I just got to the part in DR where you're supposed to write down your goals. I had to rewrite mine a few times as Michele explained you have to make them specific and action based! So, here are the 3 I wrote down: 1) For us to choose a new preschool for our son together. 2) For her to ask about me via text/phone 3) Encourage her about something causing her stress(likely her being director of summer camp)
When she called last night to tell our son goodnight, I could tell she was pretty sad. He said I love you, hi Mommy, bye bye, etc but he was focused more on me and talked about Daddy. She started to cry, but she's obviously decided never to let me hear it and when I asked if she were ok she said I'm doing fine and quickly said goodnight.
Also, during those few moments when the conversation isn't directly about our son, I feel like she's trying to instigate something. Like she wants to push my buttons and cause me to blow up. Could this be an attempt to validate her choice, to have me get angry and say something nasty that would illustrate that I really am the reason she's unhappy? I haven't fallen for the bait, and even do a pretty good job of validating.
The goal section of DR confuses a lot of people.
Your #2 isn't a goal. A goal is something you can control, and you can't control her at all.
#1 and #3 are goals. You might want to break the first one down into smaller goals (make a list of possible preschools, research one preschool a week, identify your top 3 chioices, etc.). For the third one, you might want to set a frequency--once a week? once per conversation?
Me: 44 H: 44 Kids: 20, 16, 16, and 10 Together/Married: 22 years H announced he was emotionally detached and considering D: 4/4/16 H announced he is going to try to stay and reconnect: 5/1/16
