WAW - Very confused and devestated - pt 2

[spellfire]

First off, congrats on your progress. You have improved in many ways, and some of the things she is doing now are the direct result of this.

Please don't let the things I am about to say get you down, I am purposefully singling out some of the things you can work on. The vast majority of what you posted sounded pretty good.

The first thing is that you are still leading the conversation too much and looking for places to insert what you want her to hear, as opposed to letting her lead the conversation by providing a safe environment and space in the communication for her to do so.

Examples: a. she brought up the "oh" comment. You validated it. That's great, she is venting and seeing you acknowledge that it was hurtful, and by not doing that again she can maybe move past it. Then you try to lead her to the "crazy" comment. See why it didn't go as well? You tried force things instead of allowing her to decide what she needed to process.

b. "That's where I worked in that she is right about how hard it is now. It's hard for me now as it's frustating and hurts that the woman I love/married can't find it in her heart to forgive me. She said she can forgive me, but just can't stop seeing me as the person who hurt her so badly so it makes her want to leave."

Why work this in? why push her to think about how she can't forgive you, when she could be processing things that have hurt you and actually working towards eventual forgiveness? You needed to tell her that, but now is not a time to think about your needs. Now is the time to allow her to meet her own needs.

Validation: there is not much difference between validation and acknowledgment. It basically goes like this.

1. First you must provide a safe environment for her to vent. If there is any hostility, if you are feeling angry/resentful, or anything of that sort, back off and come back to it later.

2. Let her lead (as we already talked about). Let her set the topic and don't try to force her to talk about a specific subject. She knows best what hurts her most.

3. When she expresses that something hurt her, or angered her, or whatever you did that resulted in a negative reaction by her, you simply validate what she said. It doesn't matter if she is wrong or right, do not try to correct her, explain yourself, or defend yourself. For better or for worse, this is how she feels about it, your job is to let her know that you truly heard her and that her complaint is a valid one. "I understand." "I can see why you would feel that way." Make sense? As long as you are not correcting, explaining, defending you should be fine.

Eventually you may be able to explain to her how you feel about the subject, but now is not the time. Now, some will feel that this is just allowing yourself to be treated like a doormat, but this is not the case. You are not agreeing with her to keep the peace, you are simply acknowledging that she has this feeling and she has every right to feel this way, whether you agree in principle or not.

Okay this is getting long, so I will leave it at that. One last question (and please don't let it get you anxious, remember you can handle this) when was the last time she took action on the formal process of getting a D?