Ultramarathon finish line or hallucinations?

[jbnati]

Thanks for stopping in, KD! It's good to hear from you.

You indicated that you let your W have S for a Sunday and rationalized it as though you are being generous in advance of you needing her to be flexible on schedule in the future.

That is one thing I used to do and finally admit that any generosity on my part is generally not reciprocated.

I'm not saying to not be generous, I'm just saying don't expect reciprocation.

I hear you, KD. The reason for rationalization was to quell my own anger. I was getting ticked about her jacking up my schedule. Of the two of us, I am without question the more structured one. I probably should have qualified that - she has been and continues to be very flexible and accommodating with me. I just got her to switch weekends with me with no issue last week.

oh, just to focus on this for a moment:

Interactions with my W have been pleasant for the most part. Last week, we had a text argument. It boiled down to that I didn't like the way she was communication (or more appropriately not communicating) with me.

Kimmerz wrote about that type of thing in her thread in MLC. Check it out, it's a more recent post.

Just to remind you that in our situations, the push/pull dynamic is still in play. Sometimes, maybe conscious... sometimes, maybe not so much...

It might feel good to point that stuff out to your W now and then. In the end though, it could very well be a pointless endeavour which will only be resolved if and when it is resolved, which will be entirely up to your W to choose to stop that cycle.

I've personally just given to the fact that it continues to be the "new norm" for my W. Maybe, one day, that will change.

The whole point of this is I had lived in fear for the last several years. I was afraid if I ticked my W off, she'd leave. I think we can all see now how well that worked for me. She left anyway! Now that I no longer have that fear and I've got nothing to lose, I have this new found freedom where I can speak my mind and state my position. I should have been doing this all along.

Another thing along the lines of communication. I think one thing I'm doing here, too, is setting expectations I've never had of her before. Not so sure how that's going to go. It's like she's never communicated that well before, how can I expect to force her to be a better communicator now? There are some things that are just common courtesy that unfortunately I am going to have to spell out for her, and I'll probably get mixed results.