Wish me luck with this one Meg...
...I've never met anyone so kind, generous, caring...At the state park there is a place called "Boulder Field". A glacier melted here and literally left better than a square mile of boulders here. We decided to cross the field. He held my hand all the way so if I slipped, he could keep me from falling. I don't know if this behavior is normal, but it's foreign to me, so I think I'll just try not to analyze it too much, and just enjoy his company. Give me a call sometime!
Hey girl! Nice to see you back again! Yes, that behavior is normal, how sad that you didn’t know that. It sounds like you have a gentleman on your hands there. If you find this behavior foreign, you have never been with one before.
I have a friend named Melissa and she when she divorced and began dating again, it was amazing how stunned she was at the treatment she received by nice guys. Even if they weren’t that nice, she had been treated so shabbily that she thought a guy was great if his only redeeming quality was that he didn’t hit her. She was so accustomed to being smacked around that a man who didn’t smack her was a prince in her eyes. Some of them WERE very nice...but some of them were just losers who didn’t hit women. It didn’t matter to her, she was just happy not to be abused. Her standards had been set so low that these guys were a HUGE step up for her even though they really weren’t all that great. She thought that a non-abuser was a plus when it should never have been an issue in the first place. Men aren’t supposed to hit women. It isn’t a bonus that a man doesn’t hit you, it’s just to be accepted.
But your guy, on the other hand, IS a bonus. And I certainly do wish you luck...with him and just with your life in general. Once you’ve been treated well, you are responsible for demanding that treatment for yourself. I had been treated well but I still settled for less. I can say this all because I know exactly where you are right now. Don’t ever settle for anything less than a man who will take your hand in times of potential peril. That’s what men are supposed to be like. Obviously, you have been settling for less and now you know better. As someone told me recently, don’t settle for anything less than what you want and deserve. To go back to any man who treats you less than gentlemanly would be to volunteer to be treated poorly and you don’t have to settle for that! No woman, or man for that matter...has to settle for less than decent treatment.
There are baseline parameters for the way one person should treat another person. They are universal. You start with some givens like no cheating, lying or abuse. Then you should expect a man to be a gentleman and a woman to be a lady. After that, it’s up to you and your taste...everything else is a bonus. Anything less is unacceptable.
I am so glad that you got rid of the liar dude, let someone else have him and think that they have a great guy. VLB is happy to have Vex and that’s just fine with me. If he got to be almost 50 years old without learning the value of honesty or fidelity, he isn’t going to learn it now. The very least he owes me is an apology and until he can grasp that, he can’t possibly move forward. The 12 Step programs are in one particular order for a reason. You can’t learn to be a decent human being or a sober human being until you’ve made things right with the past. As long as you have left past transgressions unfinished, you can’t possibly go on to live a good life nor can you be of any real value to another person.
I guess I am admitting to a fault myself, but I do get a small pleasure out of knowing that Vex and VLB will never live the good life that they have in their minds. As long as he hasn’t made things right with me, he will continue to be the loser that he is. It’s kind of like the 12 Step program and Step 8 (I think it’s Step 8) is the step where you make amends with those you have wronged. There is an extremely practical reason for that. That is, as long as you have unfinished business in your past, your sub-conscience won’t allow you to feel good about yourself. You may think that you are in the clear, but somewhere, in the back of your mind, you know you have done wrong and you will drink to make yourself feel better. Vex doesn’t drink, but the same thing applies to him. Until he can admit what he has done, at least to himself, he can never move forward. It’s just not humanly possible. There are people who I have wronged in the past and there's no way that I can ever apologize to some of them because I don’t know where they are. But, I’ve admitted it to myself and have made the attempt to find them to make amends but I just can’t. I have to live with that and that’s hard enough...I am just glad that I am not denying any of the hurt I have ever caused.
Years ago, I asked a friend of mine what made her seek treatment for her substance abuse. I was drinking at the time and I wanted to know, where does the hope come from? Her response changed my life. She said, “Just the possibility that it MIGHT help me.” She was the first person that I admitted my drinking problem to. (Not that anyone else didn’t know it, but I admitted it to her and myself at the same time.) She remained my friend and helped me. That’s when I learned the value of honesty. It isn’t simply that you owe other people the truth, you owe it to yourself.
So, as long as your ex is still a liar, he is useless to anyone else and certainly to you. Now that you have been treated decently, you owe it to yourself to expect that treatment in the future.
So, enjoy a real man and be good to yourself! (And send me your number again, I'm sure it's in my e-mail but I'll never find it.)
Well, I suppose I need to get off this computer and mow that lawn...I’ve avoided it long enough.
See ya!
Meg
...I've never met anyone so kind, generous, caring...At the state park there is a place called "Boulder Field". A glacier melted here and literally left better than a square mile of boulders here. We decided to cross the field. He held my hand all the way so if I slipped, he could keep me from falling. I don't know if this behavior is normal, but it's foreign to me, so I think I'll just try not to analyze it too much, and just enjoy his company. Give me a call sometime!
Hey girl! Nice to see you back again! Yes, that behavior is normal, how sad that you didn’t know that. It sounds like you have a gentleman on your hands there. If you find this behavior foreign, you have never been with one before.
I have a friend named Melissa and she when she divorced and began dating again, it was amazing how stunned she was at the treatment she received by nice guys. Even if they weren’t that nice, she had been treated so shabbily that she thought a guy was great if his only redeeming quality was that he didn’t hit her. She was so accustomed to being smacked around that a man who didn’t smack her was a prince in her eyes. Some of them WERE very nice...but some of them were just losers who didn’t hit women. It didn’t matter to her, she was just happy not to be abused. Her standards had been set so low that these guys were a HUGE step up for her even though they really weren’t all that great. She thought that a non-abuser was a plus when it should never have been an issue in the first place. Men aren’t supposed to hit women. It isn’t a bonus that a man doesn’t hit you, it’s just to be accepted.
But your guy, on the other hand, IS a bonus. And I certainly do wish you luck...with him and just with your life in general. Once you’ve been treated well, you are responsible for demanding that treatment for yourself. I had been treated well but I still settled for less. I can say this all because I know exactly where you are right now. Don’t ever settle for anything less than a man who will take your hand in times of potential peril. That’s what men are supposed to be like. Obviously, you have been settling for less and now you know better. As someone told me recently, don’t settle for anything less than what you want and deserve. To go back to any man who treats you less than gentlemanly would be to volunteer to be treated poorly and you don’t have to settle for that! No woman, or man for that matter...has to settle for less than decent treatment.
There are baseline parameters for the way one person should treat another person. They are universal. You start with some givens like no cheating, lying or abuse. Then you should expect a man to be a gentleman and a woman to be a lady. After that, it’s up to you and your taste...everything else is a bonus. Anything less is unacceptable.
I am so glad that you got rid of the liar dude, let someone else have him and think that they have a great guy. VLB is happy to have Vex and that’s just fine with me. If he got to be almost 50 years old without learning the value of honesty or fidelity, he isn’t going to learn it now. The very least he owes me is an apology and until he can grasp that, he can’t possibly move forward. The 12 Step programs are in one particular order for a reason. You can’t learn to be a decent human being or a sober human being until you’ve made things right with the past. As long as you have left past transgressions unfinished, you can’t possibly go on to live a good life nor can you be of any real value to another person.
I guess I am admitting to a fault myself, but I do get a small pleasure out of knowing that Vex and VLB will never live the good life that they have in their minds. As long as he hasn’t made things right with me, he will continue to be the loser that he is. It’s kind of like the 12 Step program and Step 8 (I think it’s Step 8) is the step where you make amends with those you have wronged. There is an extremely practical reason for that. That is, as long as you have unfinished business in your past, your sub-conscience won’t allow you to feel good about yourself. You may think that you are in the clear, but somewhere, in the back of your mind, you know you have done wrong and you will drink to make yourself feel better. Vex doesn’t drink, but the same thing applies to him. Until he can admit what he has done, at least to himself, he can never move forward. It’s just not humanly possible. There are people who I have wronged in the past and there's no way that I can ever apologize to some of them because I don’t know where they are. But, I’ve admitted it to myself and have made the attempt to find them to make amends but I just can’t. I have to live with that and that’s hard enough...I am just glad that I am not denying any of the hurt I have ever caused.
Years ago, I asked a friend of mine what made her seek treatment for her substance abuse. I was drinking at the time and I wanted to know, where does the hope come from? Her response changed my life. She said, “Just the possibility that it MIGHT help me.” She was the first person that I admitted my drinking problem to. (Not that anyone else didn’t know it, but I admitted it to her and myself at the same time.) She remained my friend and helped me. That’s when I learned the value of honesty. It isn’t simply that you owe other people the truth, you owe it to yourself.
So, as long as your ex is still a liar, he is useless to anyone else and certainly to you. Now that you have been treated decently, you owe it to yourself to expect that treatment in the future.
So, enjoy a real man and be good to yourself! (And send me your number again, I'm sure it's in my e-mail but I'll never find it.)
Well, I suppose I need to get off this computer and mow that lawn...I’ve avoided it long enough.
See ya!
Meg
posted by Meg Kelso | 8:26 AM
2 Comments:
Meg,
Regarding your friend Melissa thinking that any guy who didn't abuse her was an okay guy (or words to that effect), I once told my brother (who is a deadbeat father and a wannabe gigolog, among other sleazy things) that the only reason his current wife thinks he is so great is that her first husband was such a shit, he makes my brother look good to her. I also told him that if she ever figures out that she can live without a man, he will probably be history in the first degree.
Anne
Where were you when I was with Vex?
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