation and I'll show you someone who's covering mistakes. Real boats rock." -- Frank Herbert
