That's cool and I definitely it is something you can do over time. Just be prepared to not get anything in return from your W. It's hard to make small talk and engage about your life if you are talking to a brick wall. I have found that some days my W is open to being more talkative and other days she is not.
Yeh, about 90% of the time she's not a brick wall. So, it's not hard to make small talk. I also try to joke around a lot to defuse the tension and she is cool with that. I think that most of the time when she's a brick wall or hard-nosed is when I am on edge, and it puts her on edge. She also gets anxious when she's going to see me because she doesn't know what mood I'll be in. I am trying to be consistent with being chill and positive and so over time it will allow her to just drop her edge too as she's seeing I am not all over the place.
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Cool, good for you. I like this one and I think you have mentioned this before about your parenting skills compared to your wife's. You may not say anything verbally but no-verbally maybe she is picking up a vibe
Haha yeh! This is going to take some time for real lasting change because I have to do some serious internal work to make it natural over time. But, while I am doing this deep internal work, I am making sure that my interactions with my kids are more relaxed and that I am not being controlling or micromanaging.
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I found that my W is more friendly via text message/email than she is in person some times. Maybe you test the waters by giving a little more when she text's you/email a joke, etc to let her know you are not shutting her out completely. That way you could continue working on detaching since you don't see her during the week.
I have found that W mirrors how I am interacting with her in texts. In-person she starts off with being standoffish and then warms up as the interaction progresses because her anxiety levels are down seeing that I am just being chill. I sent her some dumb text this morning about work and she wrote back and it was more relaxed. We went back and forth and she shared something important from her work, which was great because she hasn't done that in a while. The only reason she did this is because I wrote her something that was not generic.
I feel good about this because now I am not trying to read into what does this mean - whether its texts or seeing her in-person. So I can do some of this slowly over time and because I don't seen her for the entire week, it gives me the time and space to detach and GAL and do my thang
I have found that W mirrors how I am interacting with her in texts. In-person she starts off with being standoffish and then warms up as the interaction progresses because her anxiety levels are down seeing that I am just being chill. I sent her some dumb text this morning about work and she wrote back and it was more relaxed. We went back and forth and she shared something important from her work, which was great because she hasn't done that in a while. The only reason she did this is because I wrote her something that was not generic.
I wish my W would open up some but she really has her guard up. The crazy thing is that I don't say a word about us or anything. She doesn't give an inch and I have never done anything to her. When I tried to engage in more conversation with her via text or email she would be the first one to cut off the conversation. I didn't like the way it made me feel so I just stopped.
At minimum it sounds like your W is still very friendly and open to this type of dialogue which is good in my opinion as long as you don't read into it
Last edited by Cadet; 09/19/1706:55 AM. Reason: start a new thread message
