WHG: Chasing that rabbit with the pocketwatch

[workinghardguy]

How do you think you did toward validating her ?

I think did alright. It's funny... after posting the above post, right before crawling in bed, I thought to myself that I should've said I'm really just venting here. Venting here so that I didn't vent at my W.

I listened for the stuff that was important... granted that's somewhat judgmental, as far as what's important or not. But I listened. For example during the checking account conversation she stated that she wasn't sure where to open one... what would be most convenient for me? I told her I appreciated the thought, but she needs to do what is best for her. With the duplex convo she talked about her concerns about possibly having her sister rent the downstairs unit while she would lease the top unit. I agreed that it could be challenging, that it would be nice to have that support there, but that she would need to find a balance. I told her that I thought she could do it and has the strength.

When she was talking about her weight I told her she looks good... and reminded her of all the compliments she got earlier that day when she was modeling bridal gowns for her friend's store at the local bridal expo.

I believe I did alright in validating. I really tried to control my annoyance, listen, and stay engaged.

Where I started to cut things off is when she wandered into realms that I just couldn't be engaged in. For example she starts going through this story of the house she was at Friday/Saturday. She was there with some other gal and three guys. The house is owned by a guy who is recently divorced and gets his son part-time. His W and him built this huge house and now it's mostly empty and a typical bachelor pad. How sad it is to have this big house all to himself and only his son part-time.

Are you kidding me? In that case I simply responded something like "he'll be ok... even if his wife left him, he'll pick himself up and be good."