Help - Setting Boundaries, WW in EA - Thread #3

[Woke_Up]

Journaling, TLDR:

Sunday:
More running about looking for those bloody gate hinges. Spent time with D5. At one point, I found D5 in her room watching W’s phone while W was doing some other stuff outside. D5 started having a tantrum about something, then slamming her door. I told her if she kept slamming the door, I would take the phone away. So I did. D5 had a major meltdown, messed her room up by emptying her drawers and toy boxes everywhere (she does when she is upset. I remember doing similar when I was little) – I just let her get on with it until she was ready to be calm and rejoin. If only I could apply boundaries and consequences in the same way with my WW.

Got some more paint and some food for dinner. Had to crack on with the gates without the right hinges – used some spare wood to make the bottom hinges fit flush, and got the largest of the gates hung, reasonably happy with the result. I've never been much of a DIYer - used to try and have things go wrong, which used to put the fear of trying into me. Losing that fear of trying things now. WW painted the other gates. I will get those hung next weekend.

We had dinner, although W chased me up for working outside – she started dinner off, and then I finished it. Nothing major happened after that, some minor grumpiness from both of us, mostly out of frustration about the time running away so much during the day. W was feeling ill again, coming down with a virus. She & D had a bath, I did reading and story with D.

W texted me from bed to say she was feeling really ill and to wish me good night.

[Gordie]

Woke_Up,

Is D5 acting out because of the situation with you and your W...or has she always been like this?

[Woke_Up]

Gordie

My personal feelings are that it has intensified recently. D5 has always pushed boundaries and is strong willed. However, recently we have been pandering to her, probably because of our current sitch. We decided that we must stop pandering or she would end up completely spoilt and with bad habits. D5 has been reacting to our change in handling her.

However, our R has always been fraught with explosive arguments and much spew that D has unfortunately been witness to. I do worry the effect this has had on her. For whatever reason I have never been able to stop the spew, and too many times I have gone 'screaming banshee' as V puts it, when I reach the end of my tether.

It has never been a healthy R in the way we handle conflict and control. That is the sad truth. If we make it through this, and it is a big if, it will need to be a different R, a new R where we learn together to work on our issues.

[Woke_Up]

More journaling:

Tuesday:

Sent W a text on way home to remind her I would be late, she replied ‘Noooooo xxxx’ so I offered to swap with Thursday and she agreed. W still ill, with headaches and sickness, probably a virus.

Later, she was listening to the Belgian psychotherapist/R counsellor on Youtube and said that we should treat each other as if we don’t know each other as well. I agreed and said something about being more spontaneous and she said No, that's not what she meant - I didn’t understand, she thought I’d watched it.

TBH, it was the hour long one, and there is a lot in there, including the key killers of R’s being contempt, indifference, disrespect, violence. I didn't bring those up

Later W talked about the mild spanking she’d given D and deciding to not do it an more. When I agreed and said tat I didn’t think that it worked, and it just taught children that force is a means of control, W was very unhappy and started arguing with me – that she did it because she thought it was right and she had decided not to do it on her own, she didn’t need me passive aggressively trying to tell her she was wrong in a snake like fashion. I pulled her up on this, and said I wasn’t going to called a snake. She then asked me some more what I thought – so we argued a bit more. She asked me what I thought about being spanked as a child, and I said I didn’t think it worked, and that I still remembered the (admittedly infrequent) occasions it had happened to me, but it made me think my dad was a [censored]. She then said that by saying that, I was saying she was behaving like a [censored]. I disagreed, and said that we couldn’t have a conversation if she asked me my opinion and then told me I couldn’t have one (she actually said that I couldn’t, as she spent all the time with D5 and had to deal with her). I told her I could have an opinion, and while it was right that she could say that I didn’t have the experience that she did, it didn’t mean I couldn’t have an opinion.

Anyway, we got into some back and forth about how I speak. It really annoys her when I try to speak to her calmly – she thinks it comes across as insincere, and not genuine, like I am speaking to a client or colleague. She says she is not a robot or a project to be worked on, and wants to be spoken to like a human. I validated and explained that it was just the way I tried to speak calmly rather than getting angry and losing my temper. W said that I didn’t listen enough (I was trying, but I did interrupt now and again when she was saying things about me and how I thought or what I meant that I fundamentally disagreed with, or she was being downright disrespectful), and that I always came back with a “but you…” statement, and tit for tat arguments. I validated as much as I could, and said that when I was insulted or spoken to like she just had, it caused the shutters to come down and killed the conversation.

I took some learning away, but I’m not sure she did. Anyway, we went to brush our teeth and get ready for bed, and I thought about what she had said. So afterwards, I went back in to her room, and told her that I got why she was upset about how I was saying things, and that what I had wanted to say was “How dare you make unilateral decisions about such important things like spanking without talking to me, we don’t make decisions about parenting on our own, we do it as a couple, and we do it together so we agree on the same methods”. I was a lot more forceful and direct. She listened to what I said, and actually seemed more appreciative of me putting it in those terms, although she still said she was right. Quelle surprise.

I said goodnight, she said ‘you can kiss me” pointing to her cheek, I said, “don’t you mean to ask me for a kiss?” Anyway, we laughed a bit, fairly relaxed, had some light non-sexual touches, and she asked me to massage her painful back again, which I did for a bit.

So, I’m starting to identify better things that are p*ssing my W off when I talk to her, however, I feel she is finding areas that I need to change rather than identifying anywhere she should change. I’ll keep on working on myself, and while paying attention to what she says, I won’t just accept it all at face value without doing some self-reflection and analysis. I suspect WW likes to look for reasons why this is all MY fault rather than accept any responsibility.

[Woke_Up]

Oh, she seems to have taken to wearing her engagement ring again.

And last night, when she came out of the en-suite before going to bed, she hugged and kissed me, out of the blue and unsolicited. Cake eating or confused WW?

My GAL is suffering with new job, WW being ill and needy, and house work at weekends. Need to balance better. Although much of the housework is GAL for me, I just need to ensure I am proactively getting on with it before WW sticks her oar in to set priorities.

[Woke_Up]

If I were in your shoes, the first baby steps I would take that are totally in your control: 1. Stop snooping and 2. End all conversations that involve spewing (walk out of the room or leave the house or say I do not want to talk to you like this, if you must say something).

Getting better on 1, despite a couple of minor relapses.

2. Work in progress, getting more consistent on picking WW up on disrespectful language. Although I still get trapped quite often.

[Vanilla]

No mind reading ok?

Keep on doing as you are, you are doing terrifically well.

Validate the good, set boundaries on the disrespectful language.

V

[WillDo]

Hug is a major step. I got a hug when I stuck to the chaos and got her a present she thought I wouldn't get. For every bad deed you need 4 good deeds. I had a blow last Friday. I am hoping my other deeds will remind her to me. Be happy. Enjoy it and as the guru said "No mind reading"

[Woke_Up]

Ok, I have some journaling to do, but will get to that later... how do I try and build an emotional connection, as per DB coach, if I am not pursuing?

Anyway, new goal - improve cooking skills. This is for me and the kids, not just W, although giving her a break on weekends has been appreciated. I used to quite enjoy it, but stopped as W used to be quite critical, and then with work, and kids, W always does dinner early before I get home.

[Gordie]

Ok, I have some journaling to do, but will get to that later... how do I try and build an emotional connection, as per DB coach, if I am not pursuing?

Woke_up, I think you have the best answers to these questions. I suggest two approaches and choose the one that seems better for you and your situation. 1. What is her LL? If you know her primary/secondary LL and she is open to you providing that to her...do that. If she's not open to that right now... 2. How would you build an emotional connection with a female acquaintance? You wouldn't aggressively pursue them by calling, texting, giving gifts and trying to have intimate conversations everyday, but you'd take advantage of the times when you did bump into each other and try to make it special when you did...such as a sincere hello and it's great to see you and you look really nice today...and holding eye contact...and really listening to her and building trust and small, incremental steps at intimacy...and remember what she said and bringing it up again the next time you saw her...I was thinking about what you said about XYZ...and oh, I thought of you this afternoon when I saw ABC...