what am I doing now? i'm not doing much of anything. i'm uhhhh...
uhhhh....
okay, so my example above... i got an email this morning thanking me for not yelling at him... so, i think i did a better job at containing the condescending instructor in me, i held my tongue when the thought of referring my H to one of the many books on child rearing and discipline i've read, i didn't tell him he was doing what his parents did to him...
i was nicer, and self-deflating, and i didn't stay mad after i voiced what made me mad, i didn't punish and i pretty much forgot about it
but, this is a small thing...
There are bigger things. They are about H "working on himself". This is a realm in which I have little or no control. I have a strong desire for H to do the things I want him to do, but they are for him. For instance, 12 Step meetings....
H says he'll go to however many I want him to. I say, if he wants to go, he'll go. He asked me tonight "what if I go to 3 a week?" I held up my hand and said "not answering that one".
It's my thinking that if he goes for me, he wont learn and might even become resentful at me for making him go. I dont want him to go for me. I want him to go for him.
I also want H to go to individual counseling. I want him to find his own therapist, make his own appointments, pay his own co-pays. I want HIM to do it. That will be a sign to me that his promises to work on this M aren't empty. (oooh, that kinda sounds like a goal, doesn't it?)
Now see, me just saying that, knowing he'll read it makes it "fueled by charcoal" and not by MAT and that's not right.
I say to myself... "yeah, we'll see what happens here". This has been the BIG issue for me in our R. HUGE. THE BIG ONE.
I don't feel like it's my place to demand he go or not. I used to, to no avail, but I think I need to let H control this part of his life. (However, we all suffer as his issues affect all of our lives.)
As for praise... why does that make me uncomfortable??? I don't praise H for much anymore. I used to be his cheerleader and was told that I just didn't understand.
H was in a bad way at the time and didn't see that I saw the good in him. I think at the time H was being SO hard on himself that he just couldn't accept praise. So, I stopped.
I don't catch him doing something "I like", like you said and praise him for it. That makes me uncomfortable even thinking about it. But, having been said now, I'll process it, run some experiments and monitor the results.
I think you're right about him saying he doesn't do anything right. I have to change (my part of) that.
