<small>[ August 08, 2004, 03:19 PM: Message edited by: laura_lee ]</small>

Do the ships ever return to port? My SBTX says she has "grown away" from us. She has changed, and that change may spell doom for us. Please, someone tell me to give up hope. I think that's what I need to do.

You are such an adept onion-peeler, Laura! That is getting down to the core state...disrespect. Some of the alienspeak is really all about the notion that a meta-state exists. Take the 'I love you, but I'm not in love with you.' That comes pretty close to an oxymoronic (intentional word creation here!) state. The real message to me is, 'I have lost all respect for you, and therefore cannot love you, only care about, or pity you.' It ties in well that my XW said that she 'hadn't loved me for years'...I was saying 'You haven't respected me for years.'...same thing.<P>Right you are about getting caught up in the 'romance thing'. We get sold that bill of goods as continuously as we are sold the 'buy this and you will have more sex' nonsense. Then we wonder why everyone is so dysfunctional! Yes, this stuff is easy when you see behind the veil, but that sort of visual acuity is pretty rare these days. What is romantic to me? The fact that my father used to make my mother's coffee 'just the way she liked it'...(which is a chore in itself). He did this every day, and without her ever asking...he just brought it to her automatically. I doubt very seriously that she considered it romantic, however. Maybe considerate, but hardly worth a Joan Collins book!<P>I suppose that I 'just don't get it'. -Mike

Hi laura-lee and Mike,<P>The respect issue is one for me, too. I knew he didn't think I was all that smart about some things, and he didn't try to hide it. Yes he is smarter and more aware of the world than me, but if I said something he considered stupid, he would roll his eyes or prod me under the table FOR YEARS...this wore down my self esteem quite a lot. (He got this behaviour from his mother, who till this day still shoots her H down in flames for just about every opinion he's ever had) So I ended up not joining conversations as much. Didn't stop FIL, he still has an opinion on everything.<P>One day I decided I'd had enough of that, so I told him very angrily that he wasn't respecting my opinions, and he had no right to try and tell me what NOT to say. And that other people didn't seem to think I was saying dumb things, only him...that others respected my thoughts, and if they disagreed, they did it in a friendly manner.<P>Well I thought I got through to him...he did stop the prods and eye rolls for a long time. But I knew he still didn't respect me.<P>So using the logic fom your letter above, Mike, and what he's really saying, then it must be true that he never loved me for years. That sucks!!! So maybe I should just move on....

I read somewhere that we must learn to teach people how to treat us. I belive that everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. No matter what I tried to do I did my EW had no respect for me or the marriage and there was constant conflict, I game to a point where I had to detach from the situation for self preservation and keep dignity and respect for myself.<P>

Actually, Jacky...my first instinct on that is that it only works in the forward direction...He can <I>think</I> that he loves you, he's just not too bright about how to love you. Like Jabber, and Laura are saying. Now who's 'being blond'? I think that you are <I>unassuming</I>, which is often mistaken for being <I>naive</I> by those who are basically <I>deceptive with everyone.</I> One more for the 'consider the source' pile...too bad your (our) self-esteem was the price for that little bit of knowledge! -Mike

True, he thinks I'm stupid; how does he really expect to get away with the lies he's been telling me lately? Okay I might let things pass at the time, but that's cos I don't want to LB, and also sometimes things seem to make sense at the time, then you realise later they don't add up. Like the supposed call from his sister...it would have been 5am in Oz then, but I didn't figure that out till later. And I should have paid more attention at the time to his body language and tone of voice. So Jabber, he has taught ME how to treat him, I gotta be really on my toes with this guy!!!