One specific thing I would like advice on. In my first post I mentioned that my H was going to come get the fridge from my mom's house, but I finally told him not to because it was too late.
Well, that evening I was so frustrated with H that I just stayed at my mom's house with my 3 girls and didn't go back to our house. I went to work the next day and then went back to my mom's house again. I did not speak to my H and he did not speak to me since the last time we talked about getting the fridge.
I stayed at my mom's for 2 reasons: 1, because I want H to know I'm not happy he lied to me about this arcade, spent all this money and now has stuck it in the garage with all the rest of his clutter. 2, because I don't know how to talk to him and just tell him how I feel, and even if I tell him how I feel, I know it won't do any good.
I recognize staying at my mom's house for reason 1 is probably manipulative. I don't know. It's a form of silent treatment or punishment, which has to be manipulative. He gives me the silent treatment all the time and I know for darn sure I take it as a punishment. I always - always - wind up apologizing to him just to get the silent treatment over with (I always find something I can genuinely apologize for and do it genuinely, even if I feel like he needs to apologize also, which he doesn't do). My mom used to do the same thing to me growing up and I just can't handle it. I cave, apologize, feel good about myself for getting whatever guilt I had off my chest, but also bitter a little bit for caving because whatever I did didn't deserve such punishment as total silence. Why is the silent treatment so painful for me? I would like to know that. He doesn't seem bothered by the silent treatment at all. He may rather like it, lol.
So I am going home tonight and I have to do something. I have to talk to him somehow about how I feel about him lying to me. I have a ton of other stuff I want to talk about (like the garage) but I probably should steer clear of that right now. What I need help with specifically is:
- how do I approach this conversation without being bristly and cold? what do I actually say? how do I keep it very, very short? - do I need to validate him somehow since he obviously felt the need to hide all of these activities? validate his feelings of fear?
Am I looking at this all wrong? Do I have good reason to be upset or am I just ball-busting and trying to control? Would like all advice I can get.
