Wednesday. Fandango’s Provocative Question once again. This week, a nice short one. He asks:
Do you believe in giving people second chances? If so, why? If not, why not?
He also quotes the old saying Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
I have to say I mostly go along with the saying. If somebody lets me down with something, I know not to rely on them again.
Why? Because putting myself in the position of relying on somebody who has already proved themselves unreliable seems to me to be the height of dumb.
It doesn’t have to be a bitter or confrontational thing, it is just a case of no, thanks.
Even close to home, this has happened to me. I had an appointment at the hospital come through once. My wife said I’ll take you [because she drives and I don’t currently] then as we got closer to the appointment, she booked herself to take a singing lesson instead. So I ended up missing the appointment because I had no other way of getting there. It was just a case of forgetting she’d made the committment, but regardless of the reason, I didn’t get to my appointment.
I learned from that, that if I cannot get somewhere under my own steam, I have to just pass it up. That does indeed mean that I don’t necessarily have access to healthcare.
Months later, my wife got very upset when I declined her offer of a lift… to another hospital appointment. It turned into one of these 5-minute spats. Don’t ask me to give you a lift ever again, she said confrontationally. Wasn’t that the point? I replied.
Like I say, not bitter or anything, but you do have to chalk these things up to experience. It doesn’t mean I don’t want to be married to her any more, or anything. I still need to keep it in perspective, but isn’t that just learning?
Mister Bump 
I give a lot more chances than 2, people have their faults, they forget, they word things weirdly and so on. I have a lot of patience but than, when that patience is gone, it’s gone.
I’ll give you another chance but I need to see proof a changing behavior and not only in words.
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Yes I think that last bit is key.
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That whole forgetting something highly important (and more so now because of that dreadful C-19 and being able to even get a doctor’s appointment at all) because they (the spouse) had other priorities than their ill spouse makes me wildly angry. Maybe in part because my own hubby did that to me too on occasion. It just chipped away at our marriage badly. I was expected, of course, to drive HIM (as he got more ill) to all his appointments and to the 2 a.m. rushes to the ER. When it’s not reciprocal, I happen to think respect gets damaged. Respect, to me, is the cornerstone of a good long lasting relationship. You have my sympathies.
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Sounds like the only part where we differ is that bitter part 🤣. For me, it is what it is. She quite innocently forgot. But from my perspective, there’s no reason why she won’t just innocently forget next time, too. Doesn’t help me any.
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That’s the reason I create a Google calendar event on my iPhone for any appointments I have — with doctors or with anyone — and then I send it to my wife as an email invitation so that she can accept it, which automatically puts it on her phone’s calendar as well.
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I use all that tech, I’m not sure she takes much notice of it. I quite brazenly put it in there because I don’t want to have to remember it! One of the tasks for Sunday is to check whether anything is happening the next week.
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