SNL changed his posting name a few times due to double-secret-probation-banned-burned-scorned-caught status.

I myself got entangled with one of the alternative SNL personalities ... and (ugh) even had some back-and-forth emails. (trying to "help")

I learned some stuff about myself. (at last)

But, evidently not quite enough, as I have entered (willingly) other similar quagmires since then.

However, I'm recognizing my pattern sooner, and limiting my efforts.

Those dastardly quagmires - they be just about everywhere some days!

Pep - when our hearts are open, we do learn as much (or more) about ourselves than the people we post to learn from us.

BTW, I understand happy endings are possible. People do break free of these collusion-burdened relationships (and the addiction to post about it on MB and thus keep the public fight going), and wind up healthy, happy, in love and living loving lives! (SNL's ex is a happy example, I've heard through the grape vine!)

Some more thoughts...

"Observers" to a crazymaking relationship IRL can be deceived.

Ask anyone who knew my parents and they would tell you my dad was the calmest, quietest man who worshiped the ground my mother walked on. He came across as totally supportive of her, hard working, a good neighbor, great with kids and always supporting my mother in taking in "strays".

Part of that image was true. He was hard working, and a better neighbor you will never find - and as long as the child was young, he was great with kids. As long as people didn't see him for too many consecutive days, they never saw anything else but this great guy.

My mother came across as strong willed, articulate, talented, a devoted mother and wife, and a great benefit to her community and to her political party and her church.

Part of that image was true as well.

What the "public" didn't see - even when they visited overnight was the other stuff. The alcoholism, the crazy-making, the violence, the verbal and emotional cruelty. Dad knew just how to push her buttons, and could make Mom look like a lunatic while he looked like the most patient saint - and sometimes did this with extended family around, solidifying his image in their eyes. He was so great for putting up with her. It was too bad that most of them weren't around when he broke his foot while beating up a cow! He couldn't very well hide that "behind closed doors", so to speak.

One "button pusher" scene from my childhood - Mom's cooking pancakes and Dad comes in from working and is "on one". I don't know if he'd already had a snort that morning, but the memory is vivid - especially considering I was perhaps five years old, tops. He comes in and starts verbally abusing her - yelling at her for not having breakfast on the table, physically crowding her in the kitchen, but not laying a hand on her. As she tries to move around getting things off the stove and onto the table, he continues to try and get her goat. Then he takes on a "lovey-dovey" kind of tone, and crowds her into the stove and she smacks him in the forehead with the pancake turner - he turns around laughing his head off - blood running down his forehead. Quite the imprint for a five year old. She was the one who lost control. And he was not satisfied until she had.

We've both seen that here too many times in a few of these "couple" posters.

In the beginning SNL fooled me. Not for long but in those first few weeks, I took him at face value, like I do everyone here. It wasn't what his wife said about him that got through to me; it was what HE said about himself that triggered the "oh h*ll - one of those" reactions.

It's funny - I used to work with a button pusher - someone who used others to do their dirty work of abusing their targets. I wound up getting fired from that job - I let my buttons get pushed, and I stepped right into it. A few weeks ago, I found a journal page in my craft bag - funny cause usually I write in my journal binder. The page was written almost 6 months to the day before I got fired. It reminded me that I was aware of her agenda and that I had a strategy to counter it. But it seemed the more I withdrew from her "game", the more aggressive she got.

Getting fired from that job was not part of my strategy from what I could see at the time. But it put me back onto my "big picture" game plan. And I'm happy. I've made almost three times the income in a year that I made at the old place (before last year's market crash). I've had more professional training and personal improvement training on the job than I could have been exposed to at that old place.

Sometimes divorcing a crazy-maker is the toughest thing to do. But once you do, you look back and wonder why you waited so long, and believed that was your only choice.

[quote=]
- when our hearts are open, we do learn as much (or more) about ourselves than the people we post to learn from us.
[/quote]

Ladies,

And sometimes, when our hearts are open, we learn from others even when we weren't the poster's original target......

Many thanks to you two.......you made me think on ME and my actions today.....I needed that

not2fun