melissa

[labug]

UD, no nerves were damaged in the writing of these posts. I was presenting the other side and thought is was amusing that my story and your H's story were similar. I didn't think you were implying he didn't love them, I was speaking from my truth. Sometimes new posters/readers here tend to pick out certain things about their Ss and then conflagrate that. I know I certainly did. I was thinking more in terms of we all have annoying, sometime hurtful, idiosyncracies; that doesn't mean that's who we are. There are 2 sides to every coin.

We're all more alike than we are different and finding those commonalities has helped me with empathy and forgiveness.

As I said, I think everyone needs therapy. And I'm serious about that even tho it seems hyperbolic. Yes, I have had many defining moments with my mother thorough my life, I distanced my self geographically and emotionally from my FOO, I've been working through that for years. I'm finally to a place where I can forgive my mother, doesn't mean I condone her actions, but I don't have to carry that rock anymore. It's hers.

I had to get to a place where I could see her clearly and understand that she was as much a product of her programming as I was of mine. I eventually (it took a long time with me kicking and screaming, helped by BD) "seized" the opportunity to change. She didn't have that opportunity.

I believe Melissa should address his lack of empathy with him but how that's approached is key to getting what she seeks, which I think is for him to hear her. It's a matter of doing it from a place of empathy and compassion or a place of blame and shame.

I've been married 35 years and it took me 33 years to learn that.

Melissa's H isn't here trying to improve, Melissa is. We can wish our spouses would change but as my aunt used to say "Wish in one had and spit in the other, see which one gets full fastest."

So we're left with changing the only person we can change.