It seems so easier for me to embrace the differences of coworkers, my kids, my family. For my W, I don't know if it is the differences alone...it's like she's the PC and I'm the MAC just like in most marriages, but that when we come to a point of difference, she blue-screens and shuts down. On top, I'm looking at the damage of all those shut downs and it looks very wrong. For example, she's right now going to buy something at a store without knowing the address, not having a map or cell phone, even though I had given her the address and tried to show her a map.
I guess one suggestion I'm hearing is to love her without the conditions. I do try, but then something like that happens, and I think wow, she's stu**d. With kids, I blame their age or my bad parenting/teaching. Parents? They grew up in a different time.
A spouse? That's one area I feel like I'm in MLC, I realize now that she's just going to be this way forever. IC might deal with the "blue screen" shutdown, but is that enough?
I LOVE your playground analogy. I'd add a religious layer to say it is a supervised playground, but I'll see if I can take the differences less seriously.
