Laying Down a New Foundation in Journal

is really really difficult.
I hate my parents for their incredible negligence in preparing me for life. The gulf that I must now cross is immense. It’s a gulf of ignorance. It’s the same gulf that children must cross as they grow into adulthood. It’s the same goddam thing. All this work, time, effort, suffering, bitterness, the total destruction of my childhood has come with the deep, seemingly infinite price of my adulthood. They were like vampires; feeding off of my childish neediness. Draining me of all the value that my dependence should have bestowed upon me, for themselves. They are like cannibal Piranha; smelling blood in the water and gobbling up every morsel and growing bigger and fatter at the expense of their own children. Disgusting, hateful, vile, and totally corrupt.

RTR’ing with DH is interesting. It is productive in ways that I would never have imagined. It brings up thoughts and feelings that I would have considered infallible; eternal; unquestionable.
Except, they aren’t.
Discovering that has been very, very interesting.
I defined for him a new understanding of Love: Our involuntary reaction to Virtue
So in this new definition, I said to him, I am unlovable. I cannot love, and I am unlovable.
“Well that’s not true.” he asserted. “Because I love you.”
No, I explained patiently. If this definition is true- there is nothing to love. I am as of now, not a virtuous person. I am striving for it, but it is right now out of my grasp. I believe that I shall be virtuous, and therefor lovable, at some point. Just not right now.
“Then how do you explain the fact that I love you?” he asked brusquely.
Patiently, I explained again. The word you are using cannot be the same for me as it is for anything that lacks voluntary action- you don’t love me because I have not insofar voluntarily devoted myself to virtue.
“How can you say I don’t love you?” he seemed genuinely upset. “You can’t tell me who or what I love- I love you, I love our son, and I love our family, our cats-“
Oh, no, I interject. You cannot love a cat. A cat has no choice, no will, no voluntary action that it can partake of. It is incapable of being loved. To use the same word to characterize your feelings for a cat as you do for me is an example of why I cannot be loved.
“You’re putting words in my mouth! I didn’t say that!” he protested.
No, no. I’m not. I’m simply defining the words for you. I’m just pointing out the fact that a cat cannot be loved. And, neither can I.
“I hate your goddam Philosophy.” he growled, not without a small amount of amusement.