I did tell H’s mom not to contact him about any of our sitch, and I don’t talk to her or my parents about it…but she’s found out some stuff on her own.
You've done what you can then. Unfortunately parents and friends will try to intervene on our behalf even if we tell them not to and they always do more harm than good. The problem is they simply do not know the dynamics of a WAS or MLCer like we do. You just cannot reason with them, they're running purely off of their emotions.
Quote:
They even called the Sheriff one night, around Christmas time, because he was acting so erratic and said he’d “kill me” if I tried to take the kids and go to my parents.
Good for them, that is unacceptable behavior. There are domestic homicides/ suicides in the news on practically a daily basis, this is not something to be taken lightly.
Quote:
It was a horrible time for our kids, for me, for our parents….and H still harbors a lot of anger from that.
That tells you a lot about his state of mind, he should be feeling shame and anguish and instead feels anger over it.
Quote:
What are some other things I can say, besides “I’m sorry you feel that way” to help diffuse situations.
Validating is simply acknowledging feelings. It is not begging/ pleading/ negotiating/ agreeing/ disagreeing/ etc. If he talks about something making him angry, just mirror his emotions back to him- "you sound angry about this, is that how you feel?" When someone is feeling strong emotions, the LAST thing they want to hear is that they are wrong. So they may be monstering and telling you "I hate you, all you ever do is LIE!" Our natural human response is to defend ourselves, but if we do, we are directly contradicting what they just said and that just results in a big fight. But if you validate- "I'm sorry you think I'm a liar, clearly that is making you angry and I don't want you to be angry.", then you can stop the fight before it starts. Note that you are NOT agreeing, you are NOT saying "yes you're right I am a liar." You are simply acknowledging that he feels that way. There's a BIG difference. You're not admitting guilt, you are empathizing.
Quote:
We had a great weekend….really, really good….Then, this week has been HORRIBLE! His moods are all over the place. Last night, I feel like he purposely started a fight right before he left for work. We’d had a good evening, getting along, laughing and joking.
They will often do this because they see things getting TOO chummy, so they have to get angry and/ or start a fight to remind you that things are NOT chummy. It's frustrating, but it's part of it.
Quote:
I have got to get better about not reacting to good OR bad stuff coming from him. I need to be more balanced.
Great thought, you should write that down and review it each morning! Keep adding similar positive character-building thoughts to it.
Quote:
A question that may not have answers (I may need a 2X4 here!!!), but how do we KNOW they are ready to work on the M again? He initiated a long talk on Saturday and again, yesterday, about where we’re headed. I tried NOT to talk about it at first, but he kept bringing stuff up
Sandi's rule is not to initiate R convo's, but it's OK to talk about it if they initiate. But try to mostly listen and validate. How will you know, well in your case you'll know when he's able to show consistent pro-marriage behavior for weeks or months without backslides. For now it sounds like he's lucky to hold that pro-marriage behavior for a few hours. Right now like Accuray said he's just all over the place. I don't think you can believe anything that comes out of his mouth whether positive or negative, because it's the emotions talking. He's not in a position to think and deduce rationally.
Quote:
Is this MLC or WAS (but still at home) behavior???
This isn't a black or white question unfortunately. There's a little MLC in every WAS and a little WAS in every MLCer. The approach is largely the same (work on YOU), but the timeline is often much longer with MLCers.
