Quoting KAW: ... but if you reach the intermediate goal of being able to share how you feel with your W without her negative perceptions wouldn't that make you feel better than you do now?
In a word, no.
Quoting KAW: ... so it really does help if she listens and you are not lying to her. The thing is too, if your W starts to believe that she can help you just by listening, it would probably make her feel better about herself too.
Again, I have to go with no.
I understand what you guys are driving at, but I’ve tried this too many times, and it’s always blown up in my face. Yes, I could try again. But I know that no matter how I try, it will be badly received. I know you all will say that it’s been my approach, and you may be right. But either there is no approach that will work, or I’m incapable of tuning my approach to the point where it will work. Either way, I just can’t do it.
This is one time that I have to admit that I do not have the courage or ability to pull it off.
Having said that, I’ll go back and explain my rather terse answers to KAW’s post.
W cannot help me by simply listening. She can only help by empathizing. That doesn’t mean agreeing. It just means empathizing. Even better if she could change her behavior.
Now. Before I hear a chorus of, “You can’t change her” let me say this. I’m not talking about changing her. She is – by nature – an extremely sensitive and empathetic person. Her perception that I preyed on her sympathy, thus forcing her to protect herself from my feelings is what stopped her from empathizing with me.
This has changed somewhat because I stopped complaining.
Since then, I have made a coupla hit-and-run forays into explaining my feelings. They haven’t all been negative. She has gone for hormone tests. She has agreed (but not followed up on) personal Cing.
So you see. I’m not as stuck as it may appear. I just don’t know how stuck I am, and I’m gonna have to live with that for now.
If I were to follow JJ/KAW’s advice, I can see three possible outcomes. Actually, I can truthfully say that I’ve already seen three outcomes. They are:
1. She empathizes, and maybe even changes her behavior, or 2. she listens and says nothing, or 3. she listens and responds (despite my request not to).
If her reaction is number two, then I’m left wondering if I’ve just set us back two years, and I feel like krap. Option three invariably makes me feel worse than I have in months. It is usually accompanied by her withdrawal. Sometimes for several months.
Of course, I could hope for option number one, but I’m not that brave.
Now. If I could only hook her up with Mattie
P.S. My current strategy (which included a hit-and-run where I flatly told her that her perception was wrong) has caused her to open up some. Actually, it was her that opened an OR talk in that case.
There is no tension that I’m conscious of right now (except mine), and she now gives me brief news about some of her “personal” issues.
