GALing and Boundaries with XH

[AntoniaB]

Cat, thanks for reading and the story about your background and the wound you healed.

I agree that the wound needs to be healed by me.

I guess I saw my reply to him as less "defensive" and more "explanatory" of how the way I saw it was different from him. That didn't mean I said his view was wrong, just different.

I saw two ways to establish a "boundary" for communicating with him. One way was this: "We can chat about small talk as long as you don't bring up OW or the friends we used to have in common."

Or..

"Maybe next time you can ask me how the cats are or tell me about your tutoring experiences because those are safe topics ;-)"

Like, I went with number two which I saw as more gentle? That was my rationale.

I guess what I'm not getting about what you're saying is if I don't tell him what's ok and what's not, then how am I supposed to create a boundary? In the past I've seen people create a boundary by saying, "You and I can talk if OW isn't in your life." Ok, if I say that, we're not going to speak at all.