A childhood and adolescence spent in a convent school in rural County Down
had obviously taught my ex girlfriend a lot about guilt and she had absolutely no qualms in organising guilt laden experiences for others.
Aside from the atypical "Of course I have no problem with you seeing your friends" dichotomy - indicating that a more serious problem lay elsewhere and that I was a mean and ignorant man for not knowing where (or even what) - she also liked to fall back on the old and trusted victim statement as in.."it's not you Rondolpho - it's me". She once sent me a postcard from her home town in Northern Ireland whilst on a random visit to her parents, telling me that she saw a clear need for us to spend time apart so that we could appreciate each other more when we were together, and hoped that I could trust that she wasn't spending time with any of her old flames (?). I had gone to a friends birthday party one night (in the same city as where we were living at the time!)and although I knew she wasn't particularly comfortable with me going (see -"Of course I have no problem with you seeing your friends" above -) i wasn't expecting her to FO back to Ireland and then make out that i had somehow indicated we should 'go on a break'.
Still - a childhood and adolescence spent in a dark wooden box being prodded by needles and fed offal had taught me to be a sociopath and successfully rendered me free of any feelings of guilt in connection with anything at all! So no harm done there then.
( Woolworth Smells of festive spices, Sat 15 Oct 2005, 14:53, Reply)