[ What you are doing in terms of enforcinging your boundaries is fine, but I wonder if what she needs is real help because her issues seem to run far deeper than you and her.
After the last time 3 years ago she was seeing a therapist. I thought she 'got it' finally and was giving her time and space to re-integrate into the family.
Sadly, I was wrong. My life pressures went into overload a year later, and she hadn't changed. I posted stuff here about that back then. How I was wondering how much longer I was going to have to 'carry this relationship'.
I just couldn't believe things were still the same.
So I deteriorated and couldn't support her any more. And she couldn't support me as I deteriorated.
Now, I know better. I've bottomed out and have no choice but to fight for my life. She is living her fantasy life. Yeah she's pretty broke but this is what she said she wanted.
I know Amy and others are 'right' in that I do dish out 'reality' in 'baby steps'.
I got an email from David Cunninghams website that was about a man who's wife had no self esteem because she hadn't accomplished anything in her life. She is 40 something and needed to go 'find herself'.
He being a strong mature man let her go. He told her that she needed to grow up and have a life before she was going to be able to share one with him, and that reconciliation wasn't an option until she had grown enough to feel good about herself and be able to enjoy his company instead of being dependent on it.
Months went by where she behaved with immaturity and fabrication of events. Eventually she seems to be coming out of the fog and hints at reconciliation.
David makes a reference to the concept of 'Justice'. "Justice" isn't about law, or necessarily even about punishment. It's about getting what one deserves - what he or she has earned by virtue of their choices and actions, good, bad or indifferent.
He refers to Julius Caesar's father-in-law, a Roman statesman by name of Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus who said:
Let justice be done, though the heavens fall.
What Caesoninus was saying was that they should do what was just, even if it upset and destroyed the natural order of things, in his case, the unseating of some powerful people, in our reader's case, hearing something that was other than what he wanted to hear.
Quote:
A real man knows that no matter what happens, if it is realistic and just, he can build upon it and make improvement and progress, even if he has to rebuild from ruins. He doesn't like or try to create mayhem, but if that's the only way that he and those around them can get what they deserve, good, bad, or indifferent, he's prepared to go that route, because his word, his character, and his self-respect are important to him.
This is how he sleeps well at night, and why he wakes up each morning looking forward to the day, no matter what the previous day held or this day holds. It is the guardian of his self-esteem, and the polish on the tools of his achievement: intellect, character, and confidence.
In some ways I am denying myself 'justice' because I do not want to destroy what is, so that I can build anew. But 'what is' goes against my personal code of values.
I have a sense of justice and strong character. It is the foundation of who I am and the choices I make haven't been true to that. I needed this reminder to know that what I need to do is right.
