Gogofo - no longer piecing 2nd BD

[gogofo]

I attended an inspirational seminar this morning, A Passion For Service, and even though the teachings and techniques were applied to business I was taking them and applying them to my personal life. After all what are customers other than another relationship that is valuable to nurture and keep healthy.

Most of his talk focus on being a good listener, empathizing, being enthusiastic, effective communication skills, honor, respect, etc. Just about everything any good relationship book will tell you.

The part that hit home to me was when he talked about sharing in the dreams of other people and honoring and respecting them and their dreams. This is an issue between me and the W as I am not properly communicating my sharing in her dreams and future. I am sending the message and it is not in the proper way.

He also said a key phrase that hit me (because I had read similar suggestions but forgot about them), he said that instead of saying “no problem” say “it would be my pleasure”. He said that using this phrase can make a big difference in how people perceive and understand what you are telling or doing for them. In my interpretation it shows them that you are happy and willingly doing this for them. Saying no problem can give the perception that “Since I do not have a problem with it, I will do it for you. If I had a problem with it, I would not be helping you out.”

Big, big, big for me as this was my go to phrase and now I understand how my message of caring was lost in its delivery.

So I have been thinking about my short term goal of opening dialog to get to my long term goal of her wanting to talk more about us or the R. I also was thinking about my 180 of openly expressing my feelings, both good and bad; so I decided to send my W a text message of thanks.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays she teaches until 8:30 at night so it was decided that I would have the kids these nights, which makes sense. But I have to be to work at 7:00 in the morning so when they stay the night she has to wake up around 5:30, get ready for work, and drive across town to my house by 6:50. Not an easy thing to do.

When we were reconciling I told her it was easier for me to stay at her house so she did not have to wake early, etc. She felt smothered early on and like I was trying to slide into the home. I finally one day explained that I felt bad that I was not able to deal with the kids in the morning after they were at my house because of my schedule and not being able to change it. She asked me why I had never explained that to her before; I just assumed she understood this. (what a dummy)

So with treating her like a neighbor whom was doing a nice thing by sacrificing their time to help me I sent her this text.

Me - “Thanks for getting up early after a short night of sleep and getting the kids ready for school. I appreciate it.”

Her – You’re welcome

Her – Am I picking them up Thursday night or Friday morning?

Me – “I know you have to get ready for WHC and Chicago along with classes so whatever works best for you would be my pleasure. I can even put them down of take them out to you Thursday, if that is a better solution.”

She has a crazy schedule and no time to fit extra things in the next 7 days, so I was letting her know I shared in her dream by putting down in words. Something I had yet to do in our relationship.

I said what I would have said to anyone who did this for me out of the blue. My wife normally would not have heard these kinds of words from me because I would have expected she understood the situation and my appreciation when I would just say “thank you”.

She bends over backwards for many others and is very selfless. I also am more willing to help others than myself, now I am letting those people know. I think when it is family and our SO we do not let them know how much we care and how happy we are to help; this is the case with me. I just made the assumption everyone understood how I felt etc.

I am really working on being selfless; I love the way it feels. This is a good 180 for me and my life.

I now am going to see if there is cheese down this tunnel. She did call me and I stepped out of a meeting to answer. She said she just needed to talk about a couple of things and would call me later. It is hard not to speculate of mind read what they could be, so I am trying to avoid that mentally.

It is funny how you can hear the same message multiple times and then all of a sudden smack. I guess like MWD recommends, sometimes it is the how the message is delivered not what the message is. I was going to do this before the second separation. Now I have to do it from afar.

I was thinking about DBing when writing the text and Sandi's rules; didn't have them in front of me but I don't think I violated any of them.