Please know that I am thinking about this latest development and turning things around in my head. Still trying to find a balanced approach here. When I am good and ready to give some ideas and guidance, I'll be back. Soon.
Here are some general comments about your draft:
Hi W,
I appreciate you seeing this from my perspective and acknowledging how painful it’s been for me to be without Woofie. It’s been over 4 months without him so I’m excited to see him this weekend.
You are correct in us not seeing eye to eye on Woofie. That is because this is an emotional topic, not one based around the extremely subjective facts of “where he would be happiest”. Careful of throwing in "subjective facts" for they run counter against each other...subjective and facts??! Is this sentence helpful? Is it necessary? We both LOVE him and adore him. It’s acceptable to admit that is a huge part of our decision. To say otherwise would be disingenuous and deny our humanity. I know you love him and want to have him stay with you. I do too. I won’t deny that part of you.
However the process is mystifying to me as you appear to want to hold all the cards in clearly defining “what is best for Woofie” and then enact that decision the last part sounds like blame...making her out to be the 'bad guy' here. How does that help the healing process and/or keep open up the lines of communication? Decisions about Woofie should be made as a partnership, not a monopoly.
I do not want our friendship to be forever altered by unilateral decisions that benefit the decision maker at the expense of the other. Huh? You lost me. There are several topics all mushed together. This is confusing. Plus using the world "unilateral decisions" will not get you closer to the goal. In fact, it will repel W. That’s neither loving, fair, nor in the high integrity spirit that we’ve conducted our separation thus far. I would be very, very careful of using the word "integrity" here because it infers that W isn't a person of integrity. Hmmmmmm...do you see what I mean here?
While I am excited to spend the day with Woofie this weekend, I would like to have him stay with me for the week. I can bring him back down to W’s City on next Saturday and drop him off before the EVENT. She gives you an inch and you're grabbing it for a mile. Choose your battles wisely. This isn't the time nor place to do so. It is an ambush...really.
