Exercise 1: For the past few days I've been following my C's advice and not letting my W's mood be anything to do with me. Thanks to Gottman, I was able to read her body language a little better and instead of asking if I did something wrong, I could tell she was just overwhelmed by her mom coming to visit for 4 days. I asked if she needed any help etc. A lot of differentiation is "state of mind" rather than behavior.
Exercise 2: While watching TV. I did a little mental exercise and told myself to have no fear. I then leaned to W and asked "when we go to bed tonight, I would like to get naked with you and do a little bit more than cuddle. You have every right to say no." As I asked her, I could see every muscle in her body tense up with anxiety but she said a (less than enthusiastic) "sure". I completely held on to myself through this and I would have loved it more if she said no because it would have given me some more material to challenge myself with. Unfortunately it might be hard to know whether my decreased anxiety is do to self-soothing or the fact that I got some sex. Anyway, I just realized that the anxiety she was feeling wasn't completely her lack of desire. It was the fact that I'm raising the level off differentiation and it's creating tension for her. It's her tension...not mine. She can not honestly say in C next week that I pressured her. She can admit to feeling pressure, but for the past week, I've completely ceased my "tests of her conviction" that she was worrying about. I'm sure she's a little worried that I would have gotten weird over her response if it was no but I wouldn't have because "I don't need her desire to validate myself or feel less anxious". I just am going to be "me"...a guy who looked at his W and decided that it would be nice to ML with her.
I'd be curious if I violated any Schnarch's principles in this.
I do admit that I'm having the same quandary as Cemar in that despite all differentiation in the world, some of us just want more. Maybe my W will start to see the new me and the balance will change. I think the extent of behavior changes needed is mostly in the form of "disclosing what I want despite the response". Her desire problem now belongs to her because for the foreseeable future, I'm going to ask her once or twice a week to have sex with me....wait...is that sadism? God this is confusing. Schnarch is making us walk on 2x4s.
Anywhere is walking distance if you have the time
-Steven Wright
