Quoting Jamesjohn: How SURE are you about things that are going to happen?
You know, I used to be so sure I knew what was going to happen, how my W was going to act or react in a lot of situations. But having that mindset seems pretty self-defeating sometimes. I wonder how much of that "knowing" acts as a subtle catalyst for negative self-fulfilling prophecy. Originally I think I used to tell myself what she was going to do or say as a way to protect me from hurt (which it does to a small extent). And I was often right. So as a professor once told me "that might be true but it's not very useful", I just try to ignore those urges to map out in my mind what she's gonna do or say.
Quoting Jamesjohn: How would you see the situation you're in from an outsider's point of view? What if you were a third-party looking at the events that are going on in your life? How might you see things differently?
Thats such a tough one for me. I've talked about it with C and unfortunately if someone asked me for advice about their (being mine) sitch, I'd probably tell them to cut their losses. Its so hard because no one was there and knows what went on between us. My C thinks I'm foolish I can tell, but she hasn't said that. I'm not so worried by what other people think, but it's so hard to keep the DBing faith with well-meaning friends and family beat a constant drum to get out of the sitch and get a D. It's like another pressure that I didn't anticipate, and it really erodes PMA.
