Changing Directions

[RegretfulLA]

Ok, I'm going to try beginner's mind here. I'm still not seeing this the way you guys are.

you are still using all the old patterns to engage with H. This is why you are back to feeling like this.

As far as I'm concerned I WAS trying to interact w him differently - the fact that I can't even remember what he was goading me about proves (to me) that I was disengaged. But I guess in the end I didn't fully succeed. The old me would have yelled and screamed a lot more though. The new me tried to stay as calm as possible, but he really started to pressure me, as in, "It's 10:57, you're not ready and we are going." Who does that? Hey, I could understand if there were tickets or something involved but in this case - there weren't.

I love ya Regretful, but you have to come clean about the laundry thing with yourself. At the bottom of it all, what made this so important?

The laundry: I do have a need to FINISH things. Wanted to finish it before we left. If it had been my choice, I would have finished folding the clothes, emptied the dishwasher and put away my oh-so-deluxe pull-out bed before we left.

Also, thinking about it more... I think I felt disrespected (him not respecting my need to spend 5 more minutes so I could finish) and some of the things he was saying to me were making me feel guilty, so I was also reacting to that.

IMO, the "women who cheat usually have a career to fall back on" was nasty. How do you know he's right?

The comments - women who cheat usually have a career to fall back on, you don't understand the English language, you're not that welcome at my parents house - and whatever else he said that I honestly wasn't paying attention to - well that was his way of just trying to get under my skin. I said, "You're right" because I was just trying to deflect it, NOT engage.

2011? You have a lot of resentment built up.

Yes. Yes I do. This particular incident stands out in my mind as one of the most terrible days of my life. You want to see my cry on cue, all I have to do is think about that night for about 10 seconds. I probably should be working on this in therapy.

So, someone please tell me, how, specifically, could I/should I have acted differently in this situation? I actually thought I did pretty well, but I ended up feeling angry and abused. He was trying to provoke me and it worked. So, what other than deflecting and walking away could I have done? See, when I deflect and walk away and try not to react, it makes him madder and he does it more, until I react. And I guess when I finally called him an a$$hole he got what he wanted because it was only then that he relented. Interesting to think about it that way.