Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums For Newcomers Ganb8te 4 - Putting on my giraffe ears

Jim you are clearly an Eddie Izzard fan, I shall call you GeoffdeGeoffGeoff

or possible Geoff Vader

Just dont try and kill me with a tea tray

(I think we might be taking Ganb8te's thread off again)

Indeed - sorry Ganb8te we apologies for my weirdness

So one more question Jim, Cake or Death? Bring it on over to my thread ..

Ganb8te - your first paragraph, your first entry in this thread really, it's so, so close to my BD situation and goals. Sounds like they even speak the same way. And I really could not grasp how withdrawn and angry my H became just b/c he wasn't being listened to the way he wanted, or how deeply unhappy he was, but hey, if that is their biggest love language, it feels like a lot of not-love, right?

A couple of things I can share that I wonder may help with your giraffe ears, be another perspective -

Our MC pointed out something in our first session that helped me be less frustrated and more genuinely interested in communication with him. If we realize we are fundamentally different... IDK if this was your reaction previously, but some of what my H said, I had a very gut reaction of 'whatever, who knows what the hell is up his butt today.' If you go with the Myers Briggs stuff - he is an INFP, I'm more of an ENTJ. I suspect you are somewhere in this range, as well - you sound positive, decisive, determined, pretty level-headed in your approach to things. Well, MC pointed this out -H communication often is cryptic, abstract, and short. And it doesn't read as rational to me, I heard it against all my needs as irrational and moody or cloudy, not coming from a well thought out understanding of anything (listen to all the judgement there).

BUT - even in the last two months I've learned, if I ask the right questions, and validate creatively and offer examples that show what he is saying - he WILL elaborate, open up, and make quite a lot of sense. It's been when I've gotten frustrated and dismissed him for what I heard as 'nonsense' that he closes down and says even more 'ridiculous' feeling-based things.

Like your H, mine also told me this past weekend, "I'm not saying we can't ever be together again, I just don't know how now. I don't know that you can be the person I need." I told him I understood and was committed to building a skill - it's not a personality change as much as a skill - and I wanted to be able to better show him the love I feel. Keep your walls up, I understand why they're there, but give me the chance to prove it, slowly. That got somewhere with him. I think it was the last piece of the conversation we were having before he settled back very firmly (like, change of subject firmly) and ended the conversation and said he would consider coming home. Which, with him...is still more of a no than a yes, but it was a move closer.

In building those skills of validation, empathetic listening, I've found it helps me to think of everyone I am with as though I'm trying to fall in love with them. Sounds bizarre, but it's about the only time that level of listening felt natural - the desire to pull out what is interesting, fascinating about a friend or date, tell me more, to show them how much I enjoy their company, make them smile...plus it is actually a lot more fun being with people like this.

I'm reading lots of good stuff around here today, I think it's because I need to hear/read it and take it in.

This by Zelda is so spot on (love the giraffe ears ref ).

I had a discussion yesterday with my IC about how we hear things. H said something to me on Sun that I was hurt by. WE were talking about our S22 who lives with us and I was trying to talk about how that was affecting us. H and I. My H said, "I think it affects you more than it affects me."

Sounds innocent enough, right? But my mind jumped to "He thinks I'm too emotional, He thinks he handles this better than I do, I'm not strong enough." I then withdrew and basically outed.

Needless to say, this is a repeating theme for me over the years, being not good enough. My H said none of those things but that's how my mind interpreted it.

My IC asked, "What if you are more emotional about it than he is? Is that a bad thing? This is your son, you love him, there is an emotional attachment." She's right (as usual). It didn't have to be a negative.

So we also have to be very aware of our stuff and how much we allow it to influence us in interpreting what we hear. Maybe we have to occasionally clean out those giraffe ears.

Labug, all,

Sometimes I wonder that as solution-focused as this community is, there is a tendency here to own too much and bear more than what is really fair (in a long term sense) in terms of our feelings, creating the environment and changes that would make our M work. Now, I know that one of the core principles here is to be the first to change, and to make that effort with good faith, and who cares what everyone else thinks about where your indignation went and how much you're going to put up with...

To Labug's point, I think it's super true about reading stuff into communication. 'Our stuff.' I went back and read some of the texts and emails that my H sent and most of them weren't as bad as what I know I read into them at the time. But I think that maybe it's not entirely an individual thing either...there is context there, a past history, which maybe makes us hear all those other things. These insecurities don't come from nowhere.

Did at one point your H, in a fight or whatever, accuse you of being too emotional or not strong enough?

I ask because there were shitty things said on both sides of our fights and I think it got to be where we could hardly say anything mild to each other without hearing some echos of the insults and previous contempt. This hit me while we were at the bar on Sat night and he told me that he couldn't even ask my help for the simplest thing, xyz as an example, without fearing my reaction...I looked at him and at first wanted to imagine this was his insecurity and his issue, but it came from somewhere and I thought of the day I went ballistic single-handedly moving our big furniture into the house from garage because it wasn't getting done fast enough at his pace...and I was pissed thinking he was making excuses 'waiting on my help'. (Ridiculous considering it took two men to load some of those book cases and dressers ...what was I thinking?) He sat in the back yard for hours while I threw my back out. When he finally came in, he quietly offered to make lunch and I sat there on the floor bawling my eyes out feeling embarrassed and sad and still frustrated. No, H, was not crazy for feeling like he didn't want to ask my help. This wasn't his 'stuff' he just randomly accumulated.

Maybe don't beat yourself up too much about your gut reaction or try to own it all, all by yourself, if there was a past or context? Being simply aware of where the reactions come from might be just as powerful. Unless he told you all the time what a strong, wonderful and balanced woman you are and didn't say things that himself seem more so?

It makes me think that for all of us who are sitting around in this LBS role, I think we have to consider that everything we say too has some barbs to it that they're still experiencing, just like the little reactions and over-analysis we experience from a one-line text or comment. That deep listening is maybe only half of the repair...

Thank you Gg, Edz, Jim, Labug and Zelda for stopping by. I can see that your posts are far more worthy than a quick reply before I go to work. I'll give you a more considered response later.

Gg and Jim - I take your point about it ending up as an argument/sounding passive aggressive. I think I did a crummy job with the set up. I probably can’t better it now so suggest you head on over to Youtube and watch the video (there’s a 3hr video, the bit I’m talking about is at around 1hr and lasts for about 5 minutes). The conversation that immediately follows between the giraffe and the jackal is more interesting - relates nicely to the 5LL. Actually the whole thing is interesting as you hear how difficult workshop attendees find it to distinguish judgements from observations and clearly communicate their feelings and needs. I think one guy had an epiphany about the fact that the dirty dishes might not be so bad after all, after he struggled to articulate what his unmet need was that came from that. All I could thing was - let it go, mate! (my personality type coming through there - see below)

Jim and Edz - you joke, but you guys have really brightened my spirits with your banter and weird references that I don’t understand. It’s a really nice contrast to all the seriousness in my life at the moment. You are most welcome to continue…

Zelda - thanks so much for these insights. I forgot we talked about the listening thing on your thread when you first joined. I haven’t thought about Myers Briggs in a while but think you could be on to something. I’m more an ISTJ (certainly SJ, closer to the middle for the others). H I think is more an ISFJ. So T vs F - similar to you and yours, and the reverse of the usual male/female pattern (at least for ISJ). Actually its one of the things I simultaneously love and find frustrating about my H. Frustrating because it means he does a lot of internal processing that I’m not privy to and I think I could be a better partner if I could tap into that more. So yes, I want to do what I can to make it easier for him to open up and I am genuinely interested in what he has to say even if my communication style may not come across that way at times. The question is - what are the right questions, given no R talk? I’m intrigued to read that you think you got somewhere by saying you are committed to learning a new skill (as distinct from changing a a personality type). That’s exactly how I feel about it, hence why I think this is all totally solvable (there goes my ISTJ personality talking again). I need to develop skills in empathetic listening and validate; he needs to learn to share what he’s feeling and give me the benefit of the doubt if I come across as uncaring as that is rarely my intention. But I can only work on me, and hopefully improve our interactions though that.

Labug - "I think it affects you more than it affects me” It’s an interesting phrase and things like tone and context would have contributed to how you heard it. If only an IC fairy could come along and freeze time for us in those moments so that we could figure it out there and then and respond differently! Actually, to me it sounds like maybe H wasn’t validating YOUR concerns (be that in regards to the issue with S22, or more deep seated ones like you mentioned). I’m guessing you have read NVC, so you’ll know that the other side to it is about communicating our feelings and needs in a way that inspires compassion from the other person. Something like “When [X happens], it makes me feel [Y] because I have a need for [Z].” Could you have raised the issue in a different way that resulted in the response you were looking for? Was there an X Y Z in the issue with S22 (not suggesting you need to share, just putting it out there as an idea to mull over).

which brings be back to:

Zelda - yes, I’ve been thinking for a while that many people here seem to take on a disproportionate burden of the responsibility for the failings in their M. In the end I think the biggest lesson in all of this is that we need to learn to forgive OURSELVES for being a less-than-perfect partner. I for one move forward knowing that I’ve been enlightened by this experience and have made some significant changes to my way of thinking and being, regardless of whether H takes note. I do so hope he does though!

Well while the whole thing might be worth watching living rural my net is slow and very limited. I use it all up most months easily 8g blink and it's gone.

So watching utubes for an hour mmm just can't.

Ouch 8GB my transfer total this month so far is a shade under 70GB and that doesn't include web browsing or my work traffic.