WAW, Filing as Fast as Possible

[aeolianchaos]

Continuing my earlier thread..

see: "Just had the mother of all R discussions. Yoinks.. nearly 3 hours and most of it focused on our relationship, her feelings of guilt and regret, my issues, the list goes on.. it kind of felt good. "

So.. yes. A very long R talk w/ WAW. After a month of NC. It was a good talk in a lot of ways.. I think it broke certain DB rules, but in other ways it was a shining beacon of what a respectful conversation can be. I am very proud of myself because in this conversation, I did achieve many of my goals in terms of how I communicate (listen more, validate, don't get defensive, be compassionate, don't 'fix', reflect, seek to understand). These were, in the context of our relationship in the past few years, 180s for me.

I will go ahead and give myself a solid B+. Almost could be an A-, but I still let myself start getting pretty in depth about nuances and stuff.. and that offsets the balance. I think she gets lost when I go there, and right now isn't the best time to have her checking out in mid-conversation.

Some key things:
-She still hasn't really forgiven herself, and feels very ashamed still about what she did.

-She is very concerned with the way she thinks my family feels about it.

-She wanted to change me even when we first got together -- she felt like I was unapproachably shy and thought she could 'fix' that about me. I was quite shy, not unapproachable, but not very outgoing. I validated that yet, I did have some trouble there, but some of this comes naturally, some is real shyness. We talked a lot about the difference between introverts, extroverts, and shyness.

-Her notion of codependency seems to be that because she saw herself in the role of caretaker, and depended on me to fulfill that role, but she eventually resented it. I can see this on some levels - she didn't want to say what she was thinking/feeling because she was afraid of how it would hurt me/how i would react to it. I can see this, and I told her how much I regret my defensiveness. She felt like it was her job to defend my choices to others. I can see that too, although I would have been happy with "if you have a problem with AeolianChaos, take it up with him..". What I can't see is where she begins to go down the road of worrying if I'll have someone to talk to at a party, or food to eat, or stuff like that. I have never kvetched about this stuff. I have never depended on her for this stuff.. she could go away for months and I was just fine. This stuff is stuff I believe is in her head. I think the codependency label isn't as accurate as Schnarch's concept of emotional fusion, but if she needs that framework, I guess she'll hold on to it for now.

-Money stuff. As I've mentioned before, she has been the primary breadwinner most of the time since we got out of school. This was more of an issue than she ever let on.. although I picked up on it more than I let her know. Some talk of other stuff she felt I should have been doing if I wasn't going to be making money (ie. housework..). For the most part, I just acknowledged and validated this - there is a lot of truth to it and I certainly appreciate how much she WAS doing that I wasn't. And I told her as much.


WAW e-mailed me later this evening and followed up about some stuff. Some logistical -- how are we going to divvy up our stuff, she wants to put her stuff in storage before she goes out of country for a month. A lot of this is an issue of when and how I will get out of the apartment. I'm sure we'll work it out. I don't know if that was what this epic convo was about -- just to lead up to asking if she can get her stuff? Seems weird.

So, here are a couple of things she said in her e-mail. I am not sure what to make of it. In general I feel like they are positive things to say.. certainly more emotional and open than anything I've heard in months.

"You are so kind and gracious, and while I feel like I dont deserve your kindness, I know that you're acting in a way thats most representative of who you are and want to be, and I am so grateful for that."

"While this process is difficult for the both of us, I really want to better understand myself and how I got to the place I was in...I feel like thats the only way I'll be able to grow and better myself as a person. Talking to you today, has helped me realize many things about myself."

Ladies? Especially Sandi? I really am curious about these statements.