she asked me which of us i felt needed the other ones approval or disapproval. i said i thought that i didn't seek his approval, as much as he sought mine, in some way. she replied that in all our talks that was the sense she had also. that even while he's doing this, he comes checking back in to see where i stand. we talked about how in the past, i showed so much disapproval about so many things, and that my "doing something different" here as been to stay consistently pleasant friendly and supportive no matter what
I can definitely relate to this. Even before the bomb, I can remember my H doing something he considered good (and actually it was, I was just being stupid), he was always looking for approval/validation. I just didn't know that's what it was until just recently. And I certainly didn't give it to him.
So I'm going out of my way to say thank you, I appreciate that you did that for me, etc., because basically I suck at it. Mainly because I never really saw my mother say any of those things to anybody, so I didn't know how to. I think it has changed the dynamic of our M even at this stage.
