The compliment stuff from F1 is good, very "cognitive" and basic.
I do like the new angle you are considering of not making your next step confrontational. Back to basics for a sec. The moderator has been very active over in MLC trying to get folks to set up Solutions Based journals as threads. Great idea, if it weren't over in MLC. Dude, life over there is just insane and in my short years here I haven't seen a lot of solutions for MLCers.
Maybe you should wave moderator SG down and suggest she help over here where things have not already gone so far out into space. The idea of a solutions based approach and journaling the cause and affect over time may help you. Like the compliment thing.
Or, if you were to identify that you and the kids do things that leave the W feeling unapreciated for all that she does. Make short list. Work on yours. Guide the kids to work on theirs. Journal any positive baby steps. When my X went head first into the angry stage of mlc I tried this. Didn't work, but that is mlc.
She came from large family and at every gathering there would be a dozen conversations crossing each other at the dinner table. Seemed like loudest one was least affected by the others. I could just sit there and imagine the tower of Babel.
But at home with me and the two boys ... suddenly ... at the table if anyone cut her off in conversation with a rebuttal, spoke to anyone else while she was talking, anything ... all hell broke loose. "Stop interrupting. Let me finish. Just nevermind, no one respects me here." Get the idea?
Show interest after asking how was your day. Teach the kids to ask AND listen. Repeating back parts of what was good or bad and using it to continue her conversation "validates".
Just other ideas of going back to basics from DB, Mars-Venus, 5LL and all the proven titles. I am sure you would much rather come here and update your journal with what made her smile than what torqued her. Some really good stuff in M-Venus about the man needing his cave time to unwind at end of day. But also a lot of good stuff about a woman coming home from competing in the man's workplace all day. She needs some guidance or support to get back to her feminine role in life. Without that help, she will percieve anything else as inconsiderate resistance.
Can't imagine her not relaxing if you were able to send her off to soak in a tub with a cool drink and a book or headphones while you and the "boys" prepared dinner. See there is another likely journal topic. How to tone down a house full of testosterone that W may be drowning in. Guys don't dialog, they grunt. They don't stimulate or cultivate the Venutian need to communicate and relate. You can learn and teach the boys or they can repeat the mistakes of our generation.
For those that have not held a copy of Mars-V, I think it was Chapter One, page one that says to the men ... You do not know these things because your dad did not teach you, and his dad did not teach him ...
That is true in my case and many men my age. I have given the book to both sons and begged them to be different for their sake, and a future W. MLC or no MLC, these are things I wish I had known and nurtured in my M. Her crisis may have happened anyway, but I would have been left feeling less at fault.
Back to the good part Jeff. When the Martian improves in these skills and the Venutian is able to center herself again in a female role, she will want to let you know. And if she began to learn about these inherent role struggles, she would learn the Martian just wants to be appreciated and please the woman. Her simply thanking you for taking out the trash might make you a trash takin junky. I think F1 is suggesting a similar line of sincere cognitive compliment to your W. In that case, it would likely be directed at helping her find her way back to her feminine center in a number of ways ... all good for her ... all good for you.
Teach those mini-men to do things around the house, not because they must ... but because their mom deserves to be appreciated and respected in word and deed.
If you take this on as a challenge you will not be doing it alone. You will not be judged, but supported. And if you decide in three months it was a bad idea, feel free to .... well, there is no refund on free help or support.
Hey sg! What's the deal, do you have a robot seaching for the word solution?
Let me stew on that a bit....I like the support I get from the gang I have here, I don't want to mess that up...maybe I'll turn this into a solution journal?
