.

Kim

That book was written by Dave Pelzer, I think.

I agree with you about being with a mate who doesn't have strong ties with his birth family vs. being with a guy with close family ties. And before Sandy jumps on me, I'm not saying that a guy can't be a good mate if he distants himself from his family. I'm only saying that the odds are much better that the guy is good marriage material if he's got a healthy relationship with his family i.e. he was raised in a 'normal' home with loving parents rather than being raised in a disfunctional family that pushed their son away from them.

The fact that you're changing your name this time is a good indication, too, that this time your heart is in this commitment as well has your hormones.

Jean

kim and jean

everyone's family is different. some families are healthy, and some families are toxic. in order to be healthy, one has to distance oneself from a toxic famiy. a man who distances himself from a toxic family is healthier than a man who remains enmeshed in one.

i don't think that you can judge how a person (man or woman) is going to act as significant other based on whether or not they have a good relationship with their family. you have to judge the person as an unique, whole individual . to lump all people into the categories in question is just plain ignorant. if i would take that observation to heart, i never would have had any significant relationships, romantic or otherwise, because i do not "get along" with my family of origin.

i believe that for those of us who are willing to acknowledge that our families are dysfunctional or toxic, and to distance ourselves from them, a "second chance" family of friends who are supportive and loving is far more important than or families of origin.

i don't believe that a woman being willing to change her name at marriage is a sign of having a commitment that is stronger if she doesn't change her name. if that were true, almost all men would be categorized as having a weak commitment in marriage, because almost all men do not change their name to the women's last name, or hyphenate their name with their partner's.

kim, i have forgiven my parents years ago for who they are. forgiving and forgetting are two different things. i'm glad that you feel comfortable enough to pick up the phone and call your parents at any time. i'd rather call one of my many good friends or talk to my husband.

i have the sneaking suspicion that no one (except for bill) has reponded to my last blog on envy (sorry, kim, if i am hi-jacking, but this seems as the right place to bring this up) because they have recoiled from this blog, and possibly me, in horror, and are choosing not to respond, although they have feelings about it. if this is true, i wish that these people would respond to me in my blog in question. dialogue is one of the healthy ways that we all become healthier.

sandy

Sandy,

I didn't change my last name when I got married so I do understand that a person can be just as committed to the relationship without the name change. However, I wasn't talking about just anyone here. I was talking about a woman (Kim) who had already been married four times before without the name change. The fact that she is doing it this time is significance in my opinion and shows that this time she is actually going into the marriage with a different mind-set than with past marriages.

On the other topic in this blog, I'd still rather marry a guy who came from a healthy/loving/supportive birth family than one who carries around a lot of childhood baggage. And I did, but before I met Don I'd also dated a few guys who came from one of those toxic families you talk about. From watching a lot of marriages over my life time, it seems to me that when one person in the marriage has divorced him or her self from their birth families then they have a really hard time understanding why a mate wants to spend time with their healthy birth family. It just adds a lot of extra friction in a relationship, that's all.

Sandy, doesn't your field of expertise in the human mind and mental illnesses spend a lot of time and text book pages grouping people and pinning labels on them based on common disfunctional factors? If it works for toxic and disfunctional people to "lump all people into the categories" why doesn't it work when we're talking about mentally healthy people as well? There ARE common threads that people share when they've had similar life experiences. For example, I have no problem generalizing and says that people raised in happy, loving birth families have a better chance of growing into happy, loving adults. "Better chance"---I'm not saying a 100% guarantee.

Jean

Jean

what's a healthy birth family, anyway?

i have not met another person on the universe who does not have some baggage to carry around, and a family who does not have some degree of dysfunction. my own birth family might have been a typical dysfunctional family had it not been for the Holocaust. John's family, when i met him, appeared to be a large, strong, resonably healthy family, and John was very close to them. it was only when John started to change and become his own person that the toxicity of his family showed. to my knowledge, John's family still thinks that they are a strong, healthy, family, and that John is a sick drug addict who was kidnapped by a liberal uppity b***h.

many, perhaps most in my profession do categorize people by lumping them together based on commonalities. i disagree with that manner of practicing psychiatry. i believe that you can define people based on syndromes with similar symptoms, family history, etc, only if you simultaneosuly remember that each person is a unique individual with a unique presentation. the "diseases" that we psychiatrists see are syndromes with common symptoms but often vastly dissimilar etiologies.

it's not the dysfunction/toxicity that you come from, but how you deal with it and whether or not you grow and change positively from it, that defines who you are as a person. i've seen people from very toxic families that are very healthy, and people from relatively healthy families who are very toxic, and everything in between.

as for why kim is changing her name with this marriage, i agree that it's significant. however, knowing what i do know about kim's history with her fiance, i wonder what the significance really is. in any event, kim, i wish you the best of luck in this marriage, and hope that it lasts and is a positive growth experience for both you and your fiance.

sandy