Cross country DB with WAS

[Anders]

Alright DB, I'm caught up. Thank you for having 2 threads to make that easy for me. I was planning an all morning review, in between work stuff 'cause I actually DO work, believe it or not.

So, my first thoughts are that you and your W:

1. Do a whole lot of assuming
2. Have a fairly poor communication pattern

Thanks Underdog for following up on my thread. I will try to provide as much detail as I can from my perspective.

Here goes:

Yes, we have very bad communication approaches. We are major conflict avoiders.

We met 10 years ago just as she was about to leave for school. We had a long distance relationship for the first year and a half. Communication was really great then. Daily phone conversations getting to talk about our lives, families, future aspirations, etc I felt we got to know each other extremely well and fell madly in love. Visits were often very passionate and loving. Everyone saw us a dream couple.

When she moved back, we settled into a 'normal' phase re-adjusting to being in the same place. The next 3-4 years continued to be great.

Communication started to break down when we moved in together (I moved into her place).

I begun to feel like I had no voice. From where I could put my things when I first moved in to how she would talk to me about house chores (cleaning was a big one). My pattern then was to try to placate. But I began to feel there was more to her getting upset about the cleaning. I asked her this directly and she said it was that I was not doing enough to help her. I kept on trying and the nagging continued. I began to feel resentful.

I begun to notice that we often seemed to spend more money than what we were both bringing in and raised this as an issue. She would continually defer the discussion (not the right time, busy, tired, etc). This caused my resentment to build as I felt like I was only in her life for the income I brought in.

As my resentment built, I suggested MC as my sense was that the nagging about cleaning was a sign of something else really bothering her.

During MC, I dumped all my frustration on her and she felt the counselor took my side. In recent conversations, she said she didn't like the idea of counseling as it made her uncomfortable. She brought up how she felt attacked and defenseless during those sessions. She is right here as I felt and acted like the victim, pretty much said she was a manipulative villan.