Dear Helcat:

The example you offered is helpful, it gives me something concrete: you told your husband about an issue that you have with your family and asked him how he thinks you should or would cope with and respond to different scenarios regarding the issue. He told you in so many words: it is your decision. You then told him that you felt unheard (“I said that I felt that I wasn’t being heard”) because you didn’t ask him to make a decision for you. The exchange was short, no voices were raised, yet you felt “upset and wanted to cry“.

My comment: his response does not mean that he didn’t hear you, but that he didn’t want to process the information you presented to him and answer you. If you rarely ask him for his input in regard to conflicts in your relationships (with your family members, people at work or elsewhere), then his response may be rude, meaning he doesn’t care. But if you often ask him for such input, or if you ask him for such input sometimes, but the theme (in regard to the conflicted relationships) repeats itself, then his response is understandable: he sees that the theme persists regardless of his previous suggestions, figuring he can’t make a difference for you, so what would be the point of processing the information and giving you suggestions once again, why bother.

You wrote yesterday: “When I say wholly loved, I am comparing the love say with my husband, to the attachment with family. I feel like they’re only partly care about me. At any point they might turn around and say you’re disowned again. Maybe next time is for good. There is that feeling of disdain for me…  It is a very different experience with my husband. He loves and accepts me for who I am… I also have friends that love and respect me. Do you understand why I used the word whole now?” –

– yes, I understand, you think that your husband wholly loves you, as in 100%, and your family members, those who are in the habit of disowning you and expressing disdain for you, from time to time, they partly love you, as in 30& or 60%.

NASL – Never Abuse, Sometimes Love. If your family members repeatedly threaten to end contact with you and this repeated behavior is fueling your anxiety and PTSD… then what you have with them is SASL, Sometimes Abuse, Sometimes Love, a mix. The love in the mix is very unreliable, you can lose it at any time. It’s like standing on a ground above a fault line, it may be solid now, but you never know when it’s going to shake, causing you to fall.

You wrote, March 22: “Wondering at any sign of affection, is this love?” – not if the affection is mixed with threats of ending contact.

“Many people have a desire to feel loved at any cost” – at the cost of SA (Sometimes Abuse)?

“Abuse victims have a tendency to gravitate towards people that perpetuate their cycle of abuse” – is this part of your attachment to your family members, this gravitation (“the attachment with family”, April 8)?

anita