Words get in the way

[angel61]

Harrier,

True, H can be controlling in the "planning" thing, but to be honest, sometimes I like it. When D and I were with my girlfriends in Sedona, they were always looking to me to make the decisions. D and I one day looked at each other and I said "I miss dad!" and she totally understood.... I have to make big decisions at work, and with many other things, that the small details are best left to other people....

I am going to journal now, as I have had some time to think.
Here goes:

Self-control. I am concentrating on that right now.

I exercise it whenever I am feeling impatient, resentful, expectant, and even angry.

I especially use it to restrain myself when I am speaking to H. After reading the book I mentioned in a previous post “How to improve your M without talking”, I feel like I suddenly understand what happened to my M..

It is about how generally speaking (take note, it does not apply to everyone!) women in relationships fear isolation, being unloved, having no one to love, and things that happen that gives them this kind of feeling (when their mate rejects them through stonewalling, not communicating, A’s, etc.) brings up their anxiety level. They respond to this fear by being persistent, begging, pleading, demanding types of behaviours. On the other hand, men are driven more by a kind of a “shame based” feeling, where they are sensitive to failure (failure to provide, to make their wives happy, etc.) and they behave by avoiding, stonewalling, resisting.

In my case I realize that all the above are true. I demanded affection, asked for changes, pointed out things I thought were wrong or fixable in our R. I am a fixer. I know my H tried. I never thought the things I asked for were big, but apparently he did. No wonder when he dropped the bomb he told me that he tried so hard and that he couldn’t make me happy. And that he felt like a failure. I was stunned, coz for me, I felt content, and I was not really unhappy, it was just “if he only did this or that a little better, it would have been perfect”. Apparently the enemy of good is perfect, huh?

No wonder he got so sensitized to everything I say, that whenever I try to speak about anything to him, he thinks I am attacking him! And I am not making it any better by being unhappy.

OW …well, she of course is very appreciative of H, thinks he gives the greatest advice, is so thankful for his guidance, thinks he is her “guiding light”. She is always happy, with what little attention H can spare, and has a life with all her other friends, many of them men.

Big contrast, eh?

So I did a mind overhaul over the last few days.

This is what I am thinking now:

I am blessed with a good career, a beautiful smart daughter, financially we are OK, my H takes care of us, cooks for us, provides well. Really just counting my blessings. Nothing new, but I constantly remind myself about it now.

With that in mind, I am working on making myself happy, content with what I have, have started showing my appreciation of the little things H does for us, have stopped noticing the little things that I don’t like in H, am practicing more and more thought stopping when I think of OW, unfairness, H’s choices.

I am concentrating on making H feel more connected so that he will start communicating, instead of pushing communication when he still is in an uncomfortable frame of mind. I am starting to understand what 25 says about applauding loudly the 1%.

So far, I have been feeling better again. More positive, and I can see H responding to my positivity. We have started feeling comfortable with each other, he has been slowly communicating with me again, no longer having just monosyllabic interchanges.

TO BE CONTINUED