An inconsiderate gift to give a prospective partner

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Gabby
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An inconsiderate gift to give a prospective partner

Post by Gabby » Mon Jan 11, 2016 1:02 pm

Perhaps the most inconsiderate gift you can give a prospective partner is to introduce them to your dysfunctional family*—definitely not a gift of love.1
  • Dysfunctional meaning—family members who communicate abusively (such as condescending put-downs, angry yelling, trash-talking, gossiping, or blaming) —parents who are unethical, who regularly break time or bill-payment agreements—or are sexist, racist, bigoted, argumentative or whose beliefs or addiction(s) affect the aliveness, well-being, and happiness of others. Note: It's not that they behave this way, it's that you enable (unconsciously support) the abusive behaviors; these family members seldom, if ever, verbally acknowledged their abuse to each other. For example: "I get that what I said this morning didn't feel good." or, "I'm late."

  • For example: Prince Harry invited Megan Markle into the Royal Family without first estranging himself from a "Family" that models, for an entire country, the Adversarial Communication Model—non-verbal, self-righteous abuse, automatically, unconsciously, oozes from the Royal "We." Few can envision the Queen sitting down with Harry for the Birds 'n Bees talk, or of them embraced in a warm affectionate (full body) hug." Harry and Megan would attest to the long list of subjects that can't be talked about with the Queen Mother, including sex advice. I.e. Megan to the Queen Mother: "Queen Mother, can I ask you—" The Queen interrupts Megan: "Megan, sweetheart, when we're alone you can call me Granny, though I kinda like "The Big Kahuna." Megan: "Thanks Granny. Granny, Harry doesn't like to receive oral sex and I'm too embarrassed to talk about it with him. How do I even bring up the subject?"

This same caution applies to introducing a date to your single parent who still blames and badmouths his/her ex for the divorce. I.e. "He was abusive." "She cheated on me." "He divorced me." (all blame statements). In other words, you are an enabler, who, along with your divorced blaming parent, will eventually (mostly unconsciously, non-verbally, and psychically) be teaching your child(ren) to blame.2


To not tell a date (upfront) about a prior abusive relationship of yours (your addiction to deceiving and to being deceived, to abusing and to being abused) or, not telling him/her about your dysfunctional family, is both unethical and abusive; it dooms a prospective partner to a relationship with you with little or no ecstasy or joy. Read: Should I tell my boyfriend my history of abuse?

  • "An addiction to blaming is as difficult to cure as is an addiction to drugs." —Dr. Drew Pinsky

What's worse, you would be submitting your parents to people whom they would never choose to socialize with (holidays, birthdays, parties). To dump such relationships on your parents would reveal that they did not inspire you to honor them by selecting a partner that your family will like and get along with, in-laws that will compliment the clan. It would also reveal that you have one or more major withholds (unacknowledged perpetrations-deceits) in your relationship with your parents, therefore, you'll bring this addiction to withholding and thwarting3 into any new relationship.

And the biggie—you'll be submitting your children to abusive grandparents who will negatively impact them. One interaction with an abusive relative is all it takes for a child to be imprinted negatively—often, for life.

When you introduce (submit) a prospective partner to parents of whom you are not proud—parents who are stuck in mediocrity, parents who are abusive to each other and you—it ain't love. To do so forces your "new loved one" to compromise their integrity (to withhold certain thoughts) so as to ensure your affections. You already know that your family will eventually treat any possible partner of yours as they do you and each other.4 This is abusive, even worse, after reading this, it would now be premeditated.

If your family is dysfunctional, if they don't communicate openly, honestly, and spontaneously, through to mutual satisfaction, then, any prospective partner will find themselves withholding thoughts when they are around you and your parents—they'll do this because you are addicted to deceit (you will choose to not inform dates about your dysfunctional family). No one has modeled for you how to create a safe space for a date to verbalize their considerations about your family. Your new date will compromise their integrity just to please you and to make a "good" impression. Later, when your date returns home, his/her parents will ask, "How was it?" Your date will find themselves badmouthing your parents behind yours and their backs.

  • For example: "He was 30 minutes late; I had to ask him to acknowledge being late and he replied with a make-wrong, 'Lighten up Dudess, it was only a few minutes.' It's pretty bad—the house is a mess. His parents are rude and argumentative; they yell a lot. His father is an angry couch potato who communicates condescendingly to his wife. His mother acts like a powerless blaming wimp unaware of her cause for the abuse. I didn't see/hear any expressions of love between them. He non-verbally empowers his parents in abusing each other. There's lots of strained laughter about things that are not really funny; there's no joy or happiness between them. It wouldn't feel good to introduce them to you. I told him I won't be seeing him again until he does some therapy or estranges himself from his parents."

Put another way, if you, using your present leadership-communication skills, have not had a positive effect on the harmony, health, prosperity, and happiness of your own parents, then you have been trained to put up with mediocrity and abuse. You are run by fear; you will not be able to positively support a new partner/spouse. You will in fact discover yourself withholding equally as many thoughts from your new partner as you presently withhold from your parents. To withhold a thought from a partner dooms the relationship to mediocrity; they cannot experience the joy and laughter that comes from being in-integrity.

Note: The majority of girls are addicted to abusing and to being abused (mostly condescending verbal abuse) by both parents and classmates. Often it looks like one parent is "worse" than the other but the silent one always non-verbally empowers (rewards) the other. A girl from a dysfunctional family is so used to condescensions (like water to a fish) she is often unable to tell when a date is being condescending; she unconsciously searches for (magnetically attracts) a partner who communicates as her parents do because she mistakes criticism and raw/condescending humor for love. A teen boy who survives by "talking" with his parents, but is not "in-communication" with anyone, unconsciously searches for a girl who has been trained by her parents to be sneaky—who like himself, doesn't communicate honestly with her parents—because she can be conned into having sex behind the backs of (deceiving) both sets of parents.

What can you do? You can responsibly estrange yourself from your parents until you can consistently have mutually satisfying conversations with them. The communication-skill you're aiming for is for you to acknowledge each and every abusive communication. I.e. When you hear a family member being abusive they will (soonest) verbally acknowledge the abuse or you will be able to mention it and they will always reply, "I got that that didn't feel good. Thanks for catching me." Done consistently, the addiction to empowering abuse, to abusing and to being abused, will disappear.

1 Let's assume that you presently think a new date, a potential partner, is polite, kind, honest and considerate. If you plan to con (sexually tease) your date into falling for you before you introduce them to your dysfunctional family, without telling him/her that they will soon have to compromise their integrity just to be in the same room with you and your parents—what must it say about you? And, what should the consequences be for premeditated abuse, the abuse to which you know you'll be submitting your new partner?

2 "blame" There are no victims or bullies in an abusive primary relationship—only consenting sparring partners—both equally addicted to abusing and to being abused and to blaming each other. Invariably, the "victim" tries to convince others that they (the victim) are not as abusive or the cause of the abuse. Police know, with cases of domestic violence, that females most always eventually refuse to follow up on pressing charges, in part because the alleged "victim" knows that they alone are responsible for the physical abuse, that they caused it. It's embarrassing to reveal to the police that you knowingly, daily, hourly, mostly non-verbally, goad your partner into abusing you to satisfy your addiction.

3 "thwarting" It's most likely your parents envisioned that you would attract an educated, mature, employed, happy, uplifting partner. If you know that your parents would not enjoy dinner conversations with your date's parents then you know you've thwarted their wishes, that you've manipulated your parents into accepting mediocrity.

4 The responsible way to talk about your abusive parents with any new date is to let your date know (up-front, so that they have a choice)5 specifically, that you don't interact with your parents at all, that you have estranged yourself from them until they've completed x hrs of therapy. I.e. "I won't be introducing you to them nor will we ever visit or talk with them. Will that be a problem for you? I had to estrange myself from them so as to not empower the abuse—to remove myself as the cause of the abuse between them. So far they have refused to do counseling/therapy. Daily (with each interaction) I am aware of my addiction to enabling abuse."

5 "Upfront" rather than hook them with your seduction and then dump your dysfunctional relationship with your family in their space. In other words, a dysfunctional family requires the same ethical (disclosure) handling as if you had HIV, or herpes, or your family has a history of cancer or mental problems. Once you've estranged yourself from your family you may then date freely with the understanding that you will let dates know about the estrangement.

* If you live with a divorced parent keep in mind that judges award custody to the most skilled blamer, the con who karmically destroyed the marriage. If you end up not liking someone, never having met them, then you have enabled a blaming trash-talker.

Last edited 7/3/23

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