Is the man I used to know re-emerging?

[goodattitudegirl]

So................I chatted with Jody on Saturday morning. She said that XH’s behavior over the past month has shown movement toward me. She advised that in order to test the waters of friendship with XH I needed to open up to him more (this is consistent with Schnarch’s recommendations for improving intimacy). She asked me to think about what important things were going on in my life right now. I replied that I have had a turbulent 6 months at work that has caused financial stress for me, but that as I understand DBing principles, if I talk to XH about this it will likely impose guilt (I left a very busy career for my current job because H/XH felt neglected because of my work schedule). Jody said that I can communicate this to XH in a guilt-free way. She suggested something like this: “New jobs all have stress. We always uncover some potholes, and boy am I finding out that there are some big black holes! I need a vacation. I’m trying to think about what short-term trips I can take”. She said I should let him know that I’m human too, but I’m dealing with my problem. She suggested that I collect some travel brochures and leave them out when he stops by. This will create an opportunity to talk to XH about my work sitch and talk about my planned solution (i.e. fun mini-vacation) with XH. She said to tell him “I’d like to pick your brain about this”. In summary, disclosing information from my personal life will increase intimacy, but when I present this info, rather than focusing on the problem I should talk about creative solutions (i.e. planning a mini-vacation, rather than b****ing).

I shared with Jody that I wondered if XH was waiting for me to make the first move forward (wrote about this on my thread awhile back). She said that in her experience counseling individuals, that men are only slightly more assertive than women in sexual Rs. This is different than what is typically described in books on this topic. She said that having so many in women enter the workforce over the last 40 years has really changed the landscape in this regard and she thinks that books on M and Rs haven’t really caught up with this trend.

I told Jody that XH and I had a great time last week playing table tennis with a Chinese couple who didn’t speak English. Told her that the Chinese man had asked XH if I was his wife and that XH had commented on this at the end of the evening. XH said he didn’t quite know how to explain out situation to the Chinese man. Jody said this episode created an opportunity for me. She said that the fact that XH and I have a friendly R, even though we are D’ed, lies outside of social norms. She said that not being XH’s W creates a scenario where “we are so sophisticated that our R can’t be described”. “There is not a word that describes the nature of our R”. She said that I should go back and revisit this comment with XH by saying something like this: “I was thinking the other day about what you said about not knowing how to describe our R to the Chinese man….and realized that we don’t have to worry about what other people think about our R. There isn’t really a word to describe the kind of R we have because very few people are able to have the kind of R that we have. We’re living our own lives for ourselves, not for other people” (I will have to think about how to phrase this a bit more, but this was the gist.) This convo will help to relieve XH’s guilt and frame our current R in a new light.

Then I asked Jody if I should be trying to move our R into the next stage: Romance? (Early in coaching Jody outlined 4 stages of DB: (1) Reducing the negative climate of the R, (2) Friendship, (3) Romance/Dating, and (4) Reconciliation (understanding what your new covenant is)). She said that it is time to ramp up romantic energy, but that sexual overtones need to be seen as only a small part of romance. She said that I should now set my sights on moving into the Romance stage. She defined romance as “the security of knowing your feelings are reciprocated” --- “being in love and feeling in love”. This was interesting, because when I initially heard the 4 stages outlined, I envisioned the Romance stage as just dating……..but what she described was much different that what I had been thinking, so it was good to have that clarified. She said that $ex can occur in any of the 4 stages but it is important to know what feeling to attach to it when it occurs.

At the end of the conversation, Jody said that I had gotten to this point with XH because of my PATIENCE. Thought this was an important reminder to everyone AND myself.

………This session was encouraging, ……..but as I wrote earlier this week, finding out that XH is going away for a week for vacay and out of town work has made me wonder if there is a new OW. I e-mailed a bit with XH today, but still not sure………..so I will detach again, be patient, and think about how it might change my view if XH is involved with an OW now, 9 months post-D.

Hope this post provides food for thought for others.

GAG