Jawol, as I said I find only coercion as immoral.

It may have been immoral if the defooed broke an explicit voluntary agreement that stated that he shall not divulge internal family related information to anyone outside the family even anonymously. A voluntary agreement establishes a guarantee among the agreed regarding the subject of agreement. This guarantee becomes sort of like property and breaking it is akin to theft, hence immoral.

So the question is have you had such explicit agreements? Most families don't or if they do, it's not covering anonymous divulging since it's assumed that this wont have slanderous effects on anyone.

I can understand your claim that you couldn't defend yourself if the defooed in question never confronted you. As agreed previously that was bad. However that kind of deFOOing is not what I or I would suppose most others at FDR advocate.

I advocate that if one has a problem with something about his parent that he feels is important to address for a relationship to continue healthily and without pretension of "everything is ok", one should strive as hard as possible to confront the parent with this concern and try to work it out, thus giving the parent a chance to listen, understand and work towards improvement or some sort of mutual understanding. I think that's absolutely crucial. If one defoos without doing this I condemn that.

I beg your pardon, Memeverse, but I have read, listened to, and been through numerous discussions concerning RTR. I fully understand the stated purpose of the book, and as a matter of fact agree with many things in the book. That being said, I also disagree with much in the book. I do not believe it is necessary to either agree with it all, or disagree with it all as one unit. I find elements that I view as good, and elements that I find distasteful in the book.

Edit: Just so we are clear. I stated that FDR provides its members with instructions for how to defoo and even a script. I did not state that RTR contains this information.

Ok cool, so you should know how hyperbolic what you said was. If you really read and understood RTR then you know that the scripts and instructions aren't for "inflicting such traumatic heartbreak in those who love you", since that is not what defoo is about.

You also seem to speak about "love" as if it implies some sort of an obligation in the loved ones. I suppose the idea that this is not what love is supposed to be is one of the ideas you disagreed with or found distasteful?

I have just perused my responses to you on this thread, and can not find a single instance where I speak about love as if it implies some sort of an obligation in the loved ones. It is interesting that you interpret my responses in that way. I wonder why.

Because if a defooed in question was reading you say that he inflicted such traumatic heartbreak on those who love him you would hope that it somehow gets to him in a way that would make him want to come back. Why? Because you love him.

Without these appeals to love, however, it is less likely that such a reaction would be caused. Thus claims of love can be used to induce in someone a feeling of obligation.

I'm not saying this is done deliberately though, but the fact is that if the defooed in question truly loved you back, (s)he would've been back already, FDR and Stef be damned. And love is something you give, not something you expect or demand. It must exist naturally. If it doesn't, yet it is claimed, it is usually claimed in order to expect someone to reciprocate in some manner.

Btw, I've read the "analysis" of the "Philosophy of Forgiveness" podcast and wrote a response to it here.

I was just explaining why I made the interpretation I made since you wondered. I don't claim to know your hopes and motivations, just saying that this is one possibility which I hope you understand as such even if it doesn't necessarily apply to you (you be the judge of whether it does).

Okay. Thank you.

You know Memeverse, I can not speak for everyone who has been defoo'd. I do not know every story. Perhaps it is possible though, that there are people who have been defoo'd who sincerely do still feel love for the people who defoo'd them. And perhaps they feel that love just because that's what they feel. It is also possible that they have accepted that there is not anything that can be done to change that they have lost the person, and they are not really trying to change it. It's even possible that they want to respect the wishes of the person that they love and stay away because that is what they have been asked to do. And still, they love that person....with no motive whatsoever, just a genuine feeling. Everyone probably deals with being defoo'd in their own way. Again, I have no idea how everyone here has dealt with the issue. I have certainly not dealt with it gracefully. It is simply not an easy thing to deal with.

True it's all possible.

It's also possible to confuse affection with love since they feel similar, but are completely different. I'm not sure I ever felt actual true love myself since what I felt and continue to feel may just be affection, but I can logically imagine what would its characteristic be and thus know how to pursue it.

mmvrs, what is your take on the conversation script in the book RTR?

My first honest impression was that the script is somewhat rigid, that it seems sort of like the person who is RTRing has temporarily turned into a feel-bot constantly churning out it's current feelings.

But I actually asked about this on FDR chat and the reply was fairly reasonable and basically said what I already thought. The RTR script is a skeleton that emphasizes expression of emotions in real time during a confrontation, which is as honest as one can ever get about self to someone. However, and as was agreed to by other FDR members, it's not to be applied exactly and rigorously. That is, the point is not to act like some sort of a feel-bot. You can be diplomatic and interject your feeling statements with explanations of what you're trying to do so that the confronted one has a better chance of understanding you.

Still, even if you churned out emotions and nothing more, a truly honest, loving and caring parent would NOT by any means resort to attack and defense because someone merely honestly saying how he feels is most certainly NOT an attack. Such a parent would express curiosity and move the discussion towards conciliation where expressed emotions would become more and more positive.

A lot of parents don't do this however, unfortunately. They instead feel attacked and put up all the emotional defenses they can think of pushing the confronter further away and making a defoo more likely, or almost certain.

Thank you Nelle, best to you as well!

See, when reading the script, skeleton or not, what I percieved was a sudden shift in the formerly expected patterns of language and conversation with an expectation of a response not within the understanding of those who one is talking to. Then finding fault for the lack mind reading ability.