The Way We Perceive Reality Dominates Our Existence

Tainted Childhood

My wife’s father raised his children with strict discipline, as in “Your ass is grass, no matter what.” At least, that is what MW had conveyed to me. Her mother may have gone along with it for a reason that I should not try to guess. Nevertheless, she was not defending her children when mean old dad came home and did the discipline thing using various instruments. The discipline was based on mom’s bitching about what kids did or did not do while he was at work.

I was not privy to this situation until many years past our nuptials, and only second-hand from my wife’s stories. To say the least, MW was tainted by alpha males. She still had the hots for Hollywood macho (John Wayne) or debonair (Cary Grant) male characters, but when it came to reality, such as me, that was a different story. With me, her father’s behavior set the role, and even in my most tender moments she was on guard. I could seldom, if ever, do the right thing and expect her to just enjoy it. There was always a reservation of fear of her not being worthy, or what people will think of her reaction to pleasure, or anything. One might surmise from this that she had problems, and he would be correct.

Fast-forward some decades

Given the above does not mean that she is totally messed up. She is a perfectly functional human, wife, mother, sister, and friend to many people. It means that she has brought a lot of useless baggage with her from childhood, and we are working on divesting ourselves of it.

We are in a position such that my willingness to help and serve her has been evident, and my unwillingness to hurt her in any way should be obvious. However, that does not let me off the hook. She is still worried about life as it is. She is concerned about making sounds when we share pleasure. She seldom allows herself to just feel good and not worry about whether she had earned it. Trepidations… Then the other things …

I can say, “Something does not smell right in the refrigerator,” and she hears, “You worthless girl, your only purpose in life is to keep the refrigerator clean and uncluttered, and now see what you have done!”

She struggles with her inheritance. Her father loved and supported his children in his own peculiar way, such as photographs and bronze plated baby shoes. But he was not what I would call the best loving and supporting parent in more realistic ways. His grown children expressed their general behavior in their father’s presence as, “Try to blend into the background, and if you are seen anyway, duck.”

I am an outsider, so can’t say what is what. In the many years that I have known MW’s father I never had any problem with him. In the last several years he has been great. MW’s mother was something else. Instead of being supportive of anyone who could use help, she had been destructive. Even worse, she had been using up the good will of those few people who would help her in her old age. Passive resistance and subversion were her tools. MW realizes this, and has stated a number of times that she (MW) should be warned by us if she begins to behave like her mother. After all, she is her mother’s daughter. Well, MW has a long way to become that abusive and destructive. She is a caring, warm, creative, loving, wonderful person. She does well for our family, community, and people whom we don’t know, but value greatly, such as our soldiers serving overseas. But, we still have problems.

I think that she and I are both past the time when we could benefit from psychoanalysis. That sort of therapy, since Jung, has been known to take many years, if ever, to bear fruit. At this stage in our lives that is not a viable option. I never really thought that years of psychoanalysis was any use, but then I am not educated in psychotherapy. My approach to problem solving is (1) identify and limit the problem, (2) offer a number of potential solutions, (3) choose the most viable and appropriate under the circumstances, and (4) do it within available resource limits. Yes, I know, psychology is not that deterministic, and cannot, in general, be conducted that way. Still, the “years of therapy” approach must have the same characteristics. Without it, the therapist and the patient just wander around aimlessly, and never know if there was a real problem, or if there was, the problem has been solved. Am I by any chance describing psychotherapy in general?

So, if I have a deep-seated psychological problem, I am screwed. I am totally unwilling to spend years and thousands of dollars in therapy, but I don’t have a realistic way of fixing what is wrong. Of course, that assumes that I know exactly what is wrong and am willing to admit it. That may not be the case.

So we live with our problems that taint every hour of our existence. Because of our misconceptions we punish those who should be praised. It is a wonder why our children and our friends put up with us. Then again, everybody has problems, so maybe they understand.

I don’t want to close on a negative feeling. I have been introduced to people’s intimate problems while serving in law enforcement. The feeling I had many times was, “I don’t know how I would deal with this.” Yet, the people involved resolved most problems. Some not too well, but in general, the participants came out all right. We are resilient, and when there is love and commitment, a solution will offer itself. As long as I am still around, I will wait for one.