Although your post riled me up at first I thought about it all night. I'm a bit tired but possibly more enlightened. I can deal with the tired.
Yes your right. Although I don't think the ideals being presented by my wife are truly the ones she'll stick with. At the moment they are hers. Your also right in the fact that I do love her. And that I need to accept her as she is. In most cases I do but this thing has been a real sore spot.
Michelle's e-mail the other day hit home. The article "A word of caution about therapy". I don't know if you read it but the gist of it was that therapists cannot help but bring their own ideals into the session. The therapist we went to announced her divorce the same week we started with her. She was definitely justifying her own decisions in her "helping my wife". There was never anything remotely resembling marriage counseling. After each session I was in worse shape than the last. I walked out of those sessions an absolute wreck whether it was an individual session or a joint session. I could see the path she was leading us down and I did everything I could to divert it. I was absolutely traumatized by those sessions. I could hardly drive home from most of them. I did not learn until much later that therapy should not be like that.
As a matter of fact at my first individual session with her she worked me up into a frenzy and then closed the session after 15 minutes. Said I was so wonderful I had already worked through what needed to be done in a session. The session had consisted of her repeatedly saying things like "What's the point of trying to save your marriage, she could die in a car crash tommorrow and what would the point have been. Nothing is permanent. Why would you even try. How would things be without her"
So my point is that I'm quite certain I take immediate offense to anything that sounds like her. I can tell when my wife is qouting her and it gets to me in a really bad way. So I probably get a bit juvenile in my response.
As a matter of fact I cannot seem to bring myself to even think of any type of validating statement in regards to her. Everything that comes into my mind turns into a hateful thing. This could certainly be a strong factor in what's holding us back. Pretty damn scarred I guess.
My wife and I listen to conservative talk radio. The T is very hippie liberal (yes that's a hateful term). She's long 70's style dresses which hide her figure. Long graying hair that once was black. She could probably be very pretty but she makes herself look old and not so pretty. When there is something on the radio criticizing the liberals we both say "Damn hippie liberals". I say it quite hatefully and we both know who it is directed at when we do.
Perhaps I need to work on forgiveness. That will be a really really hard one for me. I hate that woman.
