Ground Hog Day WAW #18

[hoosiermama]

Phil, you're blaming me for all kinds of things I haven't done--in fact, that I have tried very hard not to do. I will own up to my failings, but I won't admit to attitudes and responses that you are projecting onto me in order to vilify me. Not out of pride, but because I just won't enable that. Because it isn't helpful to you.

I am not being confrontational; I am trying to help you understand. I am not being passive-aggressive--on the contrary, I have been very direct. I haven't tried to upset you; I have tried, on occasion, to get your attention because you have engaged in some harmful behavior. I cannot take blame for your defensiveness to the help I offered, because I have tried my hardest to speak to you in a way you could hear me, and I did it with good will. I am not poking or prodding here; I have done that in the past in order to lift up for you the behaviors that are counterproductive and harmful. Not to back you in the corner like a sick wet rat. I am very sorry you feel that way, but if I told you that you were a sad and sorry victim and doing everything right that would be do nothing more than bolster your ego, not help you to help your family. At some point you will find it helpful to understand that your perceptions and defensiveness are choices you make. And the way you choose to respond out of that defensiveness results in "problem behavior." Here and in your life. This isn't psychobabble, it is what I have learned from a lifetime of hard lessons. It isn't from Freud or Jung or anyone else. I don't know what you mean by taking this psychobabble and showing it's okay; what I'm saying is pretty much what others have said, so most seem to think it's okay because we see it the same way.

Yes, you do have plenty on your plate. But none of us has demanded that you be here or that you wrestle with us, or even that you keep up with talking to us or talk this to death. Phil, it's your decision to be here.

When you use your Catholicism to judge, condemn, and belittle others whose faith and relationship with God has a different denominational name--that is using it as a weapon. It is using the Church's name in vain to put yourself above others, to strike at their hearts. Please don't do that with our church, Phil. Because it pushes people away, and we're really not supposed to do that.

Faith/religion and psychology are not enemies, Phil. Jesus was a great psychologist--he understood what people needed, and how to speak to them. It helps us understand each other. I am sorry that you have apparently encountered people who have seemed to make psychology a new religion. But you're throwing out the baby with the bathwater, and condemning some tools of understanding that could be very helpful in dealing with your wife. You have talked about her having OCD, ADD, bipolar--that's psychology. You're kind of taking it out of context and picking and choosing what you use and what you think is bs, but calling it all bs.

I am sorry you feel bogged down. Like Puppy, sometimes I do feel led to post to you. You just have such a tendency to react without thinking through. Phil, with just a little insight and understanding you can turn your situation around.