Hi darkx,

I'm glad things are moving along with you and your family. I hope your pregnancy is going well and that the baby will be happy and healthy. I'm sorry that on top of work, being pregnant, keeping house and meals, your other child(?) that you are having to adopt your husbands emotional issues also.

I don't think that our culture in the USA is very good at preparing males for parenthood and being a helpful partner in a relationship. Our culture doesn't even seem to want to acknowledge emotional difficulties as being very valid. We live in a "no excuses" type world, and this is where it has landed us...

There have been times in my life when difficulties seem to pile up to the point of absurdity and hilarity. It seems weird, I'm sure, but when things get really rough for me, I enter into "survival" mode. I've been able to pull myself through some exausting and gut-wrenching and heartbreaking situations with this. Its through no choice on my part, I think its a biological part of being human. Our ancestors got through some horrible and dangerous situations too. WWI and WWII and the korean war and the vietnam conflict the culture wars of the 60s, 70s and 80s and on to the first gulf war and to Iraq and Afganistan. As a people, I think it is just a miracle that we have survived those things. Thinking about what people have gone through to survive, in the past, helps me trudge on sometimes. Think about Holocaust survivors during and after nazi germany. Surviving that was hell, but to continue on and live after must have been challenging also. I can't imagine that, personally, and yet people have survived these things and gone on to tell their tale.

Think about what folks who disagreed with the Church had to endure in european and early american history. Disagreeing with the Church meant death and/or torture for many bewildered people. The spanish inquisition is a good example of that as well as the persecution of women who were found guilty of "witchcraft" or, in other words, being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Humans have endured all these things and managed to raise their children, birth their children, put food on the table and raise crops and livestock at the same time. These are our ancestors and they were very, very strong; as are all of us. We are much stronger than we realize, sometimes.

I hope things continue to improve with your husband. He might be immature and irresponsable, but he is a product of a immature and irresponsable culture also. There is blame to place in many places and on many people. I'm no angel either, but I believe that the truelly dangerous and destructive people believe themselves to be sane and free from defect. Acknoledging crazy is sane, strange don't you think, but very true.

Keep posting and reaching out for help. People can't read your mind. I think your doing a really spectacular job and that you should be proud of yourself to be able to walk through all these difficulties and still handle them appropriatly.

I hope you and your family are well

A.