My W quit her part-time job this week. I read her letter of resignation, and support her decision. She has an unreasonable boss, who keeps her in the margins while he makes reckless decisions. Her plan is to attend a weekly job-hunting support group, and obtain another part-time job while she pursues something full-time. I took the night off from my social dancing to go to dinner with her, so she could process her decision.
I'm working with an instructor from the studio to recruit students to attend a ballroom dance in March. We have one table so far. My agenda is to meet my needs to do social ballroom dancing, and to create a social environment for my W so that she can enjoy herself more at these events. It doesn't work well when I go alone to these events with my W. She's ready to leave after a 1/2 hour.
I've decided that since I'm half of the dance partnership my goals should be incorporated. This includes learning and practicing dances that are important to me, attending two competitions per year to give us accountability and structure and diversify our dance experience, and attend ballroom social dancing by myself or with my W as part of a group.
I'm reading the chapter in Hold Me Tight where the author talks about breaking harmful communication patterns, which she calls Demon Dialogues. The first step is for a couple to recognize when they are doing it. The one pattern I recognize is where my W is sharp with me and I feel incompetent an devalued as a H, so become silent and withdraw, which leads to disconnection.
One way for me to break this pattern, is to experiment with staying with the dance, investigate what's bothering her, listen to it, and validate it. This is tough to do, after one has been criticized, but the criticize-withdraw dance has to be broken. The author would believe that my W strikes out because she is feeling disconnected and is trying to get a response from me. Ideally couples would work on this together, but I'll start on my own, and see what happens.
CL
CL 53 W 54 M 20 yrs. 03'-09' Separation + Old Patterns + GAL 10-14' Piecing
"The Master allows things to happen. She shapes events as they come."
