01-10-2017, 03:12 PM
What's amazing is what happened today. It's still day 1, and I've had it on maybe 4 hours so far.
I'd been over at my ex-wife's house (doing my laundry) and my daughter was home. Our relationship has been a bit tense since she's started puberty, she's witchy sometimes, and I've wanted some respect. I've thrown gas on the fire a few times to be "right". Good results didn't follow.
Well, I engaged my daughter a few times today, watching my reactions. We went for ice cream earlier, and my feelings of her abandoning me woke up. However, I didn't interpret every message as "she's abandoning me again!" I just didn't NEED to dwell on it.
And 20 minutes ago, before I left, I went into her room to tell her goodbye.
I stayed with her 3 minutes or so, and we talked about our day together. She remarked that it bothered her spending time with me lately since I often became angry when she didn't disclose everything she'd been doing that day.
Without thinking on it, I quickly replied "it's ok if you don't want to talk".
It struck her. "But you've never been ok when I didn't want to talk".
I empathized with her when she said that. For I'd punished her silently and angrily MANY times. I just said softly "I know". And nothing more. I had a smile on my face the whole time (since I wasn't being "owned" by my fears)
I hadn't suspected this so quickly.
Thank you Shannon for sharing this with us. Thank you so, so much!
I'd been over at my ex-wife's house (doing my laundry) and my daughter was home. Our relationship has been a bit tense since she's started puberty, she's witchy sometimes, and I've wanted some respect. I've thrown gas on the fire a few times to be "right". Good results didn't follow.
Well, I engaged my daughter a few times today, watching my reactions. We went for ice cream earlier, and my feelings of her abandoning me woke up. However, I didn't interpret every message as "she's abandoning me again!" I just didn't NEED to dwell on it.
And 20 minutes ago, before I left, I went into her room to tell her goodbye.
I stayed with her 3 minutes or so, and we talked about our day together. She remarked that it bothered her spending time with me lately since I often became angry when she didn't disclose everything she'd been doing that day.
Without thinking on it, I quickly replied "it's ok if you don't want to talk".
It struck her. "But you've never been ok when I didn't want to talk".
I empathized with her when she said that. For I'd punished her silently and angrily MANY times. I just said softly "I know". And nothing more. I had a smile on my face the whole time (since I wasn't being "owned" by my fears)
I hadn't suspected this so quickly.
Thank you Shannon for sharing this with us. Thank you so, so much!
I want to be FREE!
