Me again. I am away with my children for a long weekend and completely distracted by my problems. Going out in a few minutes for a hike, and then dinner with family later- so maybe that will help.
I read Sandi's rules again and realized I need to fine tune my DB skills. I am doing well 90% of the time, maybe 95%, but not taking it all the way.
I've got to do a better job with putting a pleasant expression on my face and not taking the bait and reacting emotionally. Which mostly happens in counseling, because we are talking for no more than a minute or so at a time outside of counseling.
I also need to redefine what is pursuing vs. not pursuing. H wants me to sit with him while he works. I will, in small doses. I will show interest in his work, ask him what he is working on, a few follow up questions, sit quietly and check email and FB with him while he works, and then get up and do my own thing. Maybe give him 20 minutes a day of that "calm and interested" but not emotional attention. I won't look at it as pursuing because he asked me for this.
H interprets every single thing I say as negative, critical or emotional. Sometimes I get it, sometimes I am shocked at what he is perceiving to be those things. I am going to deal with this one in MC. I am going to bring it up instead of waiting on him to start listing all the ways I screwed up. I will say "I want to be more approachable, and I don't always see things the same way. Maybe you (MC) can help us work out a solution? Maybe a code word or something H can use to let me know if he starts to feel attacked? Maybe something I can say to help de-escalate ? " We are paying this MC a ton of $, he should have something useful to contribute to this, I would think this is a fairly common problem. Although maybe not to the extent that H is worked up about it.
I truly do want to be approachable and do not want to be a negative person.
The last thing bouncing around my head right now is texting vs calling. H texts me. I think texting is fine for "landed at the airport" or "picked up the kids" type conversations, but he will text me things like "How was your trip?" Now, I am VERY happy that he is texting me at all, a month ago I wasn't even getting texts, but I started responding with "good, call me if you'd like to talk about it" and he usually calls. The advantage to this is that I can take a deep breath before he calls and get a better PMA. And I always "end the conversation" first.
Those are my thoughts right now. Going out for a hike. Hoping to get all of this out of my head for a few hours. I was doing so well for about 2 weeks, but now I am obsessing too much again. I guess that is normal. And although I am backsliding, still nowhere near as bad as I was this time a month ago. So I will not beat myself up. Thanks to anyone who is reading this. Please let me know what you think- am I on the right track, am I just plain nuts, whatever.
