Dear RWS,
I think it's next to impossible to understand what a BS goes through... unless you are one.
I remembered another analogy.
An aunt and an uncle of mine were heavy smokers. When they went somewhere in their car with their three children in the back seats, they'd both be smoking in the car with the windows closed if it was cold. If the children would beg for a window to be openend they'd basically tell them to "shut up".
My uncle and my aunt are good people, with a big house, a tennis court and an in-door swimming pool, good people who would never willingly hurt their children and who have done everything to provide them with everything they needed.
Years later they quit smoking. Only then did it dawn on my aunt.. "Oh my God... what have I done to my children.. letting them sit in our smoke like that, in a car with closed windows..."
Another analogy is losing a child. You can't imagine the weird reactions that will get you from nice, decent, well-meaning people. If someone has ever experienced this himself you will immediately know - there is this look in their eyes, and they react differently. They will not tell you "shouldn't you be over that by now" and to "quickly have another baby so you'll forget about this one". They will know you need time... because they have been there...
My point is - very few people are Betazoid. There are some on this planet but they are far and few between. If we humans haven't experienced something ourselves, it's very hard for us to imagine how the other person REALLY feels. It's hard for humans to be patient and understanding when someone keeps bringing up something painful, even when we have had no "guilty" part in it.
But when we are guilty of the very thing that is troubling our partner or our friend.. well then the pain we see there will automatically cause us to feel bad, guilty, depressed etc. etc. because we were the stupid selfish idiots that inflicted this pain.
A really, really big person can realise at that point that the right thing to do is to stand by their partner and hold them and love them and reassure them for as long and how ever much they need it.
But people who start an A aren't "big persons". They are needy, lonely people. They don't magically transform on D-Day into wonderful, balanced partners. They have their own withdrawl problems and pains. And then there is the guilt.
When there is too much pressure on a human, we have an "safety valve". You can call it denial, putting your head in the sand, minimizing things, totally blocking things out. Only when the pressure starts to lift there is no longer any need for the safety valve and that might explain why years later some partners suddenly realise what their spouse has gone through. Maybe it suddenly dawns on them because of something someone said, or something they see on tv, or whatever. It's like the sun suddenly lights a particular spot they have never realised existed.
So ironically I guess the pressure will have to lift first - meaning we will have to feel better and our partner will be more comfortable around us, not scared about when the next trigger is going to "hit" us <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="images/icons/shocked.gif" /> - before our WS can start to realise what really happened and what the BS's point of view/reality is.
Hmm.. thanks RWS, by writing this down it just became a lot clearer to me too !! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />
