KGBKK, I responded to this on your thread. Very good questions, and I hope I helped in some way.
Update: Big major boo-boo backslide on my part. I criticized S. for his choice of priorities while working on the house today.
Pro me: * I did not start by criticizing, I started from a place of teamwork, where we had worked together to come up with a master schedule for working on the house so that everything absolutely essential could get done by D Day (31 August). * When S. got immediately defensive, I remained calm and validated and tried to keep the conversation about me using I statements.
Con me: * When S. continued to be defensive, I allowed him to raise my ire and started to argue with him. * When S. said he didn't have the time to sit around in the middle of a workday and talk to me about priorities over at the house, I said (and this is one for the anti-DB books, folks), "You had two hours to sit around and talk to [SM] in the middle of a workday, and you don't have time to talk to me for 5 minutes about the work?" * When S. continued to be defensive, I said he didn't hear a f***ing word I'd said and that I was trying to share my feelings and he had made this all about HIM.
Con S.: * He got immediately defensive and couldn't hear a word I said. * He stormed out of the room and carried on the conversation from the next room, where he was angrily washing up his lunch plate. * He threw up his hands and started to raise his voice, then at the end of the conversation, stormed out saying over his shoulder (and this is for the immaturity books, folks), "I'm sorry it's all about me." and promptly slammed out of the house.
A little background: If I wash my hands of what goes on at the house, S. blames me for not being involved. This happened last week, before I sneaked over there while he was at the coop and ripped out all the drywall in the kitchen, broke it down, removed all the wall screws, and packaged it up for the trash trucks. All in about 4 hours' time. This also happened before I spent 5 hours at Ikea picking out kitchen cabinets and trying to make an impossible layout work. Also before I helped him make up this priorities schedule (at his behest). All things I involved myself with, though I have my own deadlines to contend with, and all things that were immensely helpful to S. (he was absolutely floored at the drywall stunt).
If I try to be involved, I get this - it's none of my business, I'm not over there all day thinking about this stuff, it all needs to get done, etc. Then I get blamed because of the tight schedule, and the time he spends with me is taking away from working on the house, and everything else.
Either way, I get blamed. Now, I'm not sayin' I was a model DBer in that conversation relayed above. I had left my chartreuse duct tape over at the house when I ripped out the drywall, and didn't have any handy. But given the damned if I do, damned if I don't, should I apologize?
(By the way, not that it really matters, but the decision I was reacting to was that he was spending time hanging curtain rods in an apartment with no kitchen cabinets or appliances at all, no kitchen walls , holes in the walls above the fireplaces that have to be plastered, screw holes all over the walls that have to be spackled and sanded to prep for painting, a bathroom that has to have the toilet, vanity, and sink replaced and the ceilings replastered...)
, holes in the walls above the fireplaces that have to be plastered, screw holes all over the walls that have to be spackled and sanded to prep for painting, a bathroom that has to have the toilet, vanity, and sink replaced and the ceilings replastered...)
