A month ago, I was talking with an older woman who was making excuses for the decisions someone had made. The excuses, I knew, were really the reasons for her sympathy for her bad choices. I, too, felt sympathy for the choices that had been made and the situation that had resulted. But, my perspective is a little different. I also felt that the woman had choices about how to respond to her own pain. Years ago, my best friend had a friend who had been abused by her husband for many years. My friend shared with me that her friend had become an abuser towards her children, taking her frustration and stress out on her kids instead of protecting them. After the woman later got a divorce and entered her senior years, she couldn't understand why her children didn't like her or want to be around her. She didn't recognize that she had become an abuser herself. In life, when we are faced with stressful situations, it can be tempting to lash o...