One step back....all advice welcome

[fearless]

Lillie and Cobra,

It is interesting how different people can see different situations depending on their perspective. Cobra's comments to Lillie about her boyfriend not shutting the window were very interesting to me. This is what I noticed:

My W does this A LOT and it really pisses me off. If something is lost, or missing, she will go around asking where it is, but always in a way to paint the other person as being responsible. For instance, she will ask me "Did you move my purse?"

What amuses me about this is that it looks like your wife does this for the same reason Lillie Boyfriend does. They are trying to protect themselves from having to admit they made a mistake because it FEELS badly to them to admit a mistake. (Well it feels badly to all of us to make a mistake but some people feel it at a much deeper level.) In Lillie's case you tell her to make the changes in communication but in your case you put the changes squarely on your wife's shoulders (which is where I think they belong).

In this case for the examples between Lillie and your wife to be equal it would have to be that Lillie left the window open and then expected her boyfriend to close it for her. But this is NOT the case as far as I could tell. Instead her boyfriend opened the window and she is asking him to remember to close it. Or on the side of you and your wife if you did move your wife's purse but were angry that she asked you if you had, then you would be similar to Lillie and her Boyfriend.

The whole purse example with your wife makes me laugh because in many ways, I know am being stereotypical, that is slightly more of a male tendency. Jeff Foxworthy even used a similar example in his stand-up routine. He was making fun of men using the phrase "someone stole my..." instead of owning up to misplacing something.

In these examples I was more like Cobra or Lillie in my relationship, and I do not think I was sensitive. I was looking for clear direction and communication. If I were Cobra I would prefer his wife say "I cannot find my purse. Have you seen it?" That way it is clear what the problem is and what the solution needs to be. Her asking if I had moved her purse would not make me feel controlled or backed into a corner. It would just make me think she was looking to take the blame off her shoulders because she felt like a bonehead for misplacing her purse once again.

So Mrs Cobra along with Lillie's boyfriend and CAC4 are feeling like boneheads, do not like that feeling, and are looking to place it (the feeling) elsewhere. Lillie and MrsCAC4 are different from Cobra (not good or bad just different) in that they recognize the pain their SOs feel and are trying to figure out a way to change how they interact to fix the problem. Cobra has other issues with his wife and is comfortable and able to directly guide his wife to changing to fit his needs. Another difference may be the thing Lillie and Mrs CAC4 mentioned on my thread. They have a higher threshold of shame so they do not feel that desire to take blame off their shoulders so quickly. It does not cause them pain so they can handle it. Cobra may have more of that shame issue so that is why it is necessary for him to handle his situation differently.


Cobra,

Your comments and thoughts on shame are interesting to me. On my thread I mentioned an interview with a researcher named Brene Brown from Houston that I heard last Friday on the subject of shame. I ordered her books which happen to be on Shame and women. She has studied shame on both sexes and hopefully there will be further written on that subject.

Anyway your comments on shame interest me although I am not sure I agree with the conclusion. For me, there is nothing wrong with the statement "YOU DID something different than I want or need/wrong/etc." The problem is that dependent upon the other person's shame level they may interpret that statement as "something is wrong with me" but that IS NOT what the first person said. So for me the key is not for the first person to necessarily change but for them to be aware of the other person's issue and to HELP them work through it.

There are at least 2 ways I can see that parents help develop shame in their kids. First by the obvious shaming techniques of "you are no good" when they make a mistake. The second less obvious is by NEVER calling a child out on their mistakes so they can learn that while making a mistake is not good it does not make the child bad and they can change their actions. I think parents may have stopped disciplining their children like this with the best of intentions but nevertheless it leaves a child/adult with the feeling that to be told they did something wrong is uncomfortable to the point of shame. Doing something wrong IS NOT SHAMEFUL. EVERYONE does something wrong or makes a mistake in life; we are human.

This second development of shame is harder deal with and from what I hear many companies are dealing with this issue with the Gen Y workforce. Employers are having difficulty because the employees do not, can not, hear criticisms in a useful way. Many were raised without ever hearing a criticism and therefore are struggling. This is not a healthy for anyone - employer or employee.

And this is where I am stumped with how to deal with this with adults once the shame issue is fully developed and the coping mechanisms are firmly in place. My XH and I never had a chance to work through this and I know he is STILL trying to figure it out.