My W expressing her different POV does not bother me as much as when she completely shuts down my POV and says she will do something her own way. I see what you mean, this would make me mad too and I can see that if I did that it would make my H mad.
You asked me how I don't know if I am hurting him. Because he invents new ways to be hurt by me. When we first got together I would say things that I never had any idea would hurt him, he would act hurt and we would talk it through, he would explain why he felt hurt. I would be contrite and try not to do that. Next he would find a new way that I was hurting him and the cycle would rerun. This has continued throughout our marriage and I truly walk and eggshells to avoid hurting him. When he gets mad it is because he feels I am not carefully walking around his newly laid out eggshells which surely I should be able to plainly see. A simple example: He gets mad because I don't thank him I learn to start saying thank-you more often He gets mad because I don't say it sincerely enough I learn to look inside and find the grateful part of me and say thank-you sincerely He gets mad because when I say thank-you it makes him feel guilty for not saying thank-you to me often enough etc, etc, etc
your fast approaching decision to leave the marriage is no less a form of manipulation.
It is not a decision it is a feeling. It is a change in my feeling response to the idea of the marriage ending. Whereas before I was manipulative because my fear of the marriage ending would make me change my response to him to something less likely to hasten the end, now I respond to him in a more direct and true way because I don't fear the consequences. This has better results - the truer form of communication although possibly hurtful to him is clearer and leaves him less room to be picky about my manner of speaking or whatever. I don't feel like I am tying myself up in defensive knots trying to save this R, I just say what I say. His behaviour has been improving - which was not the result I expected.
Fran
if we can be sufficient to ourselves, we need fear no entangling webs Erica Jong
