@gorillapaws For my dad the red traffic light is a shade of grey. That’s how the cones in his eye work (or don’t work). He accepts most people see it as a different color and defers to us to interpret the color “correctly.” It really is grey for him. I can’t make him see it differently. @Judi gave a great example of the mountain from different sides.
Memory, perception, perspective, past experience, it all can affect what is the truth. Knowing this can really help in communicating and getting along with others in my opinion. For instance, at one time, my SIL and MIL decided I was after my husband’s money and their family money. This is a total and absolute joke. My family has much more money. I even had more money than my husband personally when we got married, but each of us only had a couple to few thousand dollars, I’m not talking about a lot of money. Also, I was making a little more money when we got married. I, more times than one, suggested to my husband paying for something to help his family financially. It’s total crazy talk. They decided I’m obsessed with money and their money, because I am more inclined to care about money being handled with legal documents.
For instance, his parents were going to give us their condo/villa (like a townhouse) when we got married. Mind you, we had been paying the mortgage for them, because for months they hadn’t been sending the money like they were supposed to. When I found out they weren’t going to change it into our name, my response was that then it isn’t ours. That makes me a horrible person for caring about the legal paperwork. Forget that my MIL eventually said she doesn’t think they can afford to gift it to us, and of course we just let them off the hook from the offer anyway, because I would never expect such an extravagant gift. I’m just a middle class American girl, the idea of being gifted a house is beyond my world.
Also, my husband wanted the money back for all the mortgage payments he made, and I was the one who told him don’t ask for it, because we were living there. But I’m the gold digger. ~ That’s their truth about me. It was until more recently where I think they have their eyes a little more open to the actual truth as I know it about myself and my family for that matter.