With GALing, I am taking the kids out weekly for daddy time, just completed my 22nd run to prep for a 10k or half marathon, have lost about 10 pounds and am working in about 30 more, taking dance lessons (part GAL, part 180), reading a lot, etc. etc.
Awesome! Keep it up!
Quote:
But I seem to see confusion in her, and I fear it is not the, "Hmm, maybe he's not such a bad guy," confusion, but more so the, "Is he already forgetting the things I told him?" kind of confusion.
She's probably not thinking in those terms. My W said her confusion was along the lines of "I don't want to hurt the people I love, but I don't want this M either". The WAS spends a lot of time fretting over what they've done. The confusion is NOT over whether they should reconcile or not, that's usually the farthest thing from their mind until much, much later.
Originally Posted By: ccZ28
I guess i've always expected that when i ask for something that it will be done, and that i have an expectation for it to be done.
Example: When i asked my W if she would please not stay out all night.
Expectation was that she would comply, and that I was mad when she didn't.
I took a seminar over a decade ago and learned one of the most brilliant yet simple concepts I've ever heard- an "agreement" is an "offer" and an "acceptance". If I tell my kid to take the trash out tonight and he grunts a response and then doesn't do it, I have no right to get butthurt about it because it was not an agreement, it was a mandate. There was no "acceptance". I have no right to punish him for not complying. BUT, if I ask him if he will take the trash out tonight and he says he will (perhaps for an allowance or whatever), well then there is an agreement and if he doesn't do it then there should be ramifications to him breaching the agreement. This simple principal can be applied to your personal as well as professional life. Often if something doesn't get done and I start to get annoyed/ angry, I have to stop and ask myself- "was there an agreement here?" If there wasn't then shame on me, it's my own fault.
Quote:
I put on this huge romantic dinner , candles, a movie etc. Anyone woman in their right mind would have been blown away. Sure she was appreciative at the time, but a few days later she mentioned that it really had no effect on her at all, and was only being polite.
THEY DON'T CARE.
Absolutely right. This is a great example of falling back on old habits because they've worked before. But dealing with a WAS is a much different sitch than dealing with an upset wife or GF. Like we always say, DB'ing is counterintuitive. We think we should beg/ plead/ negotiate/ lavish the WAS with attention. But that never works.
