Posted by bob on March 16, 2000, at 19:44:32
In reply to Re: Husband problems, posted by Anna P. on March 15, 2000, at 14:03:46
> Anyone in a similr situation?
hey Hey HEY!! It goes both ways ;^)
Before I launch into it, another place to check out is the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill's website-- www.nami.org. They do a lot of advocacy work on issues surrounding stigma.
My mostly-ex-girlfriend is a clinician in training. She spent years working as a psychiatric halfway-house worker, an experience in which she learned a helluva lot about meds. Right now, she's halfway through her internship at a rather prestigious NYC psych-center. If anybody could be understanding and supportive, it'd be her.
You know what? She is all that.
You know what else? It's still not enough.
In my current state, I cannot meet her needs. That's the bottom line. I'm not saying this so that everyone else here will reflect and come to the same conclusion for his or herself, thinking the blame is deserved. Far from it! I have been in a very self-centered existence for some time, and I need to be there still -- I doubt that applies as strongly to most of you out there reading this. I made this clear several years back ... and we both chose to stay together.
My point in saying this is to point out what could have been. Even if my girlfriend had all that it takes to be the most understanding and supportive person any of us could want, she still has her own issues. Just like Jan was saying about her husband, my girlfriend couldn't bring how her own problems and issues interfered with our relationship ... the focus was all on me.
The funny thing about it all is this -- that all the focus was on me -- is something she'd complain about all the time, even tho she could never admit that this was exactly how she wanted things to be. No focus on her. All the blame on me.
On top of that, I have the problem of living with an "expert", someone who knows a helluva lot more than the average person on the street about this stuff, but still a pretty meager measure of experience as a professional. She's at a stage of development where she's over-enamoured with theory. She has her theories about me ... and if I disagree with her views on my behaviors and motivations, I'm the one who is wrong. Theories are aids to understanding -- they are not scripts for the behavior of individuals.
Sure, it doesn't help much that she's a dyed-in-the-wool Freudian and I'm a social cognitive/social constructivist psychologist, either.
So much for venting ... if you want my advice for dealing with non-comprehending folk, give'em what my grandma used to tell me: when you point your finger at someone, there are three pointing right back at you.
Or, if that don't work -- we hate most in others the things we hate, but can't admit, about ourselves.
my two cents,
bob
poster:bob
thread:27084
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000312/msgs/27240.html