Quote: JJ.....do you think on some level you accept this behavior because your mom was verbally abusive?? So his behavior just is something you are use to?
Not exactly. I think part of the problem is I am way more afraid of being like my Mom than I am afraid of being treated the way she treated me. I am kind of relieved and amazed that even though my H has pushed just about every button imaginable, I still haven't crossed the line and become verbally abusive myself.
In "Great Expectations" by Dickens. The boy, Pip, lives with his ill-tempered older sister and her ineffectual husband. Pip and the husband both suffer much abuse from his sister. Pip is unable to do much about this because he is a child and the husband is unable to do much about it because he grew up in a household in which his father physically abused his mother and he vowed never to treat a woman that way himself, so poor Pip is left undefended. The best his kindly but wimpy brother-in-law can do is suggest to Pip that he ought to run away from home.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
