When it's a one-way street...part 3

[Accuray]

Even if I look at his motives as being completely well-intentioned, his presentation just exhausts me. Even if he's just thinking outloud, the effort it seems it will take for him to do it just makes me want to say no

You can't own that. You have to let that go. Even if its hard for him, if he wants to do it, let him do it. If he did you 50 "favors" and you only cared about two of them, you're still getting 2 favors and the other 48 didn't hurt. The point is, feeling like a good provider and being appreciated for it makes men feel good. If it doesn't cost you much to cultivate that, then do it.

My MC talked about an interesting dynamic in any relationship. He said that when you got married, let's say you both did the dishes. One of you might only be 5 seconds faster at doing them. That 5 second differential is going to lead the better person to take it on more often and therefore get better at it, whereas the slower person will be more likely to defer and therefore get worse. You then get polarized where the slow one *never* does the dishes because it's too painful for the fast one to watch, yet the fast one feels trapped into the task. All it takes is a slight difference to get that divide going. If you want to break that, the faster person has to sit on their hands and shut their mouth and let the slower person work through it.

It's like me offering to buy you a cup of coffee, then explaining that I'll have to forgo my OWN cup of coffee, and go out and dig through the car to come up with the change, probably be late for work and have to skip lunch because of it, and ... or you could just pay 99cents yourself. Wouldn't you just say, "No, thanks, really!"? Do you remember the character Cliff Claven on Cheers? He was just annoying in that sort of way, regardless of his "intentions."

Yeah I get it, it's like "enough already!" That said, I think you have to look at this phase as transitional to establish a new norm, so try tolerating it for a while. Try to hear that as "blah blah blah...I'll buy you a cup of coffee...blah blah blah". Then when it comes, say thank you.

I'm just saying try it.

WRT my sitch, whenever anyone suggests they're going to put someone through what I went through, I start to shake and dive for the nearest ditch, so yes, I'm a little sensitive on that point!

Accuray

[Crazyville]

There, I just sent him a text thanking him for filling my gas tank when he used my car this weekend. I suspect I already had when he did it, but I did it again anyway.

[2thepoint]

Nice! Now don't go running into the hills because he responds favorably to the kind words from you. Accept that he may feel good about your words of affirmation.

Little steps....

[Crazyville]

He just texted back. He said, "You are welcome. It may be small but it is something I can tend to."

Now I'm going to go work on not running for the hills.

Does it still count if I just leave early for school? Like an hour and a half early?

[2thepoint]

Enjoy your extra time.

[Accuray]

I do think he really wants to please you. He just hasn't figured out how to do it your way. Let him do it his way, get that feeling good, and then start your training through gentle nudges rather than a rolled-up newspaper!

Accuray

[2thepoint]

Me likey!!! ^^^^

[Crazyville]

I hear you. He wants to please me. His way. It has always been his way.

I just hope you all are still around when I actually DO want to get into "training" him. I've never been successful at training him anything. Maybe later on you can help me with how to do that.

Right now, I don't want to get back into a bunch of discussions of the ways I can make him happy. I threw him a bone, but I'm still working on me. I'm also still digesting his attack from this morning.

[Accuray]

I wasn't there to hear the tone or read the body language, but I'm not seeing an attack here:

H: If I get S to hustle, I can drop him off at school this morning (it's usually something I do.)
W: That's alright, I need to get up anyway. Paul is coming this morning to look at the furnace.
H: You were going to tell me when he was coming
W: I did tell you. I told you yesterday that if he couldn't make it then, he would be coming today.
H: Well you didn't give me a specific time
W: I don't have a specific time
H: Well I have a meeting at 8:00 so I don't know if I can be here. I can still drop off S if I hurry.
W: Get to your meeting, it's no big deal, I'll drop him off.

At worst I see a mild complaint, perhaps it came across as accusatory, but in any case it seems minor -- he thought you were going to tell him when Paul was going to arrive so he could be home, and he *thought* you had made arrangements with Paul without telling him. That's all I read into it. "Hey, I didn't talk to Paul, I just assume he'll be here, give him a call if you want" kind of takes that off the table.

How did you read that as an attack? Was it his tone, his body language? What was it?

I also read this into it:

1) The furnace was broken and either he didn't notice it or ignored it
2) You made the arrangements to have it fixed by your relative, presumably for free or inexpensively
3) He complained about the way you handled that, when in fact you were taking care of everything

These are just ideas, don't take them as criticisms or telling you that you should have done something else:

When you noticed the furnace was broken, you could have discussed it with him -- "Hey did you notice the furnace is broken? Will you take a look at it for me?"

"Maybe we can get Paul to take a look at it, do you want to deal with it or should I?"

You know, involve him up-front, let him feel like he had a chance to participate. That will make him less likely to feel steamrolled or useless, and therefore he'll be less likely to complain. If you give him the chance to step up and he doesn't, he'll be less likely to complain about how you handled it later.

Accuray

[Crazyville]

Attack/defense is just the terminology from the book. It talks about using "I" statements instead of "accusatory 'you'" statements. His statements were both "you" statements about my actions. I wasn't implying it was huge, just taken back by the obviousness of it, now that my eyes have been opened. So I'm reflecting on it, trying to determine what I could do different, trying to figure out the difference between sharing information and defensiveness.

He didn't complain about my taking care of the furnace. In fact, he thanked me and said, "Well done." The only reason I let him know when Paul got here today is because he wants to be "involved." Not helpful, particularly from anyone else's veiwpoint, but involved. I certainly didn't need him to be home. I did that only for him, to address his need.

I could have set him up to handle the furnace, but honestly, there are so many things around here that need to be dealt with that I just needed this one to get done. Taxes are a great example. We usually do it ourselves, so he has already purchased TurboTax and then immediately set it on my desk. Every year, he says he wants to do it "this year." Every year, I'm doing it the second week of April because he hasn't. HE is the one with the accounting degree. HE is the one that should be doing it. If I remind him, he says, "Oh, yeah, I need to get on that. This weekend!" But then he never does. Eventually, I'm just nagging. Our R is riddled with this, but I don't want to get into the mode of venting again. Just telling you why I took care of it myself.

So, because I'm reading books like crazy, I've got many topics running through my head. My posts will be somewhat random. Sorry!

Tonight I read about how important it is for men to feel respected, which goes in line with a number of recent posts to me. At the same time, you all are asking me to give H some things that he can do for me. Well, in order for me to begin to respect him, he needs to stop telling me how remedial he is, what an idiot he is, how incompetent he is. I don't want to hear it. Also, I don't want to hear that he's "trying." If he really is trying, then he can try without tell me. Otherwise, all I see is his failure when he tried but didn't succeed. I really don't need to see it.

Can I tell him these things? If so, how?