Guilty as charged.. I am a WAW.

[Bridgestone]

Hi,
It's been a long few days. there have been many interactions with H. Some positive, some not so much.

I have started implementing more & more of the techniques advised by P. Evans in her VAR book. It has him off-kilter, which has led to many more confrontations as he has tried to reassert his power and find his footing.

He has complained I am leaving him 'no place to stand' in our interactions.

I said you can stand anywhere you want, I'm just not goning to let you stand on my neck.

Today he went to passive aggressive mode by making us 10 minutes late to MC.

MC was ok, the C made some points from the communication manuals that I have been trying to get him to see for years...
the concept that the non-verbals matter.

The C said that research shows ~90% of a message is interpreted by the listener through the non-verbals of the speaker- the tone of voice & the body langauge the speaker has.

if the non-verbals & the words don't match the listener believes the non-verbal time after time, regardless of the words said.

H was very down on himself after C., very woe-is-me. It was hard to watch him hurt. But it was a relief to have some validation from somewhere for the requests I' have made to him in the past and been told I'm just too sensative.

In the past I would have rushed in to reassure him in some way shape or form to assuage the pain I would have assumed I caused. this time I did not, I listened, I validated, I held his hand.

This behaviour is cyclical for him : confrontation/abusive interactions, apologies- down on himself, 'normal interactions', then back to confrontation.

He can hurt & I do not have to assume responsibility for it. Logically I know that, getting it through to my emotional reactionary center is taking time.

it seems easier for someone else to tell him something that will hurt him (the counselor in this case, a piece paper that I wrote things on when we first had the bomb talk) than for me to. I suppose it is still fear of the emotional reprucussions of his hurt back to me.

We go back to C this upcoming Tuesday a really quick turn around. We have much homework to do between now & then. It will be interesting to see if he makes time for it as his job is quite busy right now... sort of a 'make hay while the sunshines' type of job. I reminded him how his choices a year ago to work and continually put of MC, was one of the straws that broke that camels back. I guess we'll see.

I have the kids this week-end (as I have for the past 6, even though there have been 3 of them that have been his week-ends) His job again. S18 even mentioned that Dad has not seemed to want them around much. He seems more content to come get them take them out for movie/supper/fireworks etc. then go back to his house. I probably should ask the kids how they feel about that, or not.. I hate to put ideas in their heads.

Thanks for checking on me
BS