Pure Madness

"As a therapist I have heard versions of this line over and over again, 'the marriage was already over.' But I want to speak up on this one. A marriage isn't over till two people openly decide that it is over. Most long term marriages, truth be told, pass through periods that may well feel close to over. Good marriages may have dysfunctional parts to them, it's inevitable. That's what therapists help couples with, looking at the parts of their relationships that aren't functioning well and helping them to function better.

Hunter goes on to claim that Edwards suffered 'abuse' in his marriage to Elizabeth, saying: 'Most of [John's] mistakes or errors in judgment were because of his fear of the wrath of Elizabeth. ... And you know, the wrath of Elizabeth is a mighty wrath.'

On this one I would like to say that actions speak MUCH louder than words. Edward's wrath towards his wife, perhaps even towards himself, was 'acted out' by his creating a liaison with Rielle Hunter that his wife and children will have to live with for the rest of their lives.

While everyone in John Edward's life has had to deal with dashed dreams of just about every kind, Hunter again draws psychology and even a kind of faux spirituality spin the facts. Not only does Hunter classify Elizabeth as the bad woman, exonerating herself and relinquishing responsibility in the break up of a marriage, she goes even a step further, casting herself as a sort of angel of mercy.



'Everyone talks about how Johnny has fallen from grace,' she tells GQ 'In reality, he's fallen to grace. He is integrated. He is living a life of truth. He has grown in awareness and humility. He had all these things within him, but they weren't the guiding, leading principles of his life. Now they are.'

Using words like 'integrated' to explain an act that was driven, in fact, by a fairly disintegrated part of John Edward's 'self' and implying that he is, through this, 'living his truth' really tears at moral integrity in a way that hurts. Suffering does often lead one to grow and become more aware, humble and truthful. But for Hunter to use these time honored concepts to wrap her own sickening conduct, both in her affair with John Edwards and her use of it for her own 'public advancement', sends a message that should be seen for what it is. Dysfunctional.

One of the most difficult and truly dysfunctional issues to treat is denial. But denial is not only ignoring the pink elephant in the middle of the living room. A more insidious form of denial, is the rewriting of reality to suit one's own self serving agenda. This can be terribly hard, particularly on developing children whose sense of self and moral values are still forming. They not only do not learn to 'live in the truth' they learn to accommodate themselves to 'living in' someone else's self serving version of it. This requires a rewrite of their own reality to suit the needs of another. There is a certain flavor, if you will, to this particular form of denial and that flavor is all over this interview. For those who can see right through it and perceive the self serving motives underneath, it proves to be no more than a couple of uncomfortable moments. But for those who are vulnerable, hurting or young it can have more serious and lasting impact."

-- Dr. Tian Dayton, knocking down Rielle Hunter's self-serving excuses and lies for what will likely be others life-long pain - which this blog has heard repeatedly, from other NewAgers, as a defense of various forms of bad behavior - and revealing the crazy hate and harm at the heart of this "spirituality", in The Huffington Post.