Quote: Very true, BJ, but it is such a challenge to observe behaviours and not get emotionally involved.
I agree. For me, the difficulty is the 'not knowing'. Not knowing what they are really thinking or feeling but having to have faith. Also, in my case the existence of OM is a barrier because until that is gone, she is not emotionally here.
So in a whole day of 'nothing changed' finding one little 'baby step' and giving it significance is emotionally hard. I mean, what if there IS NO SIGNIFICANCE to what they did, it was just a kindness or had a meaning different to what WE assign to it.
Here are my examples from the past 2 days and how I intepret them, the DB way and the 'not significant' way.
1) While making dinner I act silly and make jokes and other comments to wife who is in the kitchen. she jokes back, pinches me and is funny too. After a few minutes of this she says something to me that ends in 'Babe'.
-- DB: She got connected to old feelings of a time when we were fun together. 'Babe' was part of that connection -- Non-DB: She was having fun with her 'friend' and is feeling relief (or not thinking anything at all) that we are getting along. 'Babe' was a slip up.
Last nite we went to a concert of our D15 High School band. During the concert there were many times when I happened to glance at her and she at me and we smiled real heartfelt smiles to each other.
-- DB: She was warming up to me because of the genuine heartfelt feelings I was projecting to her. -- Non DB: She was feeling good about our D15's performance and was sharing that connection with me. She's glad we are getting along and able to share these times as a cooperating set of co-parents and friends.
This morning I got a call at 7 am from a colleague that one of our web servers was down and it was critical (I am a e-commerce web site designer/engineer). I hurried downstairs to go to my office to fix the problem. On the way I passed W and said 'crap, I just got a call that a server was critical' and went to my office. I turned on my computer and since it would take 2 minutes to start up I thought, "hey, I will go back to the kitchen and at least say a nice 'good morning' to W since this will take 2 minutes anyway".
So I did, went out there and said with a big smile 'Oh, by the way "GOOD MORNING". She smiled at me and said "aww, I'm sorry you are having a crappy start to your day" and walked over to me and gave me a hug (wow!).
-- DB: She is feeling comfortable with me and expressing her love and caring. -- Non-DB: Since she is becoming my 'friend' she feels like she can give me a hug because she feels sorry for me.
So for me, it's that constant battle between using DB techniques to interpret her actions or using wifes own words about her feelings to determine how I interpret her actions.
Which do we believe? She says we are friends. DB says that any actions where they show affection are 'baby steps' towards reconciliation. For me that is the conflict.
I have no doubt that, as BJ says, changing our behaviors are changing their behaviors. The doubt I have is how we are interpreting those changes.
