Dear Buddi:

I see only one way to possibly make a difference in how your husband treats your son and that is to attend to your husband’s motivation. Your husband, you wrote, is consumed with his/your son being a golfer, you wrote. That is his motivation: I want my son to be a golfer!

Gently send your husband the message that a different kind of training of his son, a gentler training, will get him what he wants, that is, his son being a golfer and getting better and better at it. Somehow, through examples of famous golfers’ or other sport people’s stories online, show him how gentler training works better, and is way more likely to get him, your husband, what he wants: a golfer for a son.

Telling your husband that his training and otherwise treatment of your son is not to your liking is not likely to affect him because he doesn’t care what you think, does he. Telling him that his treatment is not good for your son’s well being is not likely to make a difference because he may care way more for a golfer for a son than anything else.

So attend to your husband’s motivation, to what your husband values, that is more likely to work for the benefit of your son.

Regarding your answer to my question regarding Mike, you wrote that your feeling that he was your soulmate had to do with you never judging him, being “there for him no matter what”, being “there rooted like a tree. I loved him and still do with every fiber in my body”-

Reads to me that your feeling of him as your soul mate has more to do with how you love him than it does with how he loved or loves you. You love him like you wished your whole life that you were loved, don’t you? To be loved unconditionally, no matter what, completely, like a rooted tree.

It is a different kind of love that you experienced at home where you grew up, your parents’ love for you was very conditional: if you had a crush on a guy (a feeling you couldn’t help, as we don’t choose what we feel), that was enough for them to un-love you, to punish you.

I think you value the kind of love you wish you had as a child. For some reason, Mike was the recipient of this kind of love, from you.

What about his lies, I wonder, how does it to love someone so completely knowing they lied to you repeatedly and are in the habit of doing so?

anita