I feel like I'm hogging the board!
Thanks 'Dodo' (that's actually what 'Wozzle' means - my current (!) hubby calls me this because he thinks I'm a bit of a
, but in the warmest most affectionate way! One of my bosses in years gone by told me I was 'eccentric' and when I exclaimed: Do you really think so? she replied: either that, or you've got a personality disorder!!) Dodo actually PM'd me saying she didn't really want to know....but how many husband's am I up to now? Hehehehehe. I am on my third....and not planning on any more (but then I've said that twice before, haven't I??!!)
Thinking about Allison's and GBCs relationship and all that's been shared here with regard to others experiences, despite the fact I've been married three times, I have been married to gentle, decent, honest and faithful men (at least as far as I know!) Marriages fail for all sorts of reasons but mine I guess would be due to the old 'irreconcilable differences'....we all grow and change and have different needs as we get older, and if partners don't 'grow' in the same direction, then it's better to part ways (unlike a certain failed real estate agent who wanted his cake and ate it too!) I only had one child and have always worked full time and thus been completely independent, so my divorces haven't been difficult for me. However even just the smallest 'hint' of DV can have a traumatic effect on kids.
I think often of what Allison's girls may have witnessed over the years, and how this might affect them through their lives. Before I did nursing I was a secretary in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Science at a Children's Hospital, and what I learned there seemed to fly in the face of reason and common sense. The parents who sexually abused their children, had often been sexually abused themselves!! Even if intellectually we know as adults something is 'wrong', if you've grown up in an environment where something is prevalent, be it sexual abuse or DV or whatever, it becomes something deeply embedded in your psyche - a part of you unable to be shaken although you know in your adult mind it isn't 'right'. How many women who are products of families with DV go on to choose partners who are also violent....sometimes over and over again. I hope Allison's girls can model their expectations on their grandparents' relationship (I wonder how many times they've seen both NBC's and GBC's tempers flare).
Fuskier I sense that you might be a psychologist, so you'll know how best these girls can be healed. I actually have a Psychology degree, which I did as a 'hobby' in my 30s (nursing wasn't a degree when I trained and I wanted to exercise my academic chops!) so I am like Allison...got the degree without taking it further to become a psychologist. (And unfortunately I also have something in common with GBC in that my degree was from the University of Southern Qld in Toowoomba where GBC got his!....how SO very 'GBC' for him to put USQ on his CV rather than the DDIAE as it was at the time - an 'institute of advanced eduction' just obviously didn't have the same 'ring' to it, did it GBC? - poseur extraordinaire!)
But back to the point I was going to make re children and DV - I've only ever been 'hit' once - 2nd husband thought I was having an affair (I wasn't) as he'd found a pair of 'unfamiliar' undies in his drawer. We did a lot of boating and these jocks were obviously from one of his buds that had got caught up in the wash...but he wouldn't/couldn't accept this. I was studying at the time and did English Lit for all my electives, and he had picked up a book of Australian poetry where I'd underlined 'She knew she had married the wrong man' for an essay, and of course he thought this was a message to HIM. He was beside himself (?paranoid from too much marijuana) and gave me a backhand across the mouth which split my lip. In 16 years he'd never been the slightest bit aggressive, and I actually thought nothing of it, as he was traumatized and I don't think he even recalled doing it. However my daughter was home at the time and saw the bleeding lip, and this incident signalled the end of the marriage and he moved out shortly after (not because I asked him to, it was coming to this anyhow). Years and years later, my daughter showed me an essay she had written for high school for which she'd got the highest mark she'd ever achieved (she was a lazy little so and so!) To my horror, she told a 'story' of the end of a couple's relationship, and it was a complete and accurate reproduction of all the events of that particular day. I couldn't believe it! ONE incident in an otherwise harmonious family had stayed with her all these years....and I was further horrified when she saw a psychologist when applying for the army, told her of her confusion about her sexuality, and the psychologist told her she had issues with 'men' because of her parents' relationship. OMG. How do I fix this? I can't of course, but remembering this makes me think of Allison's girls and what they may have been subjected to and how much of this is ingrained in THEIR psyches. It's a hard and thankless job being a parent (you always love them, but you don't always 'like' them, as one of my mother in laws said to me!)
Oh for the conciseness of Hawkins....not in me I'm afraid! Succinct I am not! My love and best wishes go out to H, S and E - every mother has you in their heart, and I am gathering you in my arms for a Curiousasacat bear hug....even if it's a 'cyber' one! :grouphug: (That's H, S, E, Mrs Dickie and me, hugging!)
