He's Just Not That Into You - The Sequel

[mamabird]

More updates tonight.

I feel that H isn't modeling good behavior for my sons. He is so disrespectful towards me, and I'm afraid they are going to think that's ok.

I had a long talk with each of them and then with H too... of course that discussion unraveled into yet another R talk. But finally, we got to a point where we actually finished the conversation. We talked until there was nothing left to say.

I struggle so much to be heard in this M. At points in the convo I had to say, "You need to hear me." "Just stop and think about what I just said." He still isn't taking any responsibility for what happened, but that's ok for the moment. I did ask him to say "I hear you and I accept it" when I said I accepted my share of the blame, whatever my share is.

His thesis statement tonight was that I don't understand the impact of my actions. That I have behaved sh!tty time after time and never really understood how it affected him. That he did a bunch of nice things for me and was "cool" after my first EA (which I suppose he was) and I didn't appreciate that. That he made most of the money, went to parenting classes and really tried (true).

He would sling accusations here and there and I made him stop so we could go into them as he said it.

So, I did a 180 and just listened to him say all of that instead of arguing. And at the end, I mirrored it back to him and tried to reflect the feelings. I think he felt heard at the end of it and that's when the conversation ended.

H suggested that I focus on my actions and how they impact other people.

I was just happy that we could finally finish a conversation.

I told him I was struggling with detachment. I wouldn't have brought that up but basically our MC told me to detach - not his words but that's what he meant. I told H I had heard the MC and agreed it was the right strategy but that I had a lot of fear and that it was very difficult to do.