on fear of being wrong

[Hopalong]

Hi HoP,
On another thread you mentioned your H's reaction to your son's bad language, and how you were wrestling with a feeling perhaps you should apologize to your H for not feeling what he felt.

I wanted to say I think there are two pieces, and write a "fantasy dialogue" I thought of, in case it's helpful. If it's not, do ignore--I indulge myself sometimes in writing dialogues for other people but I don't believe someone should follow any "script" I produce! For me, it's just a way of thinking about the situations others are in, sometimes. (Any my own...)

[always start with an underlying positive]
H, I wanted to tell you something. You're a loving father and I love you for caring so much about our son.

[describe and own your own feelings without apology]
I felt a little frustrated with your powerful reaction to our son's language. I don't like it either but it's not as terrible a thing to me. I look at it in context and feel that although I'd rather he didn't use that language, I can see it as a temporary thing when he's venting. I'm hoping he'll grow out of it.

[gently remind him--and yourself--that it's good to be separate people]
But we don't have to have the exact same thoughts about it. It's okay that we're not mirror images.

[return to the underlying positive]
It means so much to you that our son should be respectful and show good character in his speech as well as his actions. That's the kind of man you are, and I'm so glad you're his father.

[offer an apology only for any part you'd like to retract]
I want to apologize for being sarcastic when I said:

what it must be like to be the eldest son of a father who believes in setting standards as high as possible.

Sarcasm is hurtful, I know that aimed at a nerve, and I'm sorry.
[then let it go, this is where you forgive yourself!]

[close with the underlying positive]
I love you, and we're on the same team.

What the fantasy dialogue says to me is that the two parts could be:
You DON'T want to apologize for thinking your own thoughts and having your own separate opinions, because that would be unhealthy (no boundaries). It's fine that you see it differently.

You MIGHT want to apologize for sarcasm, that's always a good thing to do.

When you start and end with underlying positives, communication about disagreements or differences of opinion becomes less scary. With consistent practice of handling issues this way, people increase their feelings of safety. They may not agree, but they begin to realize they can talk about anything because the dialogue is framed by positives and includes non-abandonment.

[I learned this from books and workshops. And I am divorced twice, which tells you how urgently I needed to learn it. So this really IS fantasy, on my part. But if I ever remarry or find a lifelong partner, I swear I'll try to use this approach!]

Hugs,

Hops

[sKePTiKal]

Pardon me for butting in...

Hops, I'm always amazed at the way you can take a very fuzzy and complex emotional interaction and make it seem simple and crystal clear. Your "fantasy dialogue" is brilliant! and it illustrates something I've been working through lately with my hubby, about boundaries, too.

There is both a yin/yang (maybe passive/active are good synonyms) side to boundaries... and communication about boundaries. At first, it seems quite enough to manage, to deal what I'll call the yin side... defining the essential "me" from "you"... and working on maintaining & developing the "me" enough to actually participate in a healthy relationship with "you" without going overboard and pushing people away or engaging in the same kind of abusive practices that one has been subject to, previously. And communication: HOW we say things, give voice to our "me's" emotions, wants & needs, and the very words we use, body language, etc without turning the situation around with and hurting the "you" one is relating to...

... all this happens "by the seat of my pants" in the course of day to day life. Some days, we do better than others at this.

The "yang" side of boundaries is more a pro-active, positive, reaching out & engaging energy... one that invites the "you" to engage, participate, be that different person. (Unlike you, I tend to make things more complex, the more I talk or write...sigh!) Anyway, maybe it hasn't gelled enough in my mind... but do you see what I'm trying to say?

Here's an example:

Out & about for a day... I ask hubby: Are you hungry? He says, not overly; I'd like to do x, y, & z before we have to be at home for an appt.

We get home and immediately dive in to preparations for the people we're waiting on... and promptly start to argue. I realize: I'm so hungry my blood sugar's dropped - no strength - I'm shaking; must eat now... and I'm telling him, we should've stopped to eat while we were out; when I mentioned eating. (I'm blaming him; making the decision his responsibility.)

His response to what I felt was my explanation of physical needs... is that I used the wrong words; I never told him I was hungry, I wanted/needed to eat something [so he never had a chance to respond]...  and that he is used to not eating lunch, so I should pack an energy bar, just in case.. or ask for what I want/need specificly. (be responsible and prepared to take care of myself, in other words - if I'm not going to ask for what I want/need)

Finally dawned on me while we talked that out: I still don't feel like I'm allowed to use the yang side of boundaries... asking for what I want/need directly. Instead I drop hints, leave clues, wander about in conversation without paying attention to my self... and hold the expectation that hubby has powers of divination & ESP... and just intuitively knows what I want/need.

I'm beginning to get "glimmers" of light/clarity... that there is more to boundaries that just drawing lines in the sand; building fences

Sorry for traipsing into your conversation with Heart... but there is a lot here that's synchronous with something I'm trying to sort out. Be back, once it's coherent.

[river]

Brought tears to my eyes.  A lovely communication. 
I also do ID with being out of relationship, but having loads of ideas that could have made it work.  You seem to have really taken on/ in how to communicate responsibly and sensitively ~ to self and other.   .... if you want some also input, you may consider, that your son is also able to take some of the rough parts of dad's high standards without deep damage, at the same time, sometimes it right to protect our kids and thier relationship with their dad,.......... all a judgement call I guess. How about if you'd said, rather than I felt frustrated, "I worried about......, how he'd feel about the way you said it"

   When you start and end with underlying positives, communication about disagreements or differences of opinion becomes less scary. With   

........ this is great insight too. 

[Hopalong]

Hi River,

I think your suggestion of worried vs. frustrated is a terrific one. What a kind response.

(Dunno if HoP has seen this but the situation's universal anyway. Thanks, HoP, for inspiring it.)


Hi Amber,
I get it. What you were really saying to your H was:

Am I hungry?

You got your cues mixed up. The boundary of self was softened by your physical need, so for a moment there, you forgot who was who.

Very understandable and common...(it's tempting to over-pathologize the smallest boundary errors).

love,

Hops

[sKePTiKal]

AH YES... the "mirroring" vs "marking"... yep - yep...

however, I am still attempting to move past that form of "relation"... with my poor patient hubby.

[HeartofPilgrimage]

Hi Hopalong (and everybody else that has contributed) ... sorry I haven't been back on the board until now. Hops, you gave a great outline of how I could approach the situation next time ... the only clarification is that I didn't MEAN the comment of "what must it be like ... etc. ..." as sarcasm (but sarcasm is definitely something I have to work on ... and just because I didn't mean it that way doesn't mean it didn't come out sounding sarcastic).

It's hard to explain, but this whole long weekend I have felt out of sorts and like nothing was in its right place. I am learning new ways of dealing with my daughter, who as I think I have posted about before, works really hard to suck me into drama. I am learning emotional detachment from her ... so that I can love her more ... if that makes sense. But although I am practicing remaining emotionally detached from the things she does to trigger me, it doesn't feel natural yet. It still feels weird and wrong.

Then there's the stress of my son's upcoming divorce. His ex just sent in her response to our lawyer's interrogatory, and it was full of both out-and-out lies and malicious misrepresentations of some facts. She wants to keep him from getting joint custody based on really stupid stuff, and I can only hope that the judge and other people involved think that she's as goofy as I think she is. But I am worried about my son and how he holds up through this whole awful process. This is the same son that my husband and I were disagreeing about.

So, when my husband and I disagreed a couple days ago, it was just like the icing on the everything-is-out-of-whack cake.

A big reason why I felt like I should apologize is that he was sooooo shocked and hurt that I disagree with him about the seriousness [of using bad language when someone is under stress], that I felt my own reality shifting ... outside of that conversation I am confident that I have the seriousness of bad language in proper perspective ... inside of that conversation I began to question my own standards [are my values shaky?].

One of the things I've done this weekend is try harder to show him (without apologizing for something I don't think is wrong) that I love him. To point out when he is doing a good job ... and I also remarked to him last night that he has been really wonderfully supportive of our son. I told him that if I had taken my son's behavior as personally as he [my hubby] seems to have done, that I don't know if I could have been as supportive .

We also came to the conclusion about 3 weeks ago that we want to move. We live way out in the country (have for over a decade) and have a big house. Now half of our kids are gone from home, and nobody uses the acreage we have much anymore. It has become more of a stressor than a pleasure to live out here. So, we met with a builder today and are getting excited about getting into a brand-new house that has been built to our specifications. It might sound kinda materialistic to say, but I think just the excitement and fun of that kind of project has helped to get us back on the same page. I guess you need something fun to look forward to (we are dumping the acreage, downsizing the house, and including a pool in the backyard of the new house ... definitely something for us both to look forward to!).

I feel better about us as a couple, and I didn't even have to grovel about it. But, I am going to come back to Hops' "script" next time I have to talk to him about a touchy subject.

[Hopalong]

This sounds like a fine, beautiful working marriage, HoP--just the sort I daydream about. And what a joy to be planning a new downsized jewel of a home together!

I'm really sorry about the pain and stress of your son's divorce. The whole "family organism" must be in pain.

I can imagine it's very very hard. Good for you for pressing on with a plan for your own futures despite son's rough chapter.

DIL sounds vindictive and I hope she swiftly gets over it. Wish they'd do mediation...

love,

Hops

[sKePTiKal]

'morning Heart...

Your "adventure" sounds like it'll be a lot of fun! I'm still going through that kind of transition with my hubby, only we bought a bigger house (and I'm not overly concerned with the "materialistic" aspect of that!).

It's a challenge, for sure. It's like we're trying to figure out life - together and individually - all over again. The circumstantial aspects are all different - new - but we're both bringing our previous experiences and personal values to that, to a degree. In some respects, we're also letting ourselves experiment with "new patterns"... letting some old baggage go... trying out new ways of being "us"... and ourselves. All that said, it's been fun and rewarding. The biggest struggle, like I said in my previous post, has been communication.

I'm trying to be "heard" differently than in the past... and am becoming conscious (maybe self-conscious) about how I say things and the words I choose to use. I'm trying to "hear" the underlying emotional patterns, baggage, or scripts that hubby is struggling with, too. Some days are better than others, you know? Overall, I think the challenges we've faced and the new experiences are making our relationship deeper and stronger - and clearer.

I think you'll find that even though there are scary things that come up, you're going to be better prepared to handle it. For me, trust issues were one thing that hit me during our move. The situation didn't allow for much naval gazing on it, though. I just had to choose a path and go - so I tried something different than my usual self-protective strategies. All turned out fine, despite all the "what-ifs" in my head. But the essential piece of that was being able to let go of my comfort zone of emotional protection and "just do it". It's as though there has to be space made (letting the old) to allow for something new to exist.

hugs...

[debkor]

HOP,

As far as custody hearing trust in the courts even with everything that is being said.  With N friend and everyithing put out there the decision was (joint).  The children  (resided with mother) and F got every other weekend, holidays, ect.  They could also agree with each other of more but not less.

This was five years ago.

With NM that I'm friends with well life was a nightmare as would be one with N. 

Support your S.  Tell him to hang in there.  Be prepared for anything.  Stand Strong. You too!

Just in case.

I'm not saying that life with N is allt he same but in the case I'm talking about here....little voices...were heard.

They love thier M and they love thier F.  They were just caught up in a household with a sick M.
The one thing they needed was for others to not attack thier M and depended on adult's to have an understanding that we don't hate her we think something is wrong and she needs to get better and we are here to help you too. 

In June

Children were removed from the NM. 

To Date:

A court hearing.

I believe that F is going to get custody.
Children still love them both.

I still love my friend (she is sick) but the abuse stops. 

Have faith.  Sending you mine and your S. 

Love
Deb

[HeartofPilgrimage]

Thanks, Hops and PR ...

I recognized awhile back that, in terms of attachment patterns, I had an "insecure-ambivalent" pattern in my family of origin. For people not familiar with attachment theory and statuses, the insecure-ambivalent pattern refers to people who learned early in life that their parents were only there for them intermittently ... in those patterns, the parents are intrusive (want interaction with the baby/child on their own terms rather than when the baby is ready to interact), and only sometimes emotionally available. This pattern causes people to "ramp up" their attention and focus on the attachment figures to maximize the chance that their parent will  respond to their relationship needs.

Fast forward to adult life ... a constant pattern of ramping up the attention/focus/energy expended in important relationships while growing up = being somewhat emotionally volatile, being unable to let things go, being unable to ignore bad behavior by the kids, having an intense drive to be understood by all. My hubby has dealt well with me on those issues (he has his own issues). But when stress (like the son's divorce) comes around, I hyper-focus on the stress, like I am on constant alert. Also, my daughter has serious emotional problems (I don't think due to our family ... she was adopted from an orphanage and had been terribly neglected ... she is now almost 16 and her personality is not fundamentally different than it was when she arrived in our home at 14 months). My daughter just loves getting me upset --- her major motivation in life appears to be gaining attention, and she doesn't care whether it is positive or negative, and she doesn't seem to care where the attention comes from. The combo of my hyper-focus on things and my daughter's attention-seeking has been a volatile combination.

So this weekend's getting cross-ways with my hubby as well as other stuff was practice on learning to let go and stay in "wise mind."

I think hubby and I have a good marriage ... not fantasy-land-good, but a very satisfying combination of love relationship and practical partnership. It's amazing to me that hubby and I both turned out healthier than any of our parents ... maybe a chunk of the credit for that goes to us both getting a lot of extra education ... he's a physician and I'm on my way to be a psychologist ... we applied a lot of what we've learned to ourselves.

[HeartofPilgrimage]

Debkor, Thanks ... I am going to take your suggestion and trust in the courts. So far everybody concerned except for the estranged DIL and her family have shown lots of common sense. I think that the DIL and her mother both have borderline PD ... which as you may know is a narcissistic personality problem (not the same as NPD, but someone with BPD has trouble with empathy etc. when they are in a snit). Obviously I am not officially diagnosing, but they are displaying some outrageous and out of control emotional behaviors. It is very very stressful for everyone ... especially my son who is totally bewildered by the rage that his ex and her family are directing at him. I keep reassuring that if he rides it out for a year or two, the ex will have somebody else on the hook for her and her family to hate.