Good morning Zoo, Hope you are feeling better today. Those headaches can be real lu-lu's and can sure put a damper on the day. I had on of those last Saturday, Tylenol doesn't do a thing for me. Eventho CAW was in no mood to go out, she picked me up some Excedrin for Migraines. By 4:30 pm I was finally feeling like a person again altho peeved at myself for much of the day was already lost.
I wanted to reply to your prior post but ended up running out of time yesterday.
Quote: My going down this path could quite conceivably be considered "pursuit behaviour" which I know is not any good in my sitch
To be conceived as "pursuit behaviour", you would be telling him you need to have a talk which comes across as be controling him to have the talk. You making the choice to talk and forcing it upon him. Hence the air of being needy, demanding, cling, etc... which are the traits of "pursuit behaviour".
By requesting / asking, you are making it his choice by the answer he gives you. If he accepts its by his choice and is not considered as your persuit so long as he knows if he declines, you are OK with that and will let it go for now. Then give is a few days to give him the choice to follow up when he is ready. If not, a gentle reminder using "I" statements, such as "It would really help me out if you would be willing to discuss ..." as a way of asking for what you want.
Subtle changes in tone and word to asking rather than telling, giving him some time to respond back, keeping the gentle reminders about you rather than him ... is the difference between a talk being preceived as persuit or burdoning versus accepting it as a comfortable and productive discussion.
The goal is to make it a comfortable environment in which they will want to feel like talking. By no means am I implying that this is simple to do as I still have yet to find what works to make CAW comfortable enough, but if you find what works to obtain this with your H, you will need not worry having about OR talks. In a healthy R, OR talks are good and should not be shied away from, but like the rest of our DBing efforts such talks were recently clouded with bad memories on both sides, so we need to work at making the good ones outnumber the bad again. Contemplate how to make the talk end on a good note. The more times he feels good just having a talk to you, the more comfortable he will become and the cycle continues...
I'm sorry to hear about the strain between your mother and yourself. I don't have much to offer other than it much easier to apply DBing when trying to correct your dependancy on others than it is to reverse their dependancy on you.
Quote: A memory just flashed for me though This time last year H got sent to Nashville for a couple of weeks. He remembered my B'day for once and bought me really great presents. H only stayed in a hotel two nights while there then decided to just drive down every other day (3 hr. drive) and come back home.
The last trip H made down was the first time he took me on a business oriented trip with him. We had a great time and he took me all over the place and showed me the sights (I had never been to N'ville before).
During this time frame H was very loving and attentive to me...kind of like he is now and much more so then H had been previously I find myself wondering if H might not have been trying to break it off with OW then??
There are going to be periods in their turmoil as we DBing where they are gonna wonder is it really possible that this R can be turned around? So they give it a whirl to see how it goes. Some here think of it as the WAS testing us, but it just as much about them too ... how it makes them feel to try for a bit.
Don't put to much energy into analyzing their past action, try to accept it as merely the "natural" progression that had to be taken to get from "there" to "here". Otherwise, you just leave the door wide open to runnaway thinking that more often will take you in the wrong direction and that may ease some of your headaches too ...
Focus on those positives instead ... there are so many ...
