I'm not exactly sure either although it is asking a lot to just trust H again after what happened. The resentment/anger is just a form of self-protection. If he does this again, I will have no one else to blame but myself, I feel like. "Fool me once...."
Understood, but you know not to make this into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
"You have masters degree in psychology and you are just realizing this crap."
I’m not sure how much they teach in school about relationships. My W has a bachelors in psychology and she didn’t learn squat about this. She knows about Freud, Jung, etc, but that has absolutely no value for understanding a marriage.
So true. He does build up fantasy images. He did it with us and and he certainly did it with his parents. I specifically remember when we first met that he described his family as "The Cleevers" from leave it to Beaver. I have brought up since how distorted that view was and he agrees but doesn't really see how f-ed up his thinking was. It frustrates me that he doesn't really "get it." And why did he feel he needed to present that image to me? See how the beginning of our R was based on dishonesty? Maybe not intentional, but it was fake. I hate that.
I thought it was hilarious because this "Leave it to Beaver" family was anything but. It made them real. But H still swept it under the rug. In fact, he often said in our M that were were NOT going to be like that. He insisted it would be different. But clearly that was not to be.
Be careful here. My W takes great pride in pointing out how dysfunctional my family is. It is her way of being one-up, to compensate for her shame of what her messed up family was like. Even though I understand why she does this, it doesn’t sit well with me. In fact. It still ticks me off, not because of my family’s past, but because she uses it as a weapon.
That is a good analysis. I'm still working on a strategy to get this on the right track. Please feel free to give me your suggestions.
