Quote: I do understand what you are saying...but do you realize that we are going off of what you write? You say it's not as bad as we make it seem...we're only interpereting what you write.
That’s exactly why I’ve tried to repeatedly point out that it’s not as bad as it sounds. That’s why in the past I’ve made a point of saying that we really do get along very well the vast majority of the time. We have similar views and tastes in most areas. Generally speaking, we seem to compliment each other very well. I suspect that there are deeper issues like lack of respect and the NPD, but there are really only about four sticking points: sex, money, animals, and anger. And her temper and anger are much better. She seems to be perpetually mad at one of the kids, but she usually vents at me instead of going off on them. That really doesn’t bother me; I usually just switch on the auto-pilot, she rants and gets it out of her system, and we’re OK after that. In any case, anger is something W did address with the C and she’s much, much better than she was way back when.
Unfortunately, when we come here we all tend to talk almost exclusively about the problems in our R’s, not what‘s good. We may start off with, “H is such a good provider and such a good father to our kids” or, “W is the most kind and thoughtful person I’ve ever met” but then we go on to the problems. And we dwell on the problems. After all, that’s why we’re here. I gave a big list of good things about W to JJ back in her MM days. W and I share values, religious views, and tastes in most everything but music. She’s outgoing and friendly. She’s kind and generous to a fault. She’s taken on D17’s BF as her current project. She’s opened a bank account and is beating the bushes to raise money to buy him a van and have a lift and hand controls installed in it. Like I said on another thread not too long ago, if you were to meet her socially you would like her. You would have no idea that we have the problems that we do. She’s quite gregarious and is very likeable. She’s intelligent and well-read. Let me just say that aside from the aforementioned issues, we get along great.
The NPD does cause problems. The lack of sex and the overabundance of animals and her focus on them cause problems. But so far, I still feel like the good outweighs the bad.
