Cold differentiation, fusion and stuff.

[haphazard]

I have thought on this a lot and believe that D14 is actually uncomfortable with too much mushy feelings because she has not seen that modeled to her, what with all the fighting W and I have done over the years. So even though D14 wants the frivolity, she is uncomfortable with how it feels because she has not experienced it enough. We are aware of this and are working on it. Could this be the same for your H?

Maybe. But I doubt it is the same for my H. His family seem to be comfortable with mush. They always pick out birthday cards with the long mushy verses. But they don't seem to use humour the way my family would to reduce tension and try to lift people's spirits. No I think he is that way because his family are all that way, they take life very seriously.

An interesting thing happened the other week when we took the kids to an indoor climbing wall. There was a group of other kids there all aged about 8 or 9 and one of these children couldn't get down off a ledge because his fear of heights kicked in. The other kids were all at the bottom looking up and calling out things like "you can do it" and "believe in yourself". Which I just found hilariously mushy. It made me think about how the same scenario would have been played when I was a kid and I'm pretty sure the kids at the bottom would have been yelling things like "chicken" and "nyer nyer scaredy pants". Which in my own case would have provoked an anger reaction which would have given me the boost I needed to get down the wall. Being told to "believe in yourself" would have just made me feel worse - like "what's to believe in - I can't get down". If on the other hand someone like my dad was at the bottom he would have made it quite clear (without being rude) that staying on the ledge wasn't going to cut it and I would have to make my own way down. Saying things like "no-one in our family ever chickened out" or "you made it up there, you can make it down".

Anyway the kid being told to believe in himself had to be rescued.

Which is why I think the Deida idea of the man being a rock works. It raises the bar. You can only believe in yourself if you've been given something to believe in. Given a chance to come up to a high set of standard and met them. It's no good someone stooping down to your mush level, they just keep you there.

Fran