Hello, WAW. Is anyone there?

[AlwaysTrying]

Sandi, is it possible that being at our house some of the time is helpful? She seems to like it when I make her dinner or lunch, for example.

I'm open to going that way if needed, but I want to put in two weeks of the current plan and see how she reacts. I'm going to try to stay away as much as possible, and refrain from texts, emails, etc.

We have a session with the MC on the 18th, and I plan to ask her then at what times she feels she doesn't get enough space. I know now that she will complain about behavior that I've already long stopped. That's frustrating for me, but it's still going on in her head. When we had the DB coach on the phone, W brought up that dishes were a sore spot for her because for years she felt like she had an unfair share of the cooking and cleaning responsibilities.

I guess it would have been great for her if I could have intuited that and taken them over. I did about 5% of the family cooking (not including breakfast, which was mostly me making oatmeal or cereal or scrambled eggs or pancakes, etc) and about 45% of the dishes (not including pots that needed to be scrubbed or anything "gross" - those things were all me).

I thought we had a division of labor. She cooked, and I did projects with the kids. I tried to clean the dishes if she made dinner, but it didn't always turn out that way.

Well, if she had said to me, "AT, I want you to do more of the cooking." or "I don't think you appreciate how much I do the dishes." or something, it would have been on my radar. That's a shortcoming of mine. I'm very bad at reading minds and I need to be asked.

Finally, about 3 months ago, I pick a few comments of hers and realize that she's still cooking for me and the kids on my nights because she thinks that I'll feed the kids junk food if she doesn't, and since then, I cook and clean at every opportunity. Good food that meets very high standards - gluten free, dairy free, fresh vegetables, few processed ingredients.

And finally on this call yesterday she finally acknowledges that dinner and dishes are a sore spot for her, after I have clearly made serious adjustments in that area.

I'm just saying that it seems clear that good changes will be ignored for a long time before they register. And if I am finally able to give her the space she needs, it will be a long time before she is able to tell me as much. I'm hoping to just get her to give some examples of when she has and has not felt comfortable with her space in the last while.