Thanks for the replies! This board has provided a lot of support for me as I've been lurking the past few weeks!
Yes, I do think she is wanting to eat cake. When she announced that she didn't want to get a D because of the financial reprocussions she'd face, but "wanted to start living like a single woman as soon as possible," I almost threw up. I had never heard anything so disrespectful and inconsiderate in my life, honestly. I replied that the loss of that support was what would happen if she were truly single, and being single is what she said would make her happy. I smiled when I said it but I was terse. She said I was being angry and that that was unfair. Unfortunately this was in the context of MC and our sessions have shifted now so that everyone should express their feelings honestly and everything everyone says is equally valid. On principle, this is correct, but W is using this environment to drop bombs and backtrack on things we've discussed on our own. I used to debat with her but have learned to validate but disagree. This seems to help defuse when she starts to catastrophic event but I'm also thinking of dropping MC because it's become a space to learn to accept separation and come to terms with moving into separate lives. I'm conflicted about whether to end MC because I also think it may be an opportunity to find more agreement. It's exhausting though and tends to hurt
The past few days she keeps telling me we need to have a "tough conversation," but each night something comes up for her (working late, etc.) and she puts it off. At this point though, I can't imagine things getting worse so I'm actually not that stressed about it.
My main mental conflict ion at this point is boundary setting. I told her that if she's dating or seeing other people I'm not supporting her anymore and we need to have separate households. On one hand I feel that this may be controlling and an ultimatum, but I also feel that if I let her cross that (last) boundary then the scant respect she may have for me would be gone and nothing I say henceforth would really mean Anyang. Also I would feel like a first class sucker.
At any rate, whatever she wants to talk about, I plan on validating but disagreeing honestly and keeping it short and sweet.
