Axa,
I was just wondering about this (again) the other day- and there it is- in what you wrote. I, too, have always had good boundaries at work and in other situations. It's a totally different situation with my mother.
It was such a different experience to hear Hopalong say- yes- someone can make you unhappy, and it's not fashionable to say that.
On a strictly cognitive level, yes, I can see that what we tell ourselves about a situation, how we (choose) to interpret it results in how we feel about a situation, etc. And that no one is responsible for our feelings or wellbeing but ourself, etc.
But when someone causes hurt, either deliberately or unconsciously, aren't we taking responsibility we we yell "OUCH" without having to stop and ask ourselves if we're taking responsibility for our own thoughts and feelings?
I'm being simplistic, and so many of you are past connecting with that first loud OUCH, or the final one, or the accumulated ones that led to action. If I recall correctly, Axa, didn't you write somewhere that you came to a different place about your feelings related to your mother , but years later? You took responsibilty for your thoughts and feelings then, and I guess I'm saying that
you must be doing it now, too in relation to your feelings about your XN.
What a good mom you were being when you told your kids that it does not necessarily happen when you read them those fairy stories. And - again if I remember correctly from my lurking days- how you experienced it firsthand with the loss of your sweet daughter. It sounds like she was (IS) a special person.
But with her, I truly hope that it is, or can become, a real version of happily ever for you. If I remember, it seemed a bit like that what you wrote about her. If I have overstepped by referring to her, please let me know. I think you said that your XN acted like he knew her? It is my hope for myself, and for all of us, we can learn that despite our pain, or maybe because of it, in retrospect, it will someday be happily ever after, and it is indeed becoming that now, and it is that now. Even with the N's or XN's or the Nish or other just plain old flawed human beings in our life, including ourselves, I hope that I borrow that phrase that the "kids" popularized - "Hey- it all good!"
I want to believe in the possibility of myths and fairy tales, or at least what they represent, or could be. I know some of you might take issue with "Harry Potter" but I do want to refer to it. There is the evil Lord Voldemort who was referred to as "He Who Must Not Be Named." Harry found the courage to speak what must be named. He used his voice.
Has anyone ever read "Women Who Run With The Wolves"? It's about myths, with giving attention to the ways women have been taught, and ways that we can examine those archetypes. I read it a long time ago, but I think the author stresses the need women have to trust their own natural self protective "instincts" that get bred out of us when we become too domesticated.
cats paw
