But you see, @TimeHeals, you are talking about something else entirely. You are talking about wishing perspective was changeable.
I'm not talking about changing STBX's perspective. I don't think she is changing her perspective, at least not in the evolutionary or developmental sense that you're using the concept.
I think she's changing the story to fit what she wants to believe at any given moment, mostly to facilitate obfuscation and torment.
I mean, sure, a person's perspective can change. For example, a person could go from faith to agnosticism to atheism, have a moment on the Road to Damascus, and go back to faith.
Those are changes in perspective.
What we have here, on the other hand, is a person who is essentially -- just to keep the metaphor going -- cycling between every favor of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Confucianism, atheism, New Age and Don Juan's Yaqui Way of Knowledge at the drop of hat. Quote Scripture, and she says, "Oy, don't you remember I'm Jewish?" Quote a shtetl story, and she says, "Bismallah! There is no God but Allah, and Mohammad is his messenger."
She's like a human King Crimson album -- it's a total mystery what you're going to hear on the next track.
I'm talking about being wide-eyed-in-wonder-dumbstruck that anyone could have so tenuous a connection to something one could remotely even call a perspective.
I'm talking about how it is a never-ending source of amazement to me that this is what she has by way of "perspective," this ever-changing, shape-shifting, amorphous, history-rewriting story.
And I'm gobsmacked that she doesn't get why I would find it difficult to keep up with them all. Helllooooo, Sybil much?
I mean, when she tells me, by way of an example of her Total Womanly Greatness, an anecdote from our apparently disastrous-from-the-altar marriage that illustrates just how she toughed it out until she couldn't tough it out no more; and when I point out that, um, you sort of have it backwards, that was actually me who did that; and then she stares blankly and says, "Well, that's just a detail" and proclaims she doesn't understand what is my problem anyway I'm missing the point -- that, my man, is some King-Hell Not-Getting-It Walkaway stuff right there.
Yeah, it kind of explained to me why my stbxw is incapable of discussing and agreeing to ANYTHING - even things like the kids schedule for the following week.
Me 42, W 39, S8, S6, S2 M 11y, A & ILYBNILWY 11/08 Walking away from a bad situation.
Articles written discussing blame can read like newspaper horoscopes or fortune cookies. There's something for everyone... based on their perspective.. regardless...
At the risk of Overt Pointyheadedness, if I were going to do a meta-analysis of the DB community posts, I'd suggest that among the cut-points in the DB'er Typology is one that is at work on this thread recently.
On the one hand you have those like @Thinker and SP Himself who have, at the end of the day, an inherently positivist epistemology -- we look for causality.
I mean, what's the basic mantra in the DB community -- figure out what you did 'wrong' to contribute to this outcome: "I think I wasn't supportive, but of course that's just my perspective, so it doesn't really matter."
So there's an inherent bias towards positivism -- otherwise there'd be no point in doing that. True, true, correlation is not causation, but the more "tests" we have of these ad-hoc hypotheses, the more comfortable we are with the findings.
On the other hand (and here I'm not trying to essentialize you or construct you) there are those who tend to have a more holist or even postmodern epistemology, where reflexivity carries the day.
But from the positivist POV, there is a remarkably strong degree of symmetry in many of the situations here; the fact that people can refer to "script" and write things like "that sounds familiar" suggests there is a set of patterns, and patterns lend themselves to evaluation and testing. Maybe the material Thinker sent is horoscope-like in its generality; on the other hand, there's at least some probability that the phenomena it discusses explain some amount of the variance.
Neither Thinker nor I will ever know the true causation, of course, but that doesn't mean it's not worth examining.
all of this is exactly why I think the NIH ought to sink some bucks into a comprehensive study that will examine the walkaway syndrome...with the ultimate denouement of having its own listing in the DSM-IV.
I'm dead serious here.
sadly, Type I diabetes research doesn't have much of a crossover or I would have pushed that envelope a smidge.
M60 H52 D20 M14 yrs OW-old gf from 1986 bomb-5/18/08 H filed for D-9/10/08 D final 4/24/09 xH remarried (not OW) 2012
Coud it be the "scripts" are so similar because there are only so many ways one can break this kind of news to another?
The script seems to be worded in such a way that relfects the following: guilt, confusion, wanting to let someone down easy, justification, etc, but the bottom line to what they're saying is, as my wife so bluntly put it: "I don't want to be married to you anymore".
We are all where we're supposed to be. Learning what is needed. In however it's needed. No judgment. Just odd bits of sharing, support, perspective and challenges.
I've wondered what wisdom.. or what to share with the kids about what is the most important aspect of a marriage.. a long term relationship. Because after all, it's not the affair, etc., or the "I love you but am not in love with you" which ends a marriage.
It's the crap that was never dealt with. It starts when fear or anxiety kicks in, when it's easier cower in silence, lie by omission.. to stop trying. Not realizing how it creates its own Pandora's box.
When my spouse of 25 years dropped the bomb, I was floored. "I just can't live like this anymore." was his beginning. As he continued the cold mass over my heart feathered outward. When he was done, I knew and said that I wanted the family, the marriage, him. And...
And.. I thanked him for getting it out. That as bad as it seemed, now that 'it' was out on the table, it could be dealt with.
Ya see.. that's where I was wrong. Because by then he was done.
So.. for me it's being willing able to deal directly with things.. to pay attention to those red flags, to live a life of integrity, do my best.
Because I was married to a great guy. And I was pretty incredible too. But not being able deal with problems head on.. work things out together lead to a break that wouldn't be fixed. And no matter how much worse things could have gotten (why didn't I realize how disconnected 'we' were??), I never would have left the marriage. Never would have broken the family. In retrospect it was living life in a straitjacket.
My heart goes out to you for what you're dealing and struggling with. And it is heartbreaking, incomprehensible and just damn perplexing that someone you vowed to spend your days with unilaterally changes their mind and inexorably impacts you and those you love most.
To be honest.. I didn't really understand your post, but that doesn't matter. For me.. and only for me.. learning to speak from the core, from what I've learned, good, bad and/or in spite of my obstinacy is what works for me.
Coud it be the "scripts" are so similar because there are only so many ways one can break this kind of news to another?
The script seems to be worded in such a way that relfects the following: guilt, confusion, wanting to let someone down easy, justification, etc, but the bottom line to what they're saying is, as my wife so bluntly put it: "I don't want to be married to you anymore".
I don't think so, TT, because the "script" is followed -- with only a VERY few variations -- at every step along the way, not just at the "bomb." I have my own theories on this, mostly spiritual in nature, that would be better discussed on another thread, but I think Hoozh's suggestion is a fascinating one: the gubmint oughta do a study!! God knows it could help more people than the myriad of "Dating Habits of Two-Horned Frogs" and such that we fund now!
