The melting pot

When we enter into a serious relationship with someone, we are attracted to the positive qualities in a potential partner, we feel passionately towards them. We often ignore or fail to see any negative attributes, and we fall in love.

But there is something else that influences our attraction to a prospective mate: our need to love and be loved. We also want someone with whom we can share our dreams for the future, someone we think of as our closest friend?

However, is the close connection that you wanted still possible if your partner abuses you? If he verbally, emotionally, or physically hurts you, can you still hope to have a good relationship?

Believe it or not, for many, this question is not so easy to answer.

I think it may be helpful if you can imagine yourself stirring a pot in your kitchen. Into this pot, you have put all the positive qualities your partner possesses, or once possessed. Perhaps generosity, passion, and a great sense of humor are his positive traits. Maybe it is the way he used to make you feel when you first got together: loved, valued, respected. Now, add into the pot the way he treats you when he gets angry: the violent threats, the disrespectful name-calling and abusive language, the slaps or punches.

Stirring those things into the pot is like stirring poison into your meal. Even if the ingredients are healthy and delicious to begin with, once the poison has been added, the meal cannot be eaten. The poison—the abuse, the violence, and the hurt—has spoiled everything else and if you partake of what is now in the pot, it will harm you.

Domestic abuse can never be part of a good relationship. When fear, intimidation, and cruelty are present in a relationship, can you really call that love?
 
- Dr. Ana Nogales

Two thumbs up!!

The chat came along just great. It was my very first one in such a way and I really enjoyed it. Especially the part of the "open-mic" when I got to answer questions from the audience via 'live-email."

One thing kept on my mind: there is a real need for tools to "move on" and help heal the tremendous pain and trauma caused in children because of parent's "affairs". I am proud to have the opportunity to present my book as an aid and more important, as a "heads-up" to such a real situation. The more people get aware of these facts, the more we are open to help and provide support.

Take a chance and follow along all the tips and excerpts that I am posting here and in my twitter. Have you seen my Facebook?? Looking great as time passes by!

Follow along and don't hesitate to comment!

Read you soon!

“I Have a Love-Hate Relationship with My Cheating Parent!”

The Parents who cheat book is just fabulous and I wanted to share with you a sampling. I will post more like this soon.

I do not like what he did, but I still love him. It is not in his best interest for me to talk about it, and I do not want to lose my father, as bad as he is.
- Andrea, early 20s

My mom told me she didn’t realize that her affair was the basis of my anger towards her. I told her, ‘I didn’t know either, but now that it’s all coming out, I realize it is.’
- Julie, 37 (recalling an affair her mother had when Julie was 15)

My dad told me [his sleeping with another woman] was none of my business; but the way I saw it, it was my business. I heard them having sex, and even at that age I thought, ‘What an ass!’
- Todd, 33 (reflecting on how he felt as a 12-year-old)

I can't imagine my father walking me down the aisle one day to a man who is supposed to love me forever when he did not do that for my mother or my family. I love him and am angry at him at the same time.
- female survey respondent, 24

" ... Most children of infidelity can’t help but feel anger, sometimes even hatred, toward their unfaithful parent. They wonder how they can still respect or love someone who has not only broken the rules of marriage and lied about it but hurt the other parent and caused the whole family to suffer. A child of any age may believe it’s impossible to feel the way they used to feel about their unfaithful father or mother. Although children are often told that their parents’ marital problems are not their concern, and that nothing has changed between them and their cheating parent, children know better. Their feelings have changed, and very often those feelings are mixed—pulling the child in opposite directions. "