Cold Diff. cont.

[fearless]

Cobra,

I've read your other posts but I'll just start off with your first one post.

1)No I do not agree with your premise. I do not believe that if I meet one spouse I can assume the other spouse is at the same differentiation level. For me I believe this may happen "often" but I am unsure of what percentage it is and it is not a high enough percentage for me to make that assumption. Of course I am not even sure how many "levels" of differentiation there are.
2)Closer in agreement but not quite. In a closed loop absolute situation of a+b=c, I agree you only need 2 of the three variables to figure out the remaining one. However in psychology it does not seem as simple, clear and absolute as a+b=c. It seems that you have different interactions to account for and exponential reactions. Plus it is difficult to have an absolute a, b, and c in psychology. You can have 2 people with abandonment issues but they might not exhibit the EXACT same behaviors so their "c" is not exactly the same. Also they may have a similar "a" contributor but again similar and not exact so therefore would their "b" factor necessarily be the same? I would say not necessarily so. It could be but I would not feel confident that it was. Especially considering there are many more than 2 factors adding into how their abandonment issue developed and is exhibited.

I do agree that by talking to one spouse you can understand SOME of what is going on in a marriage but I am not sure why you need your 2 premises to come to that conclusion.

I will agree that talking to both spouses can help give more information to the issues at play.

I will agree that if someone exhibits abandonment issues, then likely something happened to cause that condition.

I also agree that as humans we are not fully credible or reliable witnesses because we have tinted lenses, biases, personal weaknesses, etc. So I believe that we have to be open minded to the possibility of seeing things from another angle if we have any hope of not closing ourselves off. I am a problem solver by nature and as a consultant I have to constantly get clients to open up their eyes to seeing things differently. It is not easy for consultants and we have to watch that we are not drawn into someone's personal view of what is going on in their plant.

This is the heart of denial. It is not intentional. It is not conscious. It just is.

I guess I agree that many times denial is basically unintentional and not conscious but I still have a nagging feeling that while specific and occasional denial is unintentional, the overall tendency toward denial and the propensity to allow yourself the cover of denial is somewhat purposeful as a protection mechanism. In general, the people that I see that express the least denial are also the ones that are the most confident. In general, those that express the greatest denial are the ones that are the most insecure.

There is a very interesting book called "Mistakes were made but not by me" that discusses some reasons behind denial. Also a book called "Why good people do bad things" talks about things along these lines too.

Until you know otherwise, what you know of your past is what you know.

I am not sure if the last paragraph is directed specifically at me or not. I will answer as if it was. Have you been assuming that I have not spent the last 20 years reviewing and reevaluating what I know about myself and my family? Have you assumed that I do not understand that it takes a lot of painful work to see things? I have been reviewing and reevaluating even when it is difficult and I will continue to look at myself and family. As I age I see things differently and my family changes and our relationship changes also.

Until that programming is changed, the "truth" looks just like an attack. Does this much make sense?

Are you saying that I "perceive" you as attacking me merely because you are showing me the "truth?" I perceived you as "attacking" me (more of attempting to discredit me to deflect away from my POV) because of the way you avoid answering my direct comments or questions to you and start asking me "Why did you XH leave you?" To me that does not appear to be searching for the truth but to be deflecting away from an argument that is not going the direction you want it to go.

Additionally you bring up why my XH had an affair and left me and what did I do or not do that caused it. I have told you that our MC/my IC along with my XH has answered that question. Frank Pittman also answered that question in his description of the Romantic affair. He even states that good marriages are equally as vulnerable to the romantic affair because it is brought on by the betrayer's own personal issues and the "good" marriage is not enough to "fix" that person's issues. Should I ignore experts, our MC and my XH???