Haven’t posted in a bit, mostly because there isn’t much to update. I’ve had a few things happen that I normally would have sought advice, but I’m learning how to handle these situations based on the advice I’ve already received which is nice. I feel like I get caught off guard less often. There is one thing that popped up the other day that I’ve been seeking advice with.
D4’s birthday is coming up. W has not participated in any of the planning so far so I took the lead. I booked the location (a swimming pool), got the decorations picked out and invited some of my family. We have had a couple of parties here before. W and I didn’t talk much about it until Monday when W asked if I had invited anyone. I told her I had invited my family and W blew up. She was mad at me for not thinking about her feelings about being around my family, she said it gives her anxiety, they haven’t been a big part of D4’s life so I shouldn’t have invited them, my selfishness confirms that she made the right decision to D, I haven’t learned anything, this was supposed to be a kid only party, etc. I just listened and kept my mouth shut. W took a bath and came back to apologize for yelling, but reiterated many of the same things she said before. I listened again and only added that I wished we had talked about this several weeks ago. I got out of the conversation by saying that I hear what she is saying and I would give it some more thought.
W has not had the best relationship with my family for various reasons, and she knows I am working on repairing those relationships. We just had a party at our house for D18’s bday and all of the same people were there with no issues, so I had no reason to believe this would be a problem. The next day W said she did not sleep that night due to anxiety and said she had a panic attack thinking about it. She did end up making a full invite for the party and inviting friends/family from both sides. She has therapy today and said she will talk to her therapist about this.
So I have a few thoughts on this situation.
I think I did well not engaging in the stuff she was spewing. This allowed her time to come back and calmly express her feelings. And I liked that she acknowledged and apologized for yelling. I feel like I should have initiated a conversation about the party when I decided to take the lead to make sure any issues were addressed. I think I failed there a bit. It’s hard when W doesn’t seem to care about anything, but it could have helped this situation.
Respecting how she feels has been an issue for me in the past. I would discard thoughts like this as irrational because they didn’t make sense to me. I understand anxiety a lot better now after finally experiencing it several months ago and I know that it is a confusing feeling that the person experiencing it doesn’t always understand. There is also the possibility that she is lying or exaggerating her feelings, but I don’t think that was the case.
I am not 100% sure if there are any actions I should take (talking to my family ahead of time, let W handle her anxiety on her own, etc) to help alleviate that. I’m leaning toward waiting to see how her therapist addresses it tonight and seeing if W brings it up at all. If she does, I think I’ll just say something along the lines of “It’s too late to address your concerns about my family for this birthday party, but I know these discussions are important and should happen prior to any future events where you may be around my family.”
