Quote: Most of you have not been through a separation. That experience will either kill the M for good and give birth to a new, better M. Lucky for us, it was the latter.
This may, in fact, be what it takes. Our other possible "success" story (i.e., LD becomes HD) is csw, who we hope is still making progress. His W all but moved out. He saw that she was capable of leaving him for another man. It jump-started his motivation to change.
Maybe it takes something that drastic.
Regarding trust-- I agree that the flip side of trust is taking someone for granted. I think we need more variations of the word "trust," kind of like the idea that Eskimos have lots of words for snow.
There's the trust where you know the person will not intentionally do you physical or emotional harm.
There's the trust where if they say they'll take the dog to the vet and make the house payment, you know they will.
There's the trust where you know they will tell you the truth-- so if they DON'T take the dog to the vet or make the house payment, at least they'll tell you. You won't just find a letter from the bank or a sicker dog a week after the task was supposed to be done.
There are probably more variations... I had a friend once about whom I used to say, "You would trust him with your life, but you wouldn't trust him to return a library book on time."
I was addressing the trust thing when I said that in spite of being abusive, ZBube's W's disregard of his desire not to have more animals showed that she trusted him. I was referring to the first type of trust. She knew he would not shoot her or the dogs. That's important. For example, Chrissy is sometimes physically afraid of her H-- if he said don't bring home something-or-other, she might put herself in danger if she defied him.
OTOH this kind of "I have you in my hip pocket and you can never surprise me" kind of trust is right next to taking someone for granted.
Honey, please try not to blame yourself too much. Being Honey is not an inherently destructive thing. I can't believe that it would have been better to hide who you are to save him from you. You're not poison.
