I thought everything was okay...(Part 2)

[MCS]

Vanilla,

Okay a cross post, but I'd like to understand what you saw that made you ask that question about judgement in the first place. Was it me questioning the decisions she's making?

I guess, I've been thinking about it and don't see it directly from me or how I think, with the following exception. When I'm comfortable with people, I do like to interact with constructive criticism, because that's how I like people to interact with me. If they have an opinion, then let me know. I've done that a lot with DB, get some range of inputs from people some pretty harsh and then make my own decisions.

I'm thinking that maybe the judgement thing would manifest itself when I don't have a good read with the person I'm interacting with and where they stand. At that point the constructive part of the criticism could be received as just criticism. My W and I always used this communication technique and we were both really open about saying what we thought. Well, if her self esteem was dropping, then she could see my communication with her as demeaning/demanding and not constructive.

I'll stress, that I don't see anything too extreme in my interactions with her or anyone. It would be something like this (a common discussion in our R)

"Hey, W what's planned for the weekend"
"MCS, I was going to go out with friends on Saturday night"
"Well, you went out the other day and I just did the bedtimes for the kids that night when you were out doing XYZ, could you go out earlier or wait until after bedtimes?"
"I guess, but I already told them that I was going to go out with them, I'll tell them you said no."
"W, that bothers me when you do that, because it makes me look like the bad guy, can you ask me before you make plans?"
"Sure, I guess"

Anyway, you can see I was 'debating' and I thought she was too, but it was times like this that she told me that I was making her feel guilty about spending time away from the family.