So saw H for the first time since the bomb. He made the classic mistake of wanting R talk without being prepared to listen. I warned he wasn't ready to hear it and I didn't think I had the words yet, but he persisted. Do you think he was a patient and cautious listener? Nope. He deflected, argued, accused, guilted, all of the very unattractive approaches to trying to coerce a WAS into staying. Lesson for today: When your WAS says s/he doesn't like how you treat them, do not underscore it by being a jerk. Even if you hear the white hot noise of outrage, bite your tongue and excuse yourself. Then think about it later or talk it through with someone objective. You might learn that you did something wrong or you might learn that you are soon going to be gladly rid of a total whack job. Either way, you won't be classified as a jerk on that one occassion.
I "only" told H that I was in a lot of pain and I didn't like how he treated me and that there were many ways that he treated me horribly. I did not come out and call him a verbally abusive, control freak, conspiracy theorist bent on making himself and everyone around him miserable. I was really easing into it gently, but he didn't even want to know how he treated me that I didn't like, he just wanted something to beat me up about. So unattractive.
