My half brother use to pull his hair out on the front of his head around the age of 11, to the point where he looked like his hair was receeding. When his dad finally got him to explain why, the reason was 'to be like you, dad'. Sheesh.
Do you know there is actually a medical term for pulling hair? I don’t remember what it is but one of my daughter’s friends does this. She wears a wig. It is completely stress and anxiety driven, by her parents.
Your W may in fact be being Disrespectful to you, but its how you react and deal with it that he is going to copy. The better you handle someone elses disrespect, the more glaringly obvious it is to everyone, including the disrespector.
I agree in part, but when the disrespect goes on and on and on my son will lose it and so will I. To solve this problem there needs to be effort on both sides. Otherwise it becomes as matter of continually subjecting yourself to bully behavior.
I would like to understand better, what is going on in the second paragraph. I understand face saving in certain … However humiliation comes from damaged pride/ego. That is the dangerous part of narcissim IMO. I dont understand how failing to own, accept and yes apologize for (I said that) REAL WRONGS can do anything but create false ego. Im curiouis what your thoughts are.
I have no disagreement with what you said. I also agree with my wife’s position that S10, or anyone else for that matter, should own their stuff and apologize. That is the logical path. Reality is that anyone who is doing something wrong is probably not realizing it and is doing it for unconscious reason. That means he person is “flawed” in some way and also likely knows this and is avoiding the fact (unconsciously of course). Putting the issue in his/her face might not bother him/her, but then it might. If it does, then the person will have a wounded ego, feel humiliated. We see this on the board all the time.
The emphasis becomes how to approach the person, how to say things, and not so much the content of what you’re saying. My son has self esteem problems. How could he not? My wife further beating up on him will not make him feel more confident about himself, even if she can somehow convince him that he is a bigger person for it. He is a kid and he is wounded. So I try to address the situation and what he did wrong, even getting in his face if he resists, but to directly address what he did wrong so that he understands.
Then I deflect the issue off of him by depersonalizing it, maybe telling a story as an example. The Japanese do a very good job of this IMO. They do not directly confront one another but tell a story or fable as an example and then let the child think it over. It sort of puts the child and the parent on the same team in analyzing some issue and trying to understand it, rather than a parent versus child confrontation of wills and egos. I do notice a completely different result when I do this with my son. Does that make sense?
… it makes sense you would get really pissed off at any hint of your W shaming your son. Its both of your touchstones.
Bingo!
Its not going to be easy for you, OR her to get past that. Lets just say, she wont ever be able to.
Not likely.
Can you?
I think I can. The difference is that I can block out the past and how she has treated me or the kids before. She still has not resolved her past resentment and holds on to it like a life buoy.
Make sense now Cobra? If not, thats the best I can explain, and thats as far as I will discuss it.
Blackfoot, I don’t mean to have pushed the issue of your reconciling with your X because I thought you were only in some state of denial (though I thought there was some of that), but at the time, there is no way for the most enlightened person in the world to understand the ramifications of such a life shattering event. Even if you can figure out the lesson to be learned, there is still the matter of incorporating those lessons, the feelings, adjusting to the new you that is being reshaped from those very events. All that takes time. There are some situations where a person can look back and say, “I did all I could do.” There are lots of others times when a person can see things they could have done differently. For normal relationships, friends, acquaintances, etc, this may not matter. But IMO you had a “soul match” type of relationship, one which you may not find again. Who knows how things might have worked out. It is just a pity to see something like that slip through your fingers. Some of us get one shot at such a relationship. If it can work out, then you have the fairy tale marriage we al like to dream about.
another ex, My ego was humiliated by my rebreather tarfu, because of the witness factor. Ego. If I had been alone, I would have laughed it off, (as much as you can laugh off clinical death) and said thats almost all 9 lives dumbass.
I don’t know what you’re talking about. Are you saying you had a near death experience while diving?
I think humiliation is a good time to check your pride motivations, and examine who you are- compared to who your ego wants you to be. Im curious what you think humiliation means, and when and why saving face is neccesary.
Again, I agree, but for a child with low esteem, confrontation of weakness and faults needs to be built up gradually until there is enough strength to face each new mistake. It is really a matter of conditioning. The examples you gave are not the same as what I or my son have experienced. I understand how you lost something with your diving accident, but you also gained something. One thing I don’t think you experienced was shame and humiliation for others, maybe from yourself.
If you are conditioned to face shame and blame each time you screw up, you will grow to learn that mistakes are bad and will result in even more pain than the pain of knowing you made the mistake in the first place. It is literally rubbing salt in the wound. You did not receive that. You received comfort and compassion. Any salt you received came from you. There is a huge difference when it comes to conditioning, especially for a child who cannot control his surroundings.
So my position is that building self esteem is the most important thing for some people, and preventing an erosion of what little esteem they may have could be as important as learning humility. Once esteem is high enough, then humility is not such a big deal. So for my son, I see face saving as a very important step for him right now. Later it will be different.
