Believe me I understand what you are saying but it's just not that cut and dried. Looking back through these years I see that we like the LBS also have a pretty similar script that we follow in our reactions. That's why we're able to get such good advice on here, we've all been there done that.
In the beginning everyone of my real life friends said, "you need to get mad", but I couldn't. It took 3 1/2 years until the reality of what was finally kicked in and made me stand up to a very screwed-up ex, but the truth is neither scenario really changed a thing. The only difference in my being "nice" was that it let him off the hook and lessened his guilt. I see that very clearly in the way this has panned out for fib as well as most others here.
