As soon as I got off the phone with her, my H is at my bedroom door knocking (I had no idea he was coming over). He said he needed to pick up some tools. I debated on whether to come out of my bedroom, because I didn’t want him to see me in this state. I decided to come out, and he seen me all upset and asked what was wrong. I just told him that I was having a bad day. He grabbed me, and started hugging me and I lost all my strength and started telling him how much I missed him. He started to cry, told me he was so confused and lost, and didn’t know what to do about us. I validated, and told him I can’t tell him what to do and that he had to figure that out for himself. We continued talking for about an hour, each of us telling the other how we felt and how we are both miserable. He asked if we could spend some time together tomorrow, and I said yes.
2x4 welcome.
OK, you asked for it.
MB, although exchanges like this will make YOU feel better (and will also relieve your husband's guilt), they are NOT effective DBing, and are very counter-productive in the long run.
Too "needy-grabby." Doesn't work.
This is how you should have handled it:
As soon as I got off the phone with her, my H is at my bedroom door knocking (I had no idea he was coming over). He said he needed to pick up some tools. I debated on whether to come out of my bedroom, because I didn’t want him to see me in this state. I decided to come out, and he seen me all upset and asked what was wrong. I just told him "I have some decisions to make. This isn't working for me."
Quote:
He started to cry, told me he was so confused and lost, and didn’t know what to do about us.
"Oh please. That 'woe-is-me' thing is SO unattractive. Please be clear, husband, you may not know what to do, but the decision is NOT all yours. I have some decisions to make myself, very soon. This is your mess; I do hope you'll decide to do the right thing and clean it up very soon, because I will NOT wait forever."
