Failure to finish growing up gives people skewed views on reality, unrealistic expectations of how they think life should be versus handling the bumps that are inevitable in the grown up world.
Thanks CD Bear. That statement in particular describes exactly how I view my wife's behavior over the last year. I think I've shared this part of my wife's history on here somewhere, but I'd like to point it out again. When my wife was in her early 20's she got involved with a married man, and was 'with him' for over two years. I met her while she was still seeing him. She actually became pregnant by this man twice and aborted both pregnancies. I'll spare you all the other gory details. Long story short, when we met and knew that we liked each other, she gladly broke up with him, and told me on many occasions that she knew it was immoral to date a married man, knew what she was doing was wrong, etc... In hindsight, there's one thing that I should have tuned into very early in my relationship with her. At one point, when her and I were becoming friends and beginning to like each other, but she was still seeing him, I pressed her on "How could she date a married man, knowing that he had a wife and daughter." Her rationale and explanation to me was, "Well, I was in love with him. There's nothing wrong with what I was doing because I really loved him, and he loved me." Like I said, this was when she was in her early/mid 20's, and when I was just getting to know her.
When she knew she loved me, she broke up with me, saw the moral mistakes she was making (or, so I thought...), and, like I said above, admitted to me as much on many occasions. Should have been a done deal right? In my mind that there should have been an experience that should have been burned into her heart and mind permanently as a moral mistake she would never repeat ever again. After all, hard experiences like that (i.e. two aborted pregnancies from a married man) should teach you a permanent life lesson about 'growing up' right?
As I've learned the hard way over the last year+ that isn't the case. My wife apparently didn't finish 'growing up' from that mind set, and is now repeating her history all over again. But now, the damage is far worse. In the past experience she was single and, as painful as it was to all involved, it only impacted one family, and herself as an individual. Now, two families...with children...have been hugely impacted by her and DJ's selfish choices, one idiot 12,000 miles was stupid enough to divorce his wife to pursue mine, and my wife appears on the verge of doing the same. The damage is far, far worse. This repeat experience (on her part) made me realize that something must have happened in her childhood to make her get stuck in a certain mind-set (It's the "There's nothing immoral about what I'm doing because it's love" mind-set) and repeat the same mistake twice, with far greater damage and consequences this second time aroung. I figure that maybe one of her parents had an affair when my wife was very young, and my wife buried it and never processed it properly. Man, this sucks.....
Quote:
A MLC develops when a hurt person is unable to confront the truth about their past.
This quote from Cyrena in another thread on 'the final stages...withdrawal to acceptance' really resonated with me on a deep level.
