They said they were sorry, and they jumped to conclusions, and they were dumb, and they didn't know.
This was a nice change from the I-made-a-vow-and-I-couldn't-have-known-because-you-lied-so-of-course-I-took-his-side onslaught of the past six months.
There is still much to explain.
They do not understand what I can only refer to in governmenty terms as "the dynamics of family violence", although there has been no physical violence in my home. They are confused about why anyone would target a family member to maintain power and control. They cannot understand why one person could be targeted while others are perfectly safe.
I have taken to shouting: "NO. IT IS ONLY ME. I AM THE ONLY ONE HE WOULD DO THAT TO. HE WOULD ONLY DO THAT TO SOMEONE ELSE IF HE INTENDED TO HURT ME. MAYBE YOU SHOULD GOOGLE 'FAMILY VIOLENCE'."
I suppose it is easier to not understand if understanding means realizing you stood in the room, watched it play out, and then took pains to make it known who deserved everyone's support.
I have a hard time accepting that my parents, with all of their life experiences, can have difficulty with this. But perhaps we all have things to understand.
Life experience is not the same as experience in malice and treachery, unfortunately. They're good people, cut them some slack, some of this is happening to them too.
ReplyDeleteI don't know. I'm not especially experienced in malice and treachery and am much more likely to accept someone's flaws at face value than most people, but if one person is doing all the attacking and the other all the defense, even I start to question a power imbalance. Blindness can be willful.
ReplyDeleteCutting slack is only good for you if you truly give up on being wronged. Otherwise you are lying again to keep the peace.
And I meant to mention:
ReplyDeleteI'm glad they've let up on their defensive posture. Yay, progress!
What Anne said.
ReplyDeleteIt's sad that they've taken this long to realize that, hey, just maybe you might know what's going on in your own marriage better than they do and that you have very good reasons for taking the actions that you have. But at least they may finally be getting it. For some people, that realization never happens. For your sake, I'm happy it's happening with them.