Still Learning

[Underdog]

Hi Pizza Girl! Was it good? Did you get some extra toppings on yours so I can live vicariously through you and drool over my keyboard?

Well, there's a reason I'm here too, so the pleasure is all mine. I still have lots of reassuring to do in my own Rs... and somehow those doggone tapes have me completely focused on how others might have perceived me in the past. Always a work in progress, you know.

Okay, I think you might be on to something with rattling his fear cage... the socializing and creating some mystery.

Remember one important rule of that concept: that they are good as long as they are bringing you closer to each other. I see your self motivated report card here, and it's clearly showing that he is getting fearful from this independence?

Ah, you hit a nerve with me in your observations that NG behaved very differently with OW than you. Well, when he jumped into her pool, he didn't have a set of rules and expectations, and I bet it was just a little bit easier (for lack of a better word) for him to do something different? That his behaviors and intent were not on hurting you... but merely how he was feeling when he was with her?

I know this dynamic so well, Slowly. It sort of reminds me of aspects of my own sitch... because somewhere along the line in my 14+ year marriage, Mr. Wonderful and I just got stuck in a pattern and started creating unspoken and rules where they were implied and not consentual.

Then we got to a point where they became some set of commandments? And I have no idea how that happened?

Maybe he wouldn't feel so defensive about doing things differently with you if you suggested them from a different perspective? Not giving him any indicator that he's being held to a standard of comparison with OW, but what YOU would like from him?

Think about those things that you would like from him... and let's cogitate a bit.

Hugs,

Betsey