I'm beginning to be fully aware of how DB techniques really do work. The idea of working to notice and enlarge the positives in the relationship and declining to follow-up on the negatives.
H and I had our regular Friday/overnight/Saturday get-together. On Friday I had a pretty significant & longlasting anger melt-down in response to an EMA issue which I had raised -- there was a trigger which raised the issue and H encouraged the discussion of the issue. This is something new for H, something which has come about only in our new post-marriage relationship -- he has gone from being conflict-avoidant to seeming to get some kind of satisfaction out of being able to deal with conflict in relationship with me, as if he's learned a new skill.
So the thing was settled, eventually, early on Friday evening and we went on to have a nice visit, he left Saturday at noon, kiss good-bye etc. All happy. But by the end of the day, very late evening after my 3-11 work shift, I was re-interpreting the whole thing in a very negative light, feeling very pessimistic about H and about continued reconciliation of the relationship, was this really what I wanted? etc.
This morning H emails me a brief thank you note (he is at work) which I interpret as perfunctory and my nose is still out of joint and I'm still pessimistic over what I see as a bunch of heavy-duty unresolved issues around his attitude towards the marriage, the EMA, the xOW. So after 3 hours I answer his email -- I don't feel like even answering it, but from the beginning I've taken the policy of never letting any contact from H go unacknowledged even when it's been very difficult for me. I end up sending him back a brief note in which I thank him for dealing with my anger, for being able to bear it, for having courage, for waiting for the storm to pass, for acting in a loving way without reservation afterwards, for being my friend. I also said that I was not sorry I had raised the issue, because it was important to me and had to be discussed, but I was sorry for reacting in an angry & alienating way during the discussion.
About 5 minutes after sending the email I was aware of feeling happy, in a kind of quiet and peaceable way. Nothing had changed physically but it was as if as if the blank spaces in the house and in my life had been suffused with grace, and everything seemed to sparkle.
