Just Tired

[TiredTN]

Sorry about not posting for a while. After my first coaching session I just kept doing what I had been doing. The coach worded it different, but her initial "homework / takeaway" whatever you want to call it was really about boundaries. I may have written before I have read several articles about people who want to get a divorce or even have gotten a divorce, but still live together out of economic necessity.

The only way that works is to really establish boundaries and respect those boundaries. I have thought of it before as to behave like you would at work. You would be cordial, but not overly familiar. You wouldn't bait co-workers into an argument so why do it at home? So I had been doing that before my coaching session, but put some more thought into it and tweeked it since then.

She has been in counseling as well with the therapist we both saw several years ago. I didn't feel then that she was of much use. It was a lot of mirrored conversation.
Therapist "Tell me about your day."
Client (me or my wife)"It sucked."
Therapist "So what your telling me is your day didn't go as planned?"
I have so far not been to see her this time around.

However, whether it is the therapist or my change in behavior my wife's has changed as well. She knows that I hate it when she goes to bed (we sleep in separate rooms and have most of our marriage) without saying, "goodnight" and/or getting a hug, peck on the cheek, whatever. So, I had stopped asking or trying for that. You wouldn't kiss a co-worker on the cheek right? In the past I had always been the initiator of that. So we went for several weeks with none of that.

Then low and behold she started initiating it.

We had our anniversary recently. We didn't do anything big and special. The kids were off school that day so we went to see the new "Ice Age" movie and had dinner (with the kids). There were some tense moments, but overall it went okay.

I also went out and bought one of the books the coach suggested. I didn't get Michelle's book; the bookstore didn't have it, but they did have "The Seven Princeples for Making Marriage Work." I started reading on Chapter 3 (you don't always have to go in order you know...the book police won't come and get you).

In this chapter he talks about how he predicts divorce. I haven't finished the chapter yet, but I can say we have our share of 1. Harsh Start-ups, 2. The Four Horsemen are generally stabled in our living room, 3. Noah never saw any flood like the flooding we have (or at least me), 4. We've got lots of body language clues, Sherlock wouldn't have a tough time with this case at all. 5. There are failed repair attempts, but I feel that 90% of the time it's me making the attempt. I'm sure my perception on that is off, but it doesn't work often.

That's about where I finished reading for the day. I know the sixth thing is "Bad Memories." I have a lot of those. She takes a ton of pictures and looking back at those pictures both before and after children most of them remind me of the chaos life was. We might be smiling in the pictures with our arms around each other, but it was many, many times only for that instant.

Well, that's a fairly comprehensive update. It's going better, but my guard is still up somewhat. I do have a little hope now, but I also realize the effort I have to put in and its, "Yuuuge" (to quote one presidential candidate).