Divorce not busted 2

[Kettricken]

I'm agreeing with Gucci again, a lot. Scary stuff, Maynard.

That last post, about the hazards of feeding a woman sexual validation to bolster her self-image in a troubled relationship where there's no chance of sex actually happening .... Spot. On. Talk about a perfect way to paint yourself into a more-of-the-same corner ....

Ditto on the "who knows ya, baby?" post. With the caveat that IF you have really done your homework and thought seriously about such things as your spouse's LLs, what DIDN'T work in the past and what might therefore be a productive 180, etc ... then you MAY be in a better position to judge what would be effective than outsiders might. BUT that's a really stupid thing to *assume*, because those Emotionally-Charged-Blindness goggles are but THICK, man.

I just wanted to give the "me too" to Sandi's thoughts on unconditional love, too. Especially the bit about how letting anyone get away with really poor behavior is NOT loving. When you reward bad behavior, you reinforce it. Even in adults. How is that truly *loving*, long term? At what point do you become an accomplice through acquiescence?

It's spooky how much I find my personal philosophy articulated in science fiction, but I always thought Orson Scott Card expressed it well:

"The nicest thing we could do for Achilles (the villain of the piece) would be to post our address on the nets and wait for him to send someone to kill us."

"Don't be absurd," said Carlotta. "Christ said be *good* to your enemies. It wouldn't be good for Achilles to find us, because then he'd kill us and have even more murders to answer for before the judgment bar of God. The best thing we can do for Achilles is to keep him from killing us. And if we love him, we'll stop him from ruling the world while we're at it, since power like that would only compound his opportunities to sin."

It's one thing to not return evil for evil. It's quite another to assume the role of willing victim. Somewhere in the middle is real love.