You know, I can take some pity on a person for having a damaged upbringing -- my own ex had/has a flake of a self-serving mother and an alcoholic, mentally-vacant father -- but at some point each and everyone of us needs to take responsibility for the person we are today, who we choose to be, for our own words and deeds. Nor can one blame their faults on those they hang out with -- if you hang out with the wrong crowd, then that's your responsibility.
But I do agree with you, Karen, that often our spouses become better people through their relationships with us, for however long that lasts. My ex when we were dating told me many a time that she was proud of herself for choosing to be with me, for being with someone who for once would not treat her badly, unlike so many former boyfriends before.
It's funny how the history revision she spouts today reverses all that. She now claims that from the very beginning of our R she had to tolerate my "insufferable" personality and mannerisms, how I would always try to suppress her own thoughts and true personality.
What that tells me is that she has been a stupendous liar either now or in the past -- either way, in the end, it just proves she's just a stupendous liar.
So I tend to agree that perhaps she was indeed a much better person during the time we both tried to maintain our R. I look at what she does now, the very things she used to hold in such disdain and contempt -- carousing in bars with her new circle of "friends", drinking and carrying on like she has no need of acting like a responsible adult with two small children (things she would have chastised me for had I ever even so much as suggested such activities when we were married) -- and can see how far she's fallen with our R now dead and buried. Such a complete hypocrite she is.
