12-01-2019, 06:17 PM
Wife: She is showing a LOT of progress. She was upset about not having a bigger deal made of her fortieth birthday at first. However, she calmed down and said that she understood that my work keeps jerking my schedule around and I am unable to plan anything more than a week out. We went out with a good friend to celebrate and had a great time.
She had wanted a smart watch that counted steps but because my company had cashed out our sick time, I was able to get her something much more high end than she had asked for. This caused her to be very happy, but then go into kind of a depressed state where she said that she doesn’t deserve me. She said that while I was doing nice stuff for her, she was swearing at me behind my back and throwing my shoes into the closet because I had left them in the bathroom. She said she frequently does that about minor things like that. She recognizes that this is a bad reaction, and that the things that she gets upset about in the moment aren’t big. This is HUGE.
This morning, we had a scary situation where it looked like our two year old may have taken some of her antidepressants. It turned out that he hadn’t, and that they had been safely stored where they were supposed to be. But it looked bad for a second.
After that, she started to express some upset ness that I’d spent the money to get her the watch. She stopped though, and said that she realized that she was just upset by the scary situation, and was channeling it into something else.
We had a very productive discussion in which she told me that she is becoming aware of it when she is having a bad reaction, and in this case was able to tell that it was actually something else upsetting her. She said that that’s what’s going on a lot of the time when she goes off on me. She is beginning to be able to see it while it is happening and to realize that she is having a bad reaction in the moment.
During our discussions, she admitted that she does have an anger problem, that she was taking things out on me that weren’t my fault, that I don’t deserve that. She has not been doing it nearly as much lately, but this is the first sign of introspection, and the first crack in the “I’m always right, everything is your fault, and anything I do to express my anger at you is ok” attitude I’ve ever seen. At least the first one she’s put into words. This is truly amazing progress for her and for our relationship.
ME: I woke up this afternoon feeling powerfully optimistic about getting our financial house in order later this month. There is no doubt in my mind that the refi will work, and that it will get us to a stable situation at the end of the month or early next month. I almost didn’t think to write that because I’m not saying it because my optimism is stronger than my doubt. My optimism is strong, but the doubt simply isn’t there. I have two states when it comes to this now. One where I’m thinking of the positive happening as so much of a matter of course that I barely even notice, and the one where I am now where I feel like I already have it, and I actively feel great about it. I think this is execution. AWESOME!
She had wanted a smart watch that counted steps but because my company had cashed out our sick time, I was able to get her something much more high end than she had asked for. This caused her to be very happy, but then go into kind of a depressed state where she said that she doesn’t deserve me. She said that while I was doing nice stuff for her, she was swearing at me behind my back and throwing my shoes into the closet because I had left them in the bathroom. She said she frequently does that about minor things like that. She recognizes that this is a bad reaction, and that the things that she gets upset about in the moment aren’t big. This is HUGE.
This morning, we had a scary situation where it looked like our two year old may have taken some of her antidepressants. It turned out that he hadn’t, and that they had been safely stored where they were supposed to be. But it looked bad for a second.
After that, she started to express some upset ness that I’d spent the money to get her the watch. She stopped though, and said that she realized that she was just upset by the scary situation, and was channeling it into something else.
We had a very productive discussion in which she told me that she is becoming aware of it when she is having a bad reaction, and in this case was able to tell that it was actually something else upsetting her. She said that that’s what’s going on a lot of the time when she goes off on me. She is beginning to be able to see it while it is happening and to realize that she is having a bad reaction in the moment.
During our discussions, she admitted that she does have an anger problem, that she was taking things out on me that weren’t my fault, that I don’t deserve that. She has not been doing it nearly as much lately, but this is the first sign of introspection, and the first crack in the “I’m always right, everything is your fault, and anything I do to express my anger at you is ok” attitude I’ve ever seen. At least the first one she’s put into words. This is truly amazing progress for her and for our relationship.
ME: I woke up this afternoon feeling powerfully optimistic about getting our financial house in order later this month. There is no doubt in my mind that the refi will work, and that it will get us to a stable situation at the end of the month or early next month. I almost didn’t think to write that because I’m not saying it because my optimism is stronger than my doubt. My optimism is strong, but the doubt simply isn’t there. I have two states when it comes to this now. One where I’m thinking of the positive happening as so much of a matter of course that I barely even notice, and the one where I am now where I feel like I already have it, and I actively feel great about it. I think this is execution. AWESOME!
