ByronKatie.com

For those in painful relationships, I would also like to recommend the book Love Without Hurt by Steven Stosny. Stosny has had incredible results even with relationships that involve severe physical abuse. You will find some amazing parallels with The Work! Instead of projections, he calls them mirrors. We attack a reflection from our loved ones we don't like. Katie invites us to see others without our story. Stosny invites us to see the core hurts motivating attacking behavior rather than attacking back. Katie says personalities don't love, they want. Stosny says love without compassion is controlling. Loving What Is and Love Without Hurt are the best relationship books I've read, ever. :)

My psychologically abusive husband forced me out of his home after two years of marriage. Now he is "stalking" me by writing to all my relatives telling them to pray for me and listing many private things I had confided to him and continuing to put me down through them. I have stopped associating with my family as I felt they did not stand up for me with my husband's behavior. I was and still am afraid of my husband and now of my family. I have chosen some new friends with whom I have a pretty equal relationship with no passive aggressive action in the background. But I am lonesome and miss my family. But they pass my conversations on to my husband as he has gotten them quite enmeshed with him, with their permission of course. I am in counseling but my anguish is huge. Also my hubby and I were both retired, and his action caused me to have to return to an entry level job instead of pursuing my art as I had when we were both retired (both age 59). My daily grind in addition to my art clients make a very long day and my loss of retirement and no savings is a daily reminder of how he has overnight changed my life for the worse six months ago by driving me out of our marital home (which was in his name).

I have read several of your books but it does not seem to bring comfort to my exact situation.

Thanks for any advice.
Mag

Hi Shannon – great question – you got me thinking :-)

For me, responsibility happens in the moment, for example going into a yard with no sign and being bitten by a dog, if I then had the thoughts:

The dog shouldn’t have bit me
There should be a ‘Beware of the dog’ sign

Then that would be me being irresponsible – arguing with how life was and affect how I would then deal with the situation from that moment.

And I listened to a facilitation by Katie recently in which she said something like “I don’t take any responsibility for my life, I just my question the thoughts and let it happen”.

Thanks for the food for thought!

To extend the analogy of the biting dog: what if you wander into a yard with NO sign, and a dog bites you? Is it still 100% your responsibility? It seems as if there are situations where you could not know that something painful was about to happen, and it did. Granted, you don't have to go back there. (The old Hee Haw joke comes to mind: "I broke my leg in three places." "You ought to stay out of those places.")

Katie,

After reading your second post on "I hate my husband" I applied it to my relationship with my mother-in-law.

I have done The Work on my relationship with my mother-in-law. It has opened my eyes to many things about myself. However, I am stuck. I haven't seen her for many months and told her she isn't welcome in our home. My husband goes to see her with our kids, and that is fine with me. I have felt so much more peace in my life since not having her in it physically. This is all before finding The Work. Now, I am alive to the reality of many things and went to write an apology letter.

However, the thought of seeing her again, or putting myself in the position of having her in my life, brings me stress. The thought being "I should see my mother-in-law again". So, I am at a crossroads. I can do The Work for our relationship and see my part in it, and I can also see the stress in being in her presence.

She has alienated many people due to severe mania at times. She also has bouts of depression. Her depression is easier to be around, which is where she is at now. I anticipate that the mania will return. I do not know for sure and the thought gives me stress, so I can see reason to drop it. However, like your example above with the dog, It seems my issue if I am "bitten" again.

The Work has been such a gift to me and I have felt and made very large differences internally. I am stuck with this one, though.

Here are some of my thoughts:

I know that I have always loved her and always will. (It has always been easy for me to see every person's goodness).
I do want to apologize for what I did to hurt her and tell her what I am grateful to her for.
I feel stress when I think that I SHOULD see her (to please my husband or kids).
For 13 years I sought her approval and love. When I finally realized that I had to love me first I stopped communication and worked on me. There were a number of people that responded positively to me doing this for myself.

If I didn't have any of these thoughts I would be happy with my life as it is. Seeing her would be easy and loving, when it happened, but I would not seek it out. So, do I still apologize and ask her "what can I do to make it right?"

Can you (or anyone) help?

With Love,
Katie

PS. I know that I am going to attend The School someday soon. The Work is life-changing.

David,

In response I would say this. I realized through the work that I "used" my Ex-Husband to abuse MYSELF. I decided not to abuse myself anymore - I left.

It's like living the turnaround. I don't have a story that "He is abusive. I was the victim". It is simply, I used this man to abuse me, and I loved him, and me, too much to continue that.

It never had anything to do with him, and I am so grateful that I had this "Past" experience to do the work on, and have a resulting radical shift, that I could just kiss him for it!

Oh Carol I would agree with you on the book. The relationship, and love, I have for my once "hated and abusive" ex-husband is just wonderful, inside me, now. Because of this work and in large part to that book.

And as KT says in this post, I know not to live with him, and I love him with all my heart and absolutely nothing can change that. And I thought I hated him for years. I just had to project Hate. It lived in me. Now I project what I remember I am, and this is Love. Until I don't - and then I know where to take it. Inquiry.

I've re-read this excerpt and am confused- if, as I understand it, anything in my partner's attitudes or behaviour towards me (for example) is a 'problem' only because of my evaluating/believing it to be so, and I am always free within the limits of my thinking to make a re-evaluation that yields more peace, then am I not at fault- ie. bear some responsibility- if I then decide that the partner is 'abusive' after all and leave her, albeit peacefully? In other words, if the issue is always and only my thinking, and not the other person, then instead of quitting the 'abuse' ought I to be staying and sorting out my abusive thinking? Help me understand, please!

I would also like to direct readers of this post to Katie's book I Need Your Love-Is That True? How to Stop Seeking Love, Approval and Appreciation and Start Finding Them Instead. It's the best, and most underrated, relationship book on the planet.