Quote: "I'm not going to tell you how I feel about our M and OM because it hurts you and I don't want to cause you pain. Instead, I will repress my feelings, not make any emotional progress, resent you, and block this path to emotional intimacy. Of course, this is all for your own good, I have to look after YOUR feelings for you after all."
Um...that pretty much sums up my W's approach to all this.
So, Rob, I think OT is onto something here. In your sitch, and mine when such time comes that my W says she's ready to work on the M, you should feel comfortable expressing those kind of feelings in a direct way. I really hate the idea of someone else providing me a script for such a conversation, but I will admit that if I am ever ready to have that talk, I will re-read those posts by OT. I am REALLY starting to understand one of my failings that as of yet I did not recognize. I am VERY INdirect about a lot of things. Almost everything with me is insinuated or suggested but rarely ever (well at least before a month or so ago) has ever just been clearly communicated, directly. I think it is one of the most important things you and I need to learn to do on a consistent basis. We have been better, but when the chips are all stacked on the table, we tend to revert back to the old way of thinking "well, if I say this, then she may do/say/feel that so I had better not say it". We are STILL, after all this "growth" trying to control our W's. I get so frustrated with myself when I see that I am sometimes not moving forward so much as laterally, subconsciously, or even consciously replacing one destructive behavior with another. This idea of "feelings management" is a brilliant one OT. I never really realized I was doing that to her, but damnit if I have been doing that all our M, and ESPECIALLY since all this began. If I don't want her to "feel" a certain way, I just refrain from expressing whatever it is I feel that I think MAY cause her to...well, you know what I mean. Bad stuff.
