MrsNop, thank you for your concrete suggestions. My biggest obstacle wrt communicating with H is keeping him on topic. That is, if I tried to talk about my dad's death by tying it into Scripture, he'd be off and running, quoting this and that and I'd gently (or not so gently, depending on my mood, LOL) say "H I thought we were talking about his death.." He give me a homer simpson doh! and then be too chagrined to carry on after that.
What I really need, and I thought of this after I last posted, is a gentle but effective Mantra to say to him when he starts bolting at the first sight of intimate communication. I will have to keep thinking on that one.
Betsey, gosh almighty that was hard to read about your D's diagnosis and MrWhackjob's response. As a mother, I could totally relate to the devastation and the subsequent abandonment. Blackfoot, I have no problem (and I suspect that Bets doesn't either) with MrW's style of dealing with pain. My problem is with him enmeshing himself in Betsey's world and attempting to dictate how she should be reacting. I don't think that he is necessarily required to comfort and "there, there" her but his behavior was totally outta line and no freakin wonder she remembers it to this day, nearly what bets 7 yrs later?
I think that situation boils down not to men being logical in their grieving but in their confounded compulsion to FIX every damn thing they encounter. They see a sobbing woman on the floor and think, Oh great now I'm supposed to make that all better when I'm hurting too? Whatever.
When in reality she is just doing what came naturally to her at that moment. If he can't handle it, that's his problem. But HOW DARE HE make his inability to handle it her problem by tossing out some cold words in order to disguise the fact that he can't handle it.
But that is not even the worst of what got me fired up re: your words. Mister, I do not have blond hair. My hair is very dark brown. There was one disastrous time, in college, when I dyed my dark hair platinum blond because I had just gotten dumped for a blonde but we're not gonna talk about that. My picture is somewhere on this website but you have to understand that I was days away from delivering BabyPot and so, well, let's just say that I've looked better.
Oh Betsey, I cracked up laughing at your book suggestion. You know, someone else recommended that book to me a while back and I went to amazon and read some of it and nearly fell over. I never bought it but I 'got' it, nonetheless. It was really a shock to me that men like that kind of thing..the wife who lets them have the final say even when all parties present know that she knows the answer as well, and so on and so forth. Another one that blew me away was how much and how often men want praise. THIS has borne more marital fruit than anything else I've done or tried. Who knew.
But, yeah, I'm not a manipulator. It icks me out, even if it would 'work'.
Finally, where was I all this time? Why, in Colorado of course! Ok, ok, don't get your panties in a bunch, I was only there for 12 hours or so. My sister came for a visit and then I drove back with her and her little ones, to help with the drive, and flew back the next morning. This time I flew out of Colo Sprgs but next time I fly in/out of Denver, maybe we can do lunch? Whatcha say.. Btw, I always pictured YOU with blond hair. Funny.
One more thing. I meant to write in my last post that I was raised in a *dysfunctional* feminist household. I didn't mean to imply that the feminism screwed me up, rather it was the twisted style of feminism (criticize your man til he is nothing but a worn out nub and then wonder why you are all alone in running the ship) that surrounded me that did the trick. I guess you could say I'm an old bitch learning new tricks.
My hair is very dark brown.
