Not Sure Where This Is Going

[Niall11]

Be helpful, but don't be a doormat, and don't perform husbandly duties depending on how far along your sich is. Just lean back, give them space, keep interactions at minimal, focus on you and D2.

Yeah. They are painting the building where we live. It's a four-unit building and I have little control over the painters. She's complained about it every day this week and the painters have been pretty cool about it.

Yesterday morning she was venting about the painters again. I thought she was being ridiculous but didn't say so. She starts in with, "Of course you're not going to go say anything to them." I was thinking (did not say), "You're the one with the issue. You go say something to them. You basically fired me as your H and NOW you want me to be your man and protector?"

NO R TALKS. I WISH I LISTENED 7 MONTHS AGO. I can only go so long, like a week with keeping my mouth shut. I've probably gotten trapped into R talks indirectly for almost every weekend for the last 4 months.

I slip up maybe every six weeks and generally it goes badly. I'm getting better at avoiding R talks (I initiated them almost constantly last fall) but it's not my nature. I generally believe it's better to talk things out and reach a better understanding. I still consider all of this wildly unnecessary.