JinBklyn, I do sense in the interaction (by the way, without making excuses for him acting like a rigid jerk! ) a few things:
* Tip of the iceberg related to the sniping all week. * Something about that table....represents for him an unresolved tension with you--whether or not it's fair, his perception of an unreasonable demand somewhere?
He's communicating around the edges. The question is how to defuse the tension and then how to address whatever it is more directly. A bigger question is, do you want this relationship and why and what kind and how do you get there....?
Okay, so take your day and fume and spew, but try to get centered before the ride....those rides can be very long as you know.
Thanks, GBO, you are right that I can grunt and fume here, but I need to shape it up for the long and late car ride.
I took it upon myself to defuse some of the tension earlier by e-mailing him about something exciting that happened today.
I have an old cassette copy of a solo (violin) recital I did 9 years ago (the last before I broke my hand and ended my professional career). I never got the DAT master, and do not have a digital file. Today I wrote an audio producer whom I've worked with in my capacity as a language-book editor and who is very fond of me, to ask his opinion about where to have this cassette tape turned into digital form. He wrote back immediately, and not only did he offer to do it for me, but to do it free of charge AND try to restore it to enhance the quality of sound, which has no doubt deteriorated over the years of being on a cassette.
I was very excited, because this guy has worked with the Rolling Stones, Chuck Berry, and many other heavy hitters I can't recall (his stories are endless), and he is VERY good - not to mention he has always had a little soft spot for me (not in a romantic way but in a fatherly kind of way), and promises to pay very personal attention to it. I would never get this kind of quality work if I took it into some random sound studio in NYC.
So I decided to ignore the tension of this morning and write S. the exciting news. He wrote back quickly and enthusiastically, saying several times how great this was, and how nice to be able to take care of it, and how wonderful [producer] is to do it for me, and added this:
Looking forward to our trip to Vermont. I moved your table legs into the hallway [up by the door from the basement] and all my stuff is in the living room; the food is all in the cooler in the fridge.
So it looks like he is trying to get past it, too.
I also have a little more time to pack, as he is on a late deadline at work, so I can be nice and calm when I get there and not be freaked out that I'm going to be late.
That is so, so awesome about the casette to digital transfer--I'm so happy for you!
It's very good that you are both trying to be good about defusing the tension. I hope you have a really nice weekend together that builds positive memories.
I hope VT trip was good. I read about S's email to you and thought-"ah! He is softening, and letting her know he IS excited about the trip." When I get ready to go on a trip, and feel like I have too much on my mind, even 30 seconds attention on something else can send me completely over the edge of reasonable behavior. HE was working on deadline at work that day too?
You have probably already worked through all this, but remember when you told me to "act as if" and ignore the outburst? My H ended up softening a tiny bit after that.
Side note- canyou tell me on my string how to add a shameless plug for my string at the end of my signature?
Thanks, Anne, GBO, and H2H for your posts while I was away! Hi all,
I’m back after 5 days in Vermont with S. Many ups and downs, but in all a good trip, both for positives and for learning experiences.
We drove up Friday night (a nice drive, nary a disparaging word was spake), but had our first bump when we got to the house and S. refused to sleep on the brand-new $750 queen bed we bought the last time, because it was in his parents’ old bedroom and “he wasn’t ready to sleep in there.” We have been sleeping in a double bed in another room that is hard as a rock and sags in the middle. I am tall and the bed is just too small, and I always woke up with back pain. I argued but then caught myself and let it drop (but not without a big sigh and a pouty face, yuck).
So Saturday was bumpy, and I was furious with him for this reason and that – especially because we had the “it means so much to me when you give me 2-5 minutes of attention in the morning” talk again and he proceeded to go through all the reasons he didn’t want to do it, even after I brought up 5LL and how he’d appreciated the book (well, he suddenly wasn’t “getting it”). Bad DBing on my part and lots of frustration.
So, I acted like a baby for a day and pouted around the house while S. worked out in the woods. I went through all sorts of awful feelings – thinking I would just leave him, actually composing the words in my head (don’t even bother, H2H, I KNOW what you’re going to throw back at me!), etc. I was really thinking I was going to do it.
Sunday morning, the same. No attention, not even a kiss. I was pissed, hurt, disappointed, thinking some more about leaving him. But I ended up reading some of “What Could He Be Thinking,” and had a big AHA moment when it talked about men needing to feel respected in order to allow their partners the leadership role in many of the other aspects of the R. So I decided to give it a try. I decided after skulking around the house for a few hours to join him outside and share in the work he was doing (big QT for him). Things got better. We both love working out there, and he loves to show off his knowledge of the trees and the land.
Sunday night I curled up on top of the new bed to read while he worked in the basement, and at bedtime he came in and asked me if I wanted to sleep there. He then crawled into bed with me and we ML, thus conquering the parents’ old BR and making it our own in one fell swoop. Monday morning he even squeezed me for a second before he jumped out of bed. Baby step.
Monday morning we got up early to meet the forester who was going to walk the property with us and talk to S. about his forest management program. (The house sits on about 75 acres of woodland.) S. wanted me to come along, and in the 18 degree weather we bundled up and went out to walk the property for three hours. The forester said almost exactly what S. has been talking about every time we go up, and he was validated almost with every sentence.
I was not about to let that opportunity go by! After the forester left I went on and on about how S. had known all of that all along; and wasn’t it nice that all of S’s philosophy was just confirmed by the forester; and how much I’d learned from S. already that what the forester said made sense to me, and if I hadn’t learned all I had from S. I wouldn’t have understood a word he said; etc. etc. etc. and S. just puffed up to the size of a big polar bear! It was truly amazing to watch. Needless to say, the rest of our time there was amazing, romantic, lovey-dovey…
We had a lot of good talks about a lot of things (almost no R talk), and we had a lot of fun together. It was almost like two separate weekends. S. was clearly pleased that I had noticed his “woodlands prowess” and took to asking me questions about what I thought about this and that that the forester had said. Then we spend an hour looking at topo maps of the area and dreaming about a property that he wants to buy around the bend. He was saying “we” all over the place, and I felt loved and happy.
Monday night we ate dinner with his mom at her apartment complex (which is an assisted living complex in a nearby city that she chose to move to after her H passed away 5 years ago [thus giving S. the house], whereby you have your own autonomous apartment and gradually move into more assistance as you need it). They serve two meals a day in a common dining room, and S’s mom wanted to show us off to her friends. It was a big success, and S. was very affectionate with me, especially after someone asked me if I’d had to go all the way to Brooklyn (from Ga., where I’m from) to find S. and I said “Yes, and now that I’ve found him I’m going to hold onto him.”
The older people were so funny (they think because they’re deaf everyone else is) and saying very loudly to one another as we walked past “She’s cute!” and “Oh, look at [mom’s name]’s son and his girl, she’s so pretty!” and “How nice! Aren’t they a lovely couple!” S’s mom was beaming, too – it made her very happy. They have a somewhat strained R that they gloss over by pretending everything is great. More on that another time.
So Tuesday was bliss, and we walked the property again, posting it to keep the hunters off, and even though S. didn’t need my help he insisted I go with him to “keep him company” and “help.” It was major QT for him again, and he was very happy and affectionate with me. Afterward he thanked me for going. Later that night he woke me up to see the Northern Lights, which I have never seen, and he was clearly glad to show me that, too. We also saw a HUGE shooting star that must have been very close. He was practically giddy with affection (astronomy is another subject he knows a lot about and loves to teach me about).
Wednesday morning we drove back, no R talk, very good ride with good conversation, and ended up at the theater with friends last night. The theater was terrible, but the company was great, and we had dinner afterward and wonderful conversation.
On our walk home, I said how embarrassing it was that we took our friends to such a terrible production, and S. said something VERY interesting and telling. He said, “Well, it was funny, because you can be very intimidating – you come across as an expert on so many things [he was talking about the arts, because of my background in music and also my interest and experience with theater and fine art] - and you picked this terrible play!” He made sure I knew that he wasn’t laughing at my expense but was somehow making a point that it humanized me a little to have “failed” at picking the play this time. And I really filed that away for future reference – that if he really thinks that (and I think he does because he’d had a few glasses of wine and was letting his guard down), he must feel inferior about certain things, and no wonder he stonewalls when he thinks I’m telling him what to do – he can be intimidated by me, and he needs to assert his own expertise and be respected by me for it.
Wow. That was a breakthrough.
So walking home he asked if I was coming over, and I asked him to come to my house (it was sort of a test, because we’d been at “his” house in Vt. all week and I wanted to sleep in my own bed, and so did he), and he said OK. So I threw my arms around him and thanked him with a big kiss and said I knew he wanted to go home, and thanks so much for coming to my house to sleep. He was obviously thrilled to have been acknowledged. He was very affectionate and we ML almost immediately upon arriving home – we were very connected.
Quote: I was not about to let that opportunity go by! After the forester left I went on and on about how S. had known all of that all along; and wasn’t it nice that all of S’s philosophy was just confirmed by the forester; and how much I’d learned from S. already that what the forester said made sense to me, and if I hadn’t learned all I had from S. I wouldn’t have understood a word he said; etc. etc. etc. and S. just puffed up to the size of a big polar bear! It was truly amazing to watch. Needless to say, the rest of our time there was amazing, romantic, lovey-dovey…
That's really very funny, and certainly something to remember. It really is that simple!
I have got to learn to stroke my H's ego, I know I put him down big time when I was lashing out, or rather, when we were lashing out at each other.
Livnlearn
"The unexamined life is not worth living" - Socrates
Well, this is a welcome read! Glad things went well for you in VT. I had a feeling you would be able to get in some QT and move away from some of the 'squabbling' that was going on before you left.
As you say, I'll hold on to those words of yours for a while longer - until you REALLY need them tossed back at you. Seems to me you did quite well in figuring it out. [However, I do want say it again, that your timely email on Friday morning made a huge difference in my ability to self-soothe and handle the picking SO up from the hospital, etc. So thanks!]
Quote: But I ended up reading some of “What Could He Be Thinking,” and had a big AHA moment...
I have to do it: Na, Na, I told you so! All kidding aside, I had quite a few AHA moments with that book! And now that you mentioned it again, I feel like going through it again. I'd say this book and Mars/Venus made me see things quite differently.
Quote: ...he must feel inferior about certain things, and no wonder he stonewalls when he thinks I’m telling him what to do – he can be intimidated by me, and he needs to assert his own expertise and be respected by me for it.
This hits very close to home for me. Only recently did I understand that he could feel this way. Not only can I be intimidating, but I didn't see then (nor does he see now, I think) how dependent & vulnerable he is to my approval. It touches on what's being discussed on Betsey's thread - validation. I always had a 'better way,' jumped in guessing how he felt on things (or downright told him how he should feel about things), didn't slow down long enough to listen to what he was saying, and if I did, I didn't appreciate, validate or show acceptance/approval.
Becoming a better listener, validating & showing appreciation has made a huge difference. Expressing admiration for things he's truly good at (like S.'s “woodlands prowess” or astronomy) is far more important than I ever realized. He talks so much more and tells me more detail about things he's done or is thinking about.
Anyways, I'm glad it went well. Now when do we go out next to make sure we both stay in line?
Seems to me you did quite well in figuring it out. [However, I do want say it again, that your timely email on Friday morning made a huge difference in my ability to self-soothe and handle the picking SO up from the hospital, etc. So thanks!]