You said in another post:<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Because of issues from MY childhood, where I learned that anger is forever, that love is something held over your head with the threat of withdrawal<BR>at all times, that you can be abandoned for the slightest infraction. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>This is exactly what I have learned from my H's affair/abandonment, and it is exactly what I fear my kids have also learned. This is the disillusionment that is killing me, because as a child I learned the exact opposite. I had no idea that such a thing was possible - it is sort of like finding out for the first time at 45 years of age that people are capable of murder. I had no idea that when my H was angry and then seemed to get over it, he was really still harboring resentment, adding it to some mental list. Three times in the last six years my H gave me a dirty look because of something I had said or done - but never said a word. We have had disagreements over how to handle various situations, like everyone does, but he has rarely indicated he was angry at me specifically except for those three instances. Not only is anger forever, but it apparently doesn't even have to be more than hinted at. I can not imagine ever trusting anyone again - how would I ever be able to distinguish between fleeting irritation and relationship-devastating anger? My ten year old has come right out and told me that she is afraid of making her father mad, because she is afraid he will stop loving her, too. My seven year old has recently started telling me over and over that she will always love me, and seeking reassurance that I will always love her.<P>How do you cope with the knowledge that anger is forever? How can I convince my kids that they don't have to believe this, when I am not convinced. What could possibly have happened to my H to teach him that lesson that he is now passing on? <BR>

My mother was the product of a loveless mother who clearly preferred her sister. So of course, she repeated the same pattern. It doesn't help that she had a shrink who said, "Only a baby is entitled to unconditional love." <P>We can argue about what that statement meant, but what it does NOT mean is saying to an 11-year-old "I'm going to send you to live with your father!" (when father is living in a one-room studio.) It does NOT mean saying to a 25-year-old who's in love with a guy who works steadily, is responsible and solid, but is not of the same faith and does not have a 4-year degree, "If you marry him, I'm writing you off. I wash my hands of you."<P>Mom never knew the difference between "I love you but what you did was wrong" and "What you did was wrong...I don't love you anymore" and "If you do something I disapprove of, I won't love you anymore."<P>It's not her fault, how could she be different?<P>But I live with the results. How do those results manifest? By living in constant fear of doing something wrong. That if I make a mistake at work I'll get fired. So I get defensive and can't take any criticism. By living in constant fear that if I don't cater 100% of the time to every one of my H's needs, that he'll leave, or find someone else. That if I make him angry, he won't love me anymore.<P>It's a hell of a way to live.<P>If you are going through a divorce, it's really important that your kids know that you love them. If your H has abandoned them, there's not much you can do about that...there WILL be issues. But those issues will be lessened if they feel secure with YOU.<P>The issue is not the KNOWLEDGE that anger is forever...it's the PERCEPTION that anger is forever. This is where a good therapist comes in. Those of us with childhood baggage look at life through a funhouse mirror; one that SEEMS real but may not be. A good therapist should be able to help you recognize when your worldview is distorted by that baggage.<P>Does that help?

Dazed and Confused,<P>I am sorry to hear your story. That must have been terribly difficult, to put it mildly.<P>I wonder - my H's father has always favored his brother over my H. They have never been close. To his credit, I don't think my H favors any of our children over the others. However, I am sure that when he refused to give our 16 year old her birthday money because she was being disrespectful by not talking to him, she probably interpreted it to mean he didn't love her anymore.<P>He doesn't take criticism well at all, either from family or at work. His first wife left him two months after they married, apparently rather suddenly. I wonder if when I was angry at him, he somehow always thought it was serious, permanent, or an attack on his worth or something. My mother always said that you should never go to bed angry, and I rarely did. Possibly he lived his entire life angry while pretending he wasn't, or more often displaying it as irritability. I always thought that our marriage was fairly low in conflict - apparently he thought differently.<P>Obviously not everyone's anger is forever. But his is - I wonder how one determines whether it is "safe" to be angry at someone who loves you - I worry that my kids will always err on the side of caution, and live in constant fear. The other day when scolded my seven year old, she ran away screaming, "You don't love me anymore" - I am sure she is not the first child to have said that, but it still worries me. Even if I can convince them that my love is unconditional, and hopefully I am succeeding at that, I worry that when and if they marry they will live in fear of making their partner angry as you have. I can not imagine myself feeling otherwise if I were ever in a relationship with someone else - I guess instead of childhood baggage I will carry around adulthood baggage.