New Thread, New Me, New R

[Wendylon]

Hi Jennifer,

I've now caught up with your sitch. Before I even came across the comment about you being more spot on with me than with yourself, the thought occurred to me big time that you have a blind spot when it comes to your own sitch.

It looks to me as if your need for reassurance makes you lose the plot. I hope I'm not being offensive in saying that. I'm guilty of that in my own way all the time. It's just that I do it a bit differently so I can see where you go wrong more clearly.

I've also been in relationships with people who came across as needy and I'm really allergic to that. I'd much rather be the pursuer than the pursued. Your actions would make it harder for me to feel loving towards you in that they seem so needy.

I've initiated many late night conv in my time and I hope I've learned not to do the thing of initiating convos at a bad time. I did call H in the middle of the night after he dropped the bomb. That phone-call did not help our R. Apart from that major slip, I do not wake up my H in the night or keep him awake because I KNOW it won't help.

Could you do something else in those times when you're desperate for reassurance and connection? What about logging on here? Doing some yoga stretches? I go and smell my children and lie next to them for a while while they are asleep. All three smell completely different but exquisitely beautiful. Having them to smell at night makes it all worth it. What about just sitting with the longing for contact and seeing where it goes?

I think you need to become more robust and self-reliant when it comes to your need for reassurance. God, I hope I'm not coming across as know-it-all and insufferable! Please, anyone reading this, tell me if I am. You would be doing me a favour.

The thing is you see it all so clearly in other people's sitches. I can't tell you how invaluable your feedback is to me. It's interesting how what you say to others and even your reflections on your own sitch are so much more helpful than your own behaviour with your S. Maybe that's pretty normal.

To use the jargon we use in S5's home programme, you need to generalize your skills to your own sitch. They are in your repertoire already. As I think about it more, that isn't completely accurate. The contingencies are very different when it comes to your own sitch. The main variable being that you are probably not feeling needy when you are reflecting on situations as opposed to being in them.

I know you can do it!

Wendy