Annette1
Jedi
This was a very informative and powerful session and reading the responses was very interesting and informative as well. Thank you, Laura, for having the courage and wisdom to post this session and the background.
Over the years, I've observed the relationships of friends and acquaintances. I've listened to their laments about their spouses or significant others. I've often wondered how and/or why they remain together. When I was about thirteen and involved in a rather heated argument with my mother with regard to my mother's significant other, (he refused to marry her citing his reason had to do with her/our ethnic background), I lashed out at her for admonishing us to "try and get along with him" (there was no "getting along with him"; he would beat the crap out of us for not wanting to play a card game with him). My mother was busy hiding the fact that he was currently in jail for petty larceny and I wanted her to know that I knew precisely where he was, so I flippantly said to her that only animals were put in cages. Whereupon my mother went into her usual pity ploy and began weeping and saying that she loved him. It was a rather strange situation.
I can tell you that at that moment I was thinking to myself, "so what am I? Chopped liver? I'm your kid and it's perfectly fine for him to beat me up, attempt to molest me, and I'm supposed to accept all this because you love him?" But my goal at the time wasn't to force my mother to chose her children over some psychopathic maniac, my goal was to get my mother back, the person I once knew (or more like thought I knew). I was attempting to make her realize that normal human beings don't behave like this. Long story short, nothing I or my siblings said or did ever got through to her and this continued for 10 years.
Sometimes one can learn lessons from observing others and in this case I did have a ringside seat.
I've been married twice; once for 10 years and once for five years. I've been single now for 17 years. I was never quick to jump into a relationship and once in one, I was more comfortable in proceeding slowly. I've met a few people along the way, but generally speaking, early on I could discern that delving into an involved relationship was not going to work based on what I learned about the person and what I knew about myself. Most recently, (within the past five years), the first and foremost criteria for me is, "are you awake?" That old bible admonishment, "do not become unevenly yoked", reverberates in my head. Sure, it would be nice to meet someone on the same page, but I'm not actively seeking someone. And, to be realistic about it, I'm not a real socially active person and rather on the quiet side. However, I prefer being single rather than in some hellish nightmare of a relationship and doing some sort of mental gymnastics to maintain such a relationship. At this point, to become involved in such a relationship would be like knowingly choosing to go back to sleep.
Over the years, I've observed the relationships of friends and acquaintances. I've listened to their laments about their spouses or significant others. I've often wondered how and/or why they remain together. When I was about thirteen and involved in a rather heated argument with my mother with regard to my mother's significant other, (he refused to marry her citing his reason had to do with her/our ethnic background), I lashed out at her for admonishing us to "try and get along with him" (there was no "getting along with him"; he would beat the crap out of us for not wanting to play a card game with him). My mother was busy hiding the fact that he was currently in jail for petty larceny and I wanted her to know that I knew precisely where he was, so I flippantly said to her that only animals were put in cages. Whereupon my mother went into her usual pity ploy and began weeping and saying that she loved him. It was a rather strange situation.
I can tell you that at that moment I was thinking to myself, "so what am I? Chopped liver? I'm your kid and it's perfectly fine for him to beat me up, attempt to molest me, and I'm supposed to accept all this because you love him?" But my goal at the time wasn't to force my mother to chose her children over some psychopathic maniac, my goal was to get my mother back, the person I once knew (or more like thought I knew). I was attempting to make her realize that normal human beings don't behave like this. Long story short, nothing I or my siblings said or did ever got through to her and this continued for 10 years.
Sometimes one can learn lessons from observing others and in this case I did have a ringside seat.
I've been married twice; once for 10 years and once for five years. I've been single now for 17 years. I was never quick to jump into a relationship and once in one, I was more comfortable in proceeding slowly. I've met a few people along the way, but generally speaking, early on I could discern that delving into an involved relationship was not going to work based on what I learned about the person and what I knew about myself. Most recently, (within the past five years), the first and foremost criteria for me is, "are you awake?" That old bible admonishment, "do not become unevenly yoked", reverberates in my head. Sure, it would be nice to meet someone on the same page, but I'm not actively seeking someone. And, to be realistic about it, I'm not a real socially active person and rather on the quiet side. However, I prefer being single rather than in some hellish nightmare of a relationship and doing some sort of mental gymnastics to maintain such a relationship. At this point, to become involved in such a relationship would be like knowingly choosing to go back to sleep.