Thank you Dilly. I think I am getting stronger. I can't say I've had a great couple of days, but I have had some fresh insight into my own behaviour and something that I want to change about myself and my way of interacting with people - not just H, but generally.
I also need to get a handle on the pity parties. I was out with the kids yesterday and I saw, very plainly, that when they are a bit whingey and negative they are using my playbook. I know I've used sadness and negative feeling to extract care from H in the past, and they've spent their childhoods watching me do that. But I can be as happy as I make up my mind to be and teach them to manage their feelings differently too. We had a bit of a chat about it in the car and came up with a silly code word to use with each other when we spotted moaning and negative behaviour.
