Dear Joe:

* There are currently two people posting as “anita” on this forum. One of them is not me. So the comment above posted on Jan 7 was posted by “anita” who was “juanita” and before that “Jack”. At this point, therefore, all my posts start with “Dear (username)” so to distinguish myself from the other “anita”

To your latest post, Joe: You do sound confident and I like it.

Please notice this: you wrote “I know it sounds cruel and heartless” to state what you stated, that you would rather spend time with people you are not related to than with people you are related to.

I strongly disagree with stating that being cruel and heartless. It is cruel and heartless to yourself to spend time with people who repeatedly hurt you, be it family or not family.

You later stated that you don’t feel like attending the wedding of your sister who… repeatedly hurts you and you are asking if you are right to “not want to” go to her wedding. My answer: of course you are right to feel what you do! No wrong feelings, only the interpretation of what we feel may be the wrong interpretation:

When you feel you don’t want to attend the wedding, the interpretation or the message behind that reluctance of yours to attend the message is NOT that you are cruel or heartless or bad or wrong (wrong interpretation!) The correct interpretation is that she repeatedly hurt you and you don’t want to get hurt. The correct message is that you don’t deserve to get hurt and that you need to protect yourself from future hurt.

What do you think so far?
anita