Need help with detaching and hoping to reconcile.

[labug]

H "prides himself" on being the guy that will say what everyone else is thinking. He's really funny but sometimes his humor can hurt, not only me. He will apologize if he realizes he's stepped over the line. I think he is probably in the same boat. He doesn't realize when what he's saying is hurtful.

And it's probably a cover for something he's lacking or hurt by. His problem to figure out but you can draw a boundary here. You've been reading Co-De No More, how would you do that?

Calling him out was a little tricky, I did it privately and calmly. I let him know that I didn't want out S to learn to treat me like that. He wasn't too sure what I was talking about so I explained that on occasions he will treat me the way his father tends to treat his mother and gave him a few examples. He was shocked and said he didn't think he was nearly as bad as he father if at all. I said he could be and that the severity is irrelevant because the experience is relative. What I experience and what our S experiences did not live your experience so what we feel or learn is as severe as what you felt and learned. He (S)will treat me and future partners poorly because of what he learns from you and he will eventually grow to despise your treatment of me (his mother) just like you despise how your father treats you mother. Do you want S to feel the same way about you as you do about your father. Yes, you love him (his dad) but there are many times you can't stand to be in the same room as him.

He understood and has been conscious of his words and actions. He slips but he doesn't take a reminder as an attack. I don't do it in front of S and that helps.

Good job.

Do you think this might also have worked?

*H, when you say X, I feel Y and S sees X. How do you feel about that? If you were S how would you feel?*

It gives him the responsibility of figuring this out on his own and removes you from being the teacher/mother.

Just a thought.