CompuServe Messages

This is reply #2, if you will check the timestamp in the heading. I am trying very hard to communicate clearly here, so I want to add something about where I am "coming from" in the hope that the context of _my_ observations will be enlightening. I am trying to recover from the wreckage of a thirteen-year marriage that I thought was good. Up to the last couple of years, when it became apparent that my ex-wife held this sort of disdainful attitude toward me, that the affection I relied upon and thought to be genuine was actually very shallow, that she made fun of me, my beliefs and ideals, when I wasn't around, and that I was regarded pretty much as a specimen male. Serviceable, but certainly not worthy of anything approaching mutual respect. As (I think) DJ Curtiss observed, people must relate to you as yourself, rather than as a stereotype. I discovered that my wife regarded me as a stereotype and was not interested in allowing me to escape it. I felt, and still feel, profoundly betrayed and more than a little stupid for having failed to see it sooner. And I am exceedingly sensitive to genuineness in interchanges of empathy and emotion now. I am also very sensitive to situations where I feel I am being compartmentalized as a "typical man", spoken in a derogatory and spiteful way. I am not a typical anything. I am myself. Does this help you to understand why I was concerned to think that you might be here because you thought this section is merely entertaining? My ex-wife thought my feelings and convictions were a real hoot. And I didn't know it.