i actually woke up this morning with the thought - let him do it. it suddenly became very simple - he can take care of deciding about which fencing class s goes to. that way i extract myself from the whole pattern of "s needs something, h asks me to take care of it, i take care of it, h objects and is pissed at me, i get all anxious and cannot understand what happened"
the only way to step out of that is to say no h, you take care of it and sidestep the whole thing altogether. the same exact pattern happened with the other thing yesterday except both his parents were involved. mil and i were trying really hard to break the pattern, but all of us got pulled into it.
A ha! Good for you for identifying the pattern and the 180 you need to do to remove yourself from that situation going forward. That is a good step toward detachment. Be prepared for some kind of backlash from him because you're breaking a pattern that he is also used to. You can be firm about your position but kind, too. You can do it!
