it says straight out that people practice this blindness in order to preserve relationships on which they believe they depend. it seems as though this is lingering into adult relationships in lots of our cases and we are extending this blindness to relationships on which we only imagine we depend.... like these nasty friends and boyfriends etc.
i just thought this was some food for thought here.
ds mom
I'm sure this is the kind of thing happening with me. I know full well that I accept as 'normal' behaviours which I would not for one minute accept if aimed at my daughter. I know that, and know that it is illogical - irrational even - and yet the beliefs remain. They go very deep.
For this reason, I tolerate a lot of abusive behaviour before I complain. Even ordinary, everyday abuses, which I ought to have resilience against, and don't.
As an example, I have been asking my neighbour if I can borrow his ladder for well over a year, for a five minute repair to my guttering. Each time I remind him he says 'yes' and each time he doesn't arrive with it, and I am left feeling really terrible, and not knowing what to do or say next. We set days, and the days go. We make arrangements, and I wait, and he is too busy doing other things and it never happens.
Then last weekend we had another day arranged - Sunday. I went to his home twice and each time he was going to do it, as soon as he had finished x, y and z. Well, finally it got to half past seven at night, and I went to his house and said, this is not going to happen is it? He said, yes it is, in a little while. So I said to him, I would personally never fall out with anyone over a ladder, but it looks as if you would. When do I get to be important to you, when I have been waiting patiently now for over a year, and it still is not done? Why don't you admit that this is never going to happen?
I didn't lose my temper, and I didn't call him names. I came home, and five minutes later he knocked at my door, armed with said ladder. At first I told him to go away, but he insisted on doing the gutter for me.
Now I am left wondering why it took me being what I define as 'nasty', before he met my needs. Why was nice not the right thing to be, when it actually told him he could put me off for months on end, while my gutters continued leaking all over my wall? This is about boundaries, and about what I allowed him to do, I suppose. And also about not knowing my own strength to communicate that what is important to me is also important to him. It was only at the point of what I regard as making threats (but was in fact quite mild, I suppose) that he responded. Bizarre.
Sorry for the ramble. Thanks for the link.
