Let Me Tell You a Story - Part II

I'll let you in on a secret - I love reading advice columns.  Sometimes I agree with the advice and sometimes I don't, but reading them kind of feels like you're being allowed to spy on someone else's life.  It's delicious and somewhat naughty.  Well, enough about me.  On Sunday, I was reading Carolyn Hax, as I usually do on Sunday, and a man's second wife wrote in to tell Carolyn that she was extremely upset because her husband was civil to his first wife when he saw her.  She wasn't bothered at all that he referred to her to others as a "lying, cheating @#*^%"  Caroline hit the nail on the head with her advice (which you can read if you click her full name above).  What was at the heart of her advice was a story telling moment.  Here the second wife was, listening to her husband bash the first wife,  and instead of remembering that the first wife, like her, was someone her husband had loved for a long time, and wondering about whether his story of the divorce was the whole truth, she chose to internalize his story.  No wonder she was confused when he was civil to the first wife when they met in person.  It never occurred to her that what he said and what was the impartial truth could be different.
The other thing that did not occur to the second wife was that she had the power to change his story.  That was the beauty of Carolyn's advice - an invitation to change the husband's story into something healing and positive which would allow all of them to move forward with their lives.  Thank you, Carolyn.