Learning to trust myself III

[heatherg]

Thanks guys, sorry I haven't been doing a very good job at keeping my thread up to date. My mom is here visiting and I'm trying to spend my evening time with her.

HardHead:
No problem, I don't think I was all that graceful myself, but I said what I felt.
Thanks for stopping by my thread, I have yours tagged and I catch up now and then although I don't think I've posted yet.
I will definitely check out TiVo. It just makes good sense anyway to get rid of the commercials and save time.

Jabez:
Please don't take these comments as condescending or patronizing.

Not at all! You have shown yourself to be a friend, so thank you.

The very first book I read on "relationships" was Steve Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Successful People

I've always meant to read this and never have. I think I'll get it on audio. Audio books are so great when time is limited!!

When you feel like you've made progress and then get hit with what you feel like are unfair criticisms, it's frustrating, but we can choose our response.

Of course you are right. Controlling my own reactions has been on my agenda for months and probably will be for the rest of my life with H. There have been a few situations where I walked away feeling good about the way I handled myself, but for the most part it is still a struggle. 'Silence is Golden' is my new mantra. Often, I am not happy with anything that I say, so I've decided that I should say nothing in most cases.
Ideally, I would like to go to karate Monday and Friday nights at 8pm and then on Sunday at 2pm. With the family and all of the other things we have going on, I rarely get to go that often and sometimes I can't go for weeks at a time b/c H is travelling. H doesn't dispute that I rarely get to go as much as I'd like, but it still drives him crazy that I even *try* to go that often.

Still_Hopeful:
Thanks for the encouragement, I really appreciate it.

Not much is going on. H flew out to Bremerton today and will be gone for a couple weeks. Our R has been a little strained, not quite as positive as it had been. Every negative interaction we have chips away really hard at any positive progress we had made. At least in my heart and mind it does. He has made some really mean comments and has not been very kind or affectionate. My mother is here, so that may be part of it. He no longer likes my family very much, so....we were also running in a thousand different directions getting things ready for S5's b-day party. We had a lot to do b/c H has been travelling so much, a lot of things have gone undone. So we had to catch up *and* prepare for the party in a week and it was stressful.
Hopefully, we can pick back up on a more positive note when he gets back. Sometimes it seems like things will never change on a long term basis for us....every time we have an encounter that reminds me of the way things were, I get frustrated and think that H is never going to change. And that's really, really hard b/c I want things to work between us so badly. The hatred I feel for him lies under the surface, lurking. And as soon as I see the ugly side of him, the hatred takes over. I don't mean that I lose control, but that the negative feelings take over the positive ones and I'm left wondering what the heck I'm trying to do here.
Ok, I think I'm tired, I'm rambling. Sorry! Night all.