<font color="purple">Hi, Shaddix,

Wow, what a letter. One of the things that I read in the letter (and please correct me if you feel that I am wrong.)
Is that her mother doesn't want to be in the middle of what you and your beloved do. It sounded like you and your girlfriend both email her - and I have no idea what you email her about, but the letter sounded like a round about way of saying "please stop." I've noticed in my own life that people will attack someone's character in order to set a boundary that they do not feel they have a right to ask for. She has the right. She also has the right to delete mail she does not feel like reading if she so chooses. She sounds to me that you and her daughter's actions are in conflict with what she knows to be safe in her belief system - what she defines HER belief system to be. This is a free country, she can choose to believe anything the wants to believe. That doesn't make her wrong, it makes her different. It doesn't make you and your girlfriend wrong, it makes you different. Perhaps one day she will see and understand that, but for now, she is setting a boundary - or at least trying to. Your choice is whether you choose to respect that boundary or not. Your girlfriend has the same choice, and who knows what she will choose.

Integrity is proven by time. You know who you are and what your motives are. People tend to judge what they see by measuring what they see against their own values. While the Christian faith warns agains prejudgement or judgement, it's a safety net for people - it's how we protect ourselves from things we do not understand or are afraid of. We can choose to face our fears or we can chose to live in them - but it's our own individual choice. No one can change that choice for us. It's something we have to do for ourselves. She may come around, she may not ever come around. Either way, she is asking for some distance from your relationship. There are things that I have hoped to see in my own grown children's lives - that I don't see. But they have to live with their own shoes. I can't wear those shoes for them. Not every parent is there - my own mother would love to wear my shoes for me ever single day, and I'm 41!! I chose what I want to share with my mother, and what is actually none of her business and I live my life. I respect what boundaries she sets for herself, I do not respect what boundaries she sets for me. I live my life, and go on.

Shad, she can't see your heart, she can only see your actions, and for her those actions are uncomfortable for her to witness. That uncomfort is based on what she knows to be true in her own definition of life. Your truth may be very different. The fact that her daughter is chosing what she sees as YOUR truth instead of HER truth is shaking her up a bit. It will be good when her mother is seeing that your girlfriend is making her own definitions for herself. Perhaps one day she will let your girlfriend fly on her own two wings. Parents worry, and fret, and turn themselves inside out over their children. It's a part of life. It's very very difficult to let them go and let them fly. The fear is not based on the actual flight, it's based on the crash landing. Crashes happen, though it's not usually the general rule. I guess this letter is about 'seeking first to understand' - (her position) then you have the knowledge to not take her actions/words so personally. It isn't about you, Chad. It's about her own discomfort in letting go.

In a way, by attacking your character, she sets herself up for not getting what she is asking for - perhaps because she doesn't feel like she has the right to ask for those boundaries. Your focus went immediately toward the character attack - which is exactly what she wanted. If you don't hear the point, then she gets to say "SEE!! THIS IS PROOF!! HE DOESN'T CARE!! HE WON'T RESPECT THE THINGS I HAVE ASKED!!" Don't get caught up in that. Respect what boundaries you can, leave her character assasination of you behind. Let it go. Don't allow it to work for her. Response goes a lot further than reacting does.

She is threatening the exclusion of your girlfriend from her family. That's a pretty powerful matriarcle statement. Perhaps she is capable of doing that, perhaps she isn't. It is up to your girlfriend to decide whether she is up to deal with that threat - and what it means to her. For me (and gosh knows I've heard that threat soooo many times!!). It has been my experience that some people live up to the threat, others cannot give up the control that easily, and cannot bring themselves to actually shut the door. Others need to shut the door for a little while to see if the person will bend to their way of thinking. Your girlfriend will have to decide for herself what she is willing to do to live her own life and what she is willing to sacrifice for that. For me, living my own life on my own terms was just too important to me. Some doors closed permanently, and never opened again. (The parties that closed the doors are now deceased) Some closed for a minute to see what I would do, then opened again once they realized I would not bend to the threat. Some never actually closed, ha, just new tactics were tried. They didn't work either.

I would caution you too, that if the relationship with your girlfriend does not work out, let it not work out on its own terms - and don't allow guilt concerning her mother's words keep you in a relationship that may not be healthy for you. But for now, enjoy her, treat her like a princess, and let that love build. Despite.


Beth </font>