Just had a coaching session with Dotty. Her suggestions:
work on a "soft start-up" when talking to H...rather than getting directly to the point when bringing up a topic, try to provide context and ask permission so that my communication seems less harsh and doesn't end up sounding like indirect criticism. For example, instead of saying "S crawled into bed with me because he was afraid of monsters", say "I know that you care about how the children are feeling these days...is it OK if I share something that S said this morning?", then get his OK before telling him about it.
H has had an invidividual session with the psychologist that I suggested for developing a coparenting plan (my way of trying to avoid the mediation that H was suggesting). I haven't made my individual appt yet, but I had told H I would make one. When H brings it up, I'll say "Oh, the psychologist never phoned me back (true) and I've been pretty busy with other things (true)". Then say something like "I was just thinking, I brought up the coparenting plan idea when I was feeling pretty emotional (true), but it seems like in the meanwhile we've fallen into a bit of a routine with coparenting. Do you think we could just get together and talk about what's working and what changes we'd like to see happen?". Dotty is concerned that having the coparenting plan meeting would trigger a lot of D talk and planning, which is also my concern.
when H complains about feeling tired, I can empathize "you're feeling really tired huh?"
if an opportunity arises to bring it the topic of S's special needs diagnosis process, say something like "what a shock this has been to us" = aligning us together as grieving parents
without pursuing, show small kindnesses to H and be cooperative (she felt that giving my OK to him taking the bookshelves was good under the circumstances)
doing small friendly favours is OK as long as it doesn't look pursuing
whenever anything tense topic comes up, reflect back what he is saying to help him sort himself out and to stop myself from saying something dumb
even though H may be acting in a strategic way with respect to planning for divorce, try not to allow myself to interpret his actions in that light, give him the benefit of the doubt (to avoid clouding my thinking)
me: 42 | STBXH: 41 | T: 18 | M: 10 | separation: Jan 3, 2010 | they deserve better: S7 & D4 current thread: http://tinyurl.com/3y8sxcp .: first breathe, then heal, then start LIVING :.
