Originally Posted by Kind18
This is good for two reasons:
1. You set a reasonable boundary, stuck to it and didn’t get involved in communication games.
2. You can start to see that often as LBSs, we are used to making decisions through fear. This leads us to always ruminate on the “what ifs”, and we spend 99% of energy thinking about the 1% worst case scenarios. Like I said - maybe he’ll be a dick, and maybe he won’t. This time, he wasn’t. Perhaps next time, when you are worrying about it, remember this time how it all went okay.

Yes, I was definitely worrying myself out of fear. It may be the trauma of BD (twice) or the loss of sense of control and safety that made me resort to thinking this way. I am not sure what to do about it just yet. I am still getting over the hurt and betrayal day by day. I will have IC and DB coaching tomorrow and cannot wait to tell them about what just happened.


Originally Posted by Kind18
I think you’d find a lot of value in the following:

Google “YouTube Transactional Analysis Part 1 Ego States and Basic Transactions”

Watch the video.

Watch the Part 2 and 3 videos from the same series.

Have a good long think about your interactions with husband from now on. The comment he made about not being able to help at all in the future… try to relate that to a) him entering child state (which I’m guessing was a regular occurrence in your relationship) and b) him using gimmicks and games to try and draw you into bad transactions.

Thanks for this, Kind18. I will watch this in more detail.

Originally Posted by Kind18
The key becomes staying in healthy adult for all interactions with him and not responding to games/gimmicks or when he uses child/parent state.
this is a good one.

Originally Posted by Kind18
My ex does this all the time, you could set your clock to it. As soon as I see a gimmick, a game (fishing) or she starts moving to child or parent state, I simply say “I’ve made my position clear. This is my boundary.” … and stop communication.
It’s incredibly effective once you understand these concepts, and learn how to break the cycle.

How does your ex respond to what you say when you told her this?