Michele, thanks! I have been thinking of those questions and for me I am happy as long as he is not mad at me. I cant say my need is for you not to get mad at me when I let him down.
if you saw my thread in Newcommers "Guys, help me understand my H" you can see how he dosnt understand what I say and when I try to explain it diferently he says he dosnt believe thats what I meant but what I was saying and insists I meant it how he interpreted it. I really dont feel like there is anything specific he can do for me to make me "happy" I am happy most of the time.
there are ways he reacts in situations that I cant stand, and when I try explain how I would prefer he react then he tells me I am expecting him to think like me and behave like me and he dosnt and cant. He is very explosive and dwells, I am not. He thinks that when I dont get all wound up and react like him it means I dont care and I do care, I just do not see the point in blowing up over everything, I tend to slow down and think about the situation, more of the Serenity prayer kind of attitude. I think he is very mellowdramatic and he thinks I am just too unemotional and analitical. However I know he apreciates my attitude when he is the one that screws up I wish he could reciprocate that attitude to me when I screw up.
What I take personally about him twisting what I say is when he refuses to believe me when I explain it diferently for him to understand. I have asked him to tell me how to say certain things to him so he will understand what I mean. For ex. when he cant find something (he can never find anything!) he naturally asks me. The way I look for things is I first figure out the last place it was seen and try to retrace steps from there. This infuriates him he feels its telling him he is on his own. like recently he was looking for something and the last time I had seen it was in his hands saying to me oh good we have more of this. so I asked him if he remembers where he set it down after that and he decided I was saying you were the last one with it so its your problem not mine and thats how I get out of helping. when I explained to him thats how I start when I look for something I cant find etc. he said I was lieing and he then repeated what I said, except he completely changed the words and the tone to sound like how he interpreted it. I said no thats not how I said or meant it I reiterated again what I said and meant by it expalining it as I said it and he said I dont believe you why esle would anyone say ____? So I ask for him to tell me how to say it so we dont continue to have this problem and he refused just kept insisting on I was lieing. basically this how it seems to go most of the time and its so incredibly frustrating to constantly have things you say changed and then told your lieing and thats that.
I almost wrote you to ask you to read my crisis but I did get a lot of great suport and advice and the thread is incredibly long.
