I do hope she feels a bit differently than even a few months ago, but who knows?
I am trying to change some things—at least the things that I can, to the extent that I can.
As part of the 180s, I’m also trying to reduce complaining / pouting, as well as project more confidence. It’s interesting that you talked about ‘acting’ at the end of your post—I know it means ‘doing,’ but for me right now, it feels a lot like ‘acting’ in the sense that I’m trying something new, and it’s more of a ‘fake-it-til-you-make-it’ approach for me. Kinda like my first year of teaching—no idea what I was doing, so it all looked pretty amateurish, until I got it down—kinda like now!
Part of detaching for me has been trying to give her space and spend less time with her—hopefully that will resolve at least some of her anger towards me. But then again it could always make her angry—WHY DON’T YOU SPEND ANY TIME WITH ME ANYMORE?
But you’re right—expectations are a killer, in any respect. It’s obvious that positive expectations can get crushed, but so can negative expectations—but my MO is to expect the worst and anything other than that is a positive with respect to stuff like this.
