I am aware people have varying levels of self insight. And I believe there can be an unwillingness to look within, combined sometimes with a lower capacity, to look within and why.
An example of this is my in-laws, and my husband.
I know my in-laws parented their children, from a basic level of parenting, but missed some really important areas of parenting and there was also neglect. They are the type of parents who believe that as long as they fed their kids, made them go to school, and their kids didn’t annoy them, their parenting was enough. And it was not.
They neglected their kids in some really important areas of development. And they didn’t teach their kids crucial life skills, or how to handle own behaviours in a healthy way. They failed to teach their children to be honest. And instead just how to have a false image of who you are. They failed to teach them social skills, how to view women respectfully, empathy (as they have none), and many other areas of development.
One of the ways they failed to teach their sons how to respect women, was in allowing them as teenagers to have pornographic posters of women topless on their bedroom walls. Pornography affects teenagers brains and mindsets, in a really negative way. And they watched porn as teenagers. Another way, was in both of them referring continually about other women in disrespectful terms, such as ‘pieces’. As in ‘look at that piece’. There are many other examples, and this did not teach their boys to be respectful to women. And it made their boys, see women as sexual objects. They also refused to have conversations about sex, relationships and what is respectful in terms of intimacy.
These issues alone, have created big issues for their son, my husband. And they affected our marriage in serious ways. my counsellor knows about all this, and has confirmed that my husband has selfish, narcissistic issues, and he needs his own counselling.
Neither of his parents, think they have done anything wrong within their parenting. And I can guarantee, they will not have sat and thought about whether their parenting was healthy, or not. They have no self insight, and no willingness to either.
They also don’t know their daughter is a drug addict and has been smoking weed, since her own daughter was a baby, and probably before that. They ignore the fact that their daughter de-frauds benefits, by claiming to be a single mother, when she is living with her partner for many years. And she has no conscience, no remorse, no guilt, no shame about this. A complete sense of entitlement. And she also has no capacity for empathy.
My husband has had no choice but to face his issues, because I have told him his issues, all of which have been confirmed as relationship, disrespect, selfishness etc issues. And he has already been diagnosed with personality disorder issues. But, they do not render him incapable of being different, it is an unwillingness. He is also a compulsive liar.
Having watched recent interactions between him and his parents for a week, I can see clearly their shallow and unhealthy dynamic. My husband puts up a false image of who he is (as he did with me when we first met), and he never talks about his issues with his parents. And they choose only to see the ‘good’ stuff…. to make their lives easy. My husband never own his poor behaviours, unless he has to. No integrity and as a result, I was given a very false image of who he was. I only started to learn who he really is, by finding out from others about really shocking things he has done. Only then did he admit to them, defensively, by minimizing and having tantrums. Continue reading →
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