Thank you Calm, for telling us your experience, it is a bit like mine (I have two step-grandchildren) so I read it avidly :-)

I think with hypocrisy we have to worry about the "action" half and whether we think some action is benign or helpful when it is actually hurtful. No one can be "loving" all the time and saying you "love" someone when they feel hurt by you is not in and of itself hypocricy. My love is not based only on the other person's perception of my love. The other person does not get to tell me how I feel.

My T was once saying how she felt "compassion" for me and I was confused and asked didn't I get to say whether she was compassionate or not? And she immediately taught me, "No" that how she feels is solely hers and she knew how she felt.

My stepmother was abusive and she and I battled outright for a good 15-20 years. But there was a lot of other stuff in there too, besides the abuse. My stepmother loved me and very much wanted what was best for me and strived to make me conform to that best, the best way she could. That she didn't understand that what she wanted for me was not necessarily either what I wanted or what was "best" for me and/or she didn't get to determine what is "best" for me, doesn't mean her actions, which did not seem to match her words, were hypocritical. I "retaliated" and was passive/aggressive with my stepmother but that did not make me hypocritical either when both my stepmother and I would cry together and swear we loved one another and didn't know why we hurt one another as we did and would stop it and didn't.

I guess for me, hypocrisy is about people I don't "know" very well or interact with much; acquaintances and new "friends," neighbors, politicians, etc. And, that being so, I don't have a huge problem with hypocrisy, it is more informative than hurtful for me. Hypocrisy in another tells me to move away from that person, to not get emotionally involved. Being emotionally involved with a person kicks out hypocrisy for me, makes the relationship beyond that particular insight. It's too late for hypocrisy, any problems in a relationship where I feel both of us are already emotionally involved becomes "betrayal" for me?