tired of this

[A_goodman]

Journaling...

So last night, I played it cool. She asked ME if I had thought about yesterday morning's conversation. I said that I had and that I understood her not wanting to drive Old Paint. She said it wasn't that, but that she was worried about our safety with the van needing some work. So I told her, since she wasn't against driving my car after all, I'd rather spend the money on the maintenance than on a rental. We get paid on Friday, so I would just leave a little later on Sat and get it done that morning.

The Cub Scouts have a fishing tournament scheduled at 7 AM that morning anyway, so I wasn't planning on hitting the road until after 9AM. (I set the date before this trip became my plan) I figured we might still get out around noon. She asked how much I thought a rental would be anyway, so I told her I'd look into it, but that I figured it would be at least $2-300 which would just be money down the drain.

Today, she e-mailed me that she had reserved a rental for the whole 5 days and that I could pick it up on friday. It was around $170.

I surrender. I'm driving the rental. Several things stand out about this.

1) She did all the work to set me up AND e-mailed me at work. (only the second time for an non-kid related e-mail in the month since I went dark.)

2)It is cheaper to rent a car than I thought, but still a waste of money, since I already own a car and It still needs some simple MX.

3) She must REALLY not want to drive my car for 5 days.

Ok some positives anyway. I'm sure she did this to be nice, but I'm waiting for the WAW snap-back maneuver. I'm sure I'll hear about her doing the work while I sat around doing BLAH BLAH BLAH. I already have my answer canned and waiting: "Honey, thank you. That was very considerate of you, and I DO appreciate it. Especially since I never asked you to do any of it." - BIG SMILE - exit stage left - AAAAAAAAND CUT!

Of course, if it was just out of the goodness of her heart and she doesn't snap back on me, the good thing is I can still use my answer.

We have MC tonight. I asked her this morning if she liked our guy. She said yes. I reminded her of her position that she wanted to stop after the 6th meeting which will be tonight. So I told her she should consider whether she wants to continue as he will undoubtedly want to talk about it tonight. No questions, no R talk, just a gental reminder that she needs to consider how to handle the deadline she set. Personally, I might decide to keep going sans W. Although, I get most of my feedback done here. Not sure about that. He's pretty smart and also generally laid back. It'd be interesting to see what he thinks outside of the MC setting.

We still have not gotten definatively to the bottom of what is driving her. I believe some of the thigs she has put forth, but it still doesn't seem like enough. I have come to find her rationale a little comical in one way. The MAIN thing she gave last time; my "emotional dis-honesty", i.e. going along to get along, was characterized as living a sham. He said that it makes sense that she would not want to live in a relationship that was not everything it seemed. OK I can grasp that. then when prompted to expound on why she has such a visceral reaction to this, she said: "I hate thinking that I might be going along all happy and content and have it turn out that he is unhappy and then one day have the other shoe drop and my whole world comes crashing in because he never let me know he wasn't happy."

WOW! It struck me instantly, but I was to astonished to speak. If not for that, I'm sure the words: "you mean like you're doing to me?!" would have come out and seemed less than cool and detached.

So, it is either the greatest projection ever foisted, or, I'ts the Cubam Missle Crises played to an alternative ending. She thinks I'm Castro and have been stockpiling for armagheddon, so she's just going to take me out to avoid me unleashing my strike on her. I guess it's really more like the cold war. Castro is small potatoes. So to keep from getting hurt first, let's go with mutually assured destruction.

That is messed up. If any of it is true.

Sandi, If you're out there, do you think that in this case, it's actually possible that my wussyness and being a doormat all those years actually made her scared that I would dump her? It makes more sense that she just didn't respect me as a man than this gobbledegook.

Another reason I'd like to stay, is that, since this is the only venue where we do any talking, I'd like to have enough opportunity to swing back around to MY needs. We still haven't come back to my trust issues. Plus we haven't reall discussed what reconcilliation would look like. I think she needs to know what I expect of HER in totality. That discussion doesn't seem natural until we flesh out her expectations and needs.

Either way, I'm a cucumber.

I think, since I'm respecting her boundary and only discussing R in her approved setting, My corrolary will be a Boundary in itself. If she wants to work on this, she will either need to keep going or reinnitiate MC when she's ready.

Funny how it used to be more stressful NOT discussing R and now it seems way more relaxing than when we actually have to focus on it at MC. I think I'm getting there.