Settling In (LB55 Thread 3)

[LB55]

Thanks all, I will work at differentiating between how she feels and how it comes across. It is difficult to see the feeling when being accused of horrendous things. I will work on it.

I took last night off from any communication with her, even though I have a large text message that she wrote to me that says she never liked camping, fishing, or any of the other things we used to do together. That she needs someone who can value her more than I will ever be able to and that we have no options but this path. I disagree that we have no other options, and I'm doing what I can to increase my value as a man and that will help me with whomever I wind up with going forward. Her or someone else.

I can say that my interpersonal relationships with others are improving based on me practicing better communication, non-defensive listening, and validation skills. Men and women both. I am trying to pay more attention to how others validate my statements as well, and to ask myself if I am seeking validation or just telling how I feel/what I want. I can see that I've sought validation from others, especially my W in the past, and that really just led to a validation competition. I did X! Yeah well I did X, Y, and Z! Yeah well I did those and 1, 2, 3! That type of one-upsmanship scenario just never works out well. I didn't see it as that then, but can see how it drives people away and doesn't validate anyone's feelings. People just want to be heard.

One of her former friends told me that was why they weren't friends anymore; my W always had to have the last word and always had to have a bigger and better sob story about why her life was more difficult than someone else. A complete lack of validation of their feelings. In this scenario we both thought the other people were the problem, I can see now that is untrue. I thought it was awfully strange that when I deployed all of her neighborhood friends just stopped hanging out and inviting her over. She was very hurt and felt abandoned. I can see how it happened now looking back. She told me she was going to be very mad if I returned and they started wanting to hang out again. I recall wondering why she would be mad because people wanted to spend time with me.