Susana (5) - Stay the Night

[Wonka]

Susana,

I wonder why this positive text upset you?? What?!

So, H just texted from his friend's house:

I'm going to stay at X's tonight because it is too much effort to get the train now. I hope you had a fun day doing all of your things. That snacks were really nice thank you he (X) thought the cookies were amazing!

1) H loved your snacks
2) H talked about your gesture to his buddies
3) His buddies loved your cookies

You scored BIG right there with both H and his friends. A lighthearted response like "I am glad that you and your friends enjoyed the snacks. Enjoy your time with X and see you tomorrow!" Light & breezy...remember?

You asked earlier about what I meant about the parallels between you and Train. Like your H, Train's H was on the fence about returning back to you and the M because of his not-so-good memories of the M.

Now...what I am saying here is that we all advised Train to re-attract H. This is what we are doing here. We are working with YOU on re-attracting H. I am very glad that you listened to our advice for it has made a very positive in H's love bank and his good feelings about you will slowly return.

You say that you did a 180 in not getting upset over the broken plate. Again, that is something that your H is watching very carefully in his head. He needs to see that those changes are for real and will be forever.

No spouse wants to return back to the same ol' marriage with same ol' arguments/fights. Your H needs to believe and TRUST that you will not blow up over small things. I am not discounting your sentimental attachment to those items...but they are just that...items. What's real is the love bond between you and H. That's real. Know what I am saying here, sweetie?

I think you're on the right track.

[susana4]

Susana,

I wonder why this positive text upset you?? What?!

So, H just texted from his friend's house:

I'm going to stay at X's tonight because it is too much effort to get the train now. I hope you had a fun day doing all of your things. That snacks were really nice thank you he (X) thought the cookies were amazing!

1) H loved your snacks
2) H talked about your gesture to his buddies
3) His buddies loved your cookies

You scored BIG right there with both H and his friends. A lighthearted response like "I am glad that you and your friends enjoyed the snacks. Enjoy your time with X and see you tomorrow!" Light & breezy...remember?

I know, Wonka, I am so confused about why it upset me! I may need to think that over some more. I think Zelda hit the nail on the head when she suggested it may have upset me because I was freaking out about the ML and he was so breezy and lighthearted (even if I was planning to act breezy too, I didn't quite feel it on the inside yet).

This morning when I woke up I realised that it was silly of me to be upset over the text (although I realised that last night, too) and I wished I'd replied (something along the lines of what you said). So, when I first saw him (I was still asleep when he got home) I told him "hey! I just saw your texts, fell asleep before I got the text, hope you had a nice time with your friends? So glad they liked the cookies."

You asked earlier about what I meant about the parallels between you and Train. Like your H, Train's H was on the fence about returning back to you and the M because of his not-so-good memories of the M.

Now...what I am saying here is that we all advised Train to re-attract H. This is what we are doing here. We are working with YOU on re-attracting H. I am very glad that you listened to our advice for it has made a very positive in H's love bank and his good feelings about you will slowly return.

You say that you did a 180 in not getting upset over the broken plate. Again, that is something that your H is watching very carefully in his head. He needs to see that those changes are for real and will be forever.

No spouse wants to return back to the same ol' marriage with same ol' arguments/fights. Your H needs to believe and TRUST that you will not blow up over small things. I am not discounting your sentimental attachment to those items...but they are just that...items. What's real is the love bond between you and H. That's real. Know what I am saying here, sweetie?

First off, thanks so much for your advice Wonka, I really appreciate it and the idea for the snacks was BRILLIANT and went down so well. So thank you! I really appreciate the time you and others have taken to advise me.

I get you, I'm re-reading Train's thread now to see how she re-attracted her H.

And any other advice you (or anyone else) has on re-attracting H is so welcome, I am trying to absorb and implement all that I can right now! This board and everyone here has really been amazing.

As for the plate - I totally get that now. It's sad that it took H dropping the D-bomb for me to realise that my M is way more important that any object I own. I mean, if you'd asked me before about my M vs a plate I obviously would have chosen my marriage, but I just didn't get how my critical comments could hurt H so much. Now I see it. I just hope we can put our M back together too but I'm guessing it takes a little more than superglue.

Making a real effort to be consistent on my 180s now.

I think you're on the right track.

Thanks!

Think I made some more deposits in H's love bank this evening! I opened up the kitchen cupboards and the drawer fell out on me and I went "uh oh!"; H heard the commotion and came over and said "I'll fix that!" (Gogofo, just like you said!)

So as he was fixing it I made an effort to praise and thank him but then thought - if I were H, what would make this more fun? And I remembered there were some beers left from H's movie and snacks day, so I put one in the freezer for a few mins to get it nice and cold and then took it to H. He looked happy.

[susana4]

On boundaries...

So, I'm probably going to sound really stupid here, but how do you decide what to set a boundary *on*? I was struck by reading through Train's old threads, and other sitches on here, how important it is to set boundaries. And I've heard time and again how boundaries are important for your own emotional health. I've read articles on how to set boundaries, but the thing I can't seem to get my head round (and I know this is weird)...is how do you know what to set a boundary on? Obviously if there's an active A you're aware of, that's something that clearly needs a boundary. Or if your S is shouting or being verbally abusive.

But otherwise...?

I can't for the life of me think of something I want to set a boundary on in my sitch, with H. And I don't want to start setting boundaries just for the sake of setting boundaries, surely that isn't the emotionally healthy thing to do.

[Sotto]

I think it is more straightforward if there's an A. There are usually some pretty obvious things to set boundaries on there. But examples a sitch like yours?

You may not be willing to visit with H's family and pretend nothing's wrong.
You may not be willing to ML if he wants a D
You may not be willing to share a bed if he wants to D
You may not want to have joint finances if he wants to D

I guess it just depends on whether you have any sense of being treated unfairly in the situation. Anything that eats at your self respect or poses a risk to you...

There may not be anything right now, which is fine too...

[Starsky309]

I can't for the life of me think of something I want to set a boundary on in my sitch, with H. And I don't want to start setting boundaries just for the sake of setting boundaries, surely that isn't the emotionally healthy thing to do.

Healthy boundaries are set (and enforced) around areas that -- if violated -- harm your (or your family's) core personal integrity, or your (or your family's) physical or emotional health, or your finances. So then either one of two things is going on, or in some combination:

1) There really are no things in which your husband is causing you any physical, emotional or financial harm; or

2) The very fact that you can't see or think of any might be indicative of part of the problem (denial).

I honestly don't know enough about your sitch to say which it is, but I would urge you to dig deep and do some soul-searching on this as it's rare (ever?) that I've seen anyone on here who can't see two or three core things from which it would be healthier for them if they'd learn to protect themselves.


Starsky

[Wonka]

Susana,

I am wondering why you feel the need to set a boundary. What is driving you to think about it?

From what I read here, it seems that H is at home. No disrespectful yelling or any of the crappy behaviors that WAS usually display.

[susana4]

Thanks Toots, Wonka and Starsky, you've given me some things to think about.

Wonka - I guess I feel I "should" set boundaries because I keep reading about boundary settings in other people's threads/sitches. But as my old IC used to always tell me "stop should-ing all over yourself". H has on the whole been very nice to me throughout our sitch, and never spewed.

Starsky - I'm going to spend some more time thinking about it. Off the top of my head, and Toot's list (thanks T!) the only thing is ML. I enjoyed ML the other night but it upon reflection it bothered me not kissing. I don't know if another occasion will arise, but if ML comes up again I would set this as a boundary.

Two things I found disrespectful in our M:
-he wouldn't always tell me when he was going to be home (difficult for me to plan meals). I brought this up in MC just after BD, and he's been religious about texting me since.
-he constantly forgets to tell me when he's going away for the weekend until the last minute. I don't know that this is something I can set a boundary on as there's really nothing to enforce (I considered this awhile back, in an earlier thread). I've made peace with it now, because I just assume he's not home unless otherwise told, and he's forgotten (or doesn't care?) to rescind my access to his google calendar so when I realised that I turned it on.

[Zelda09]

My two cents -

Is anything he's doing infringing on your physical space, mental space or emotional space? Yes? Set a boundary. No?

Getting ourselves upset about things they do in their own space doesn't necessarily count.

If his notifying you of coming home late is a preference, or kissing you, then I think that's just it - preference. When you're a little further along I think you can make *asks of him, but your preferences only mean something if he's stated he wNts to be in a R.

[Wonka]

Susana,

That's the trouble with feeling that you "should" set a boundary just because you read it from Train's thread. From what you write, I do not see a clear reason to set up any boundary.

Zelda puts it quite succinctly: those issues are just preferences.

No biggie.

Now back to the regularly scheduled program.

[susana4]

Thanks Zelda and Wonka. Seriously, you guys keep me sane!!

I guess these are things I can consider if at some stage we reach the point of reconciliation. Right now, doesn't really matter.

For now, I am really looking forward to my me time tonight and my spa night. I used to do this all the time when I was single but kind of stopped after I met H. Not good, you need to take time for yourself.

Going shopping in a minute! Going to get a face mask and some body scrub type stuff. Food wise I am making 7 layer dip (was jealous of H when I made it the other day for his movie & snacks day), BBQ wings, cocktails and an ice cream sundae. Weird combo, I know.

When I mentioned I'd be doing a spa night H went "awwww, I'm jealous, I wish *I* could have a spa night!" He loves peely face masks so I think I'll pick one up for him and maybe some other spa type thing so he can do his own spa night tomorrow when I'm out GAL-ing.