Thanks to everyone for their insight. I rang him sometime after I wrote this and we talked briefly before work. He immediately apologised for getting so worked up and I apologise for forcing the issue. As WOES pointed out it's not the hugest of issues.
However, although it wasn't the issue that worried me...more the reaction to presenting him with my negative feeling to something he's involved in that upset me.
To answer a few questions:
Did you hold onto a lot of resentments to justify your A?
No I don't think so. It's not really pre-A behaviour for me. The anger trigger comes partly from me being the WS and the A stuff, but there's quite a lot of other anger triggers relating to non-A stuff he's working on too...being humilitated's one and I think feeling like you're being told off for not doing you chores right is probably there...
It was, imho, simply a case where you felt you were not heard since your concern is not with the amount of help he gave but the manner with which he gave it and how he complied with your request.
Yes Brandon, exactly. I have spent a lot of time working on my listening...not a skill I was very good at in all honesty. Sometimes I don't feel that's equally returned. If something I ask for isn't fair or practical in the time allowed, then say so. It's no biggy, I'll happily do it. It's just frustrating when you either end you watching someone do everything else BEFORE what you asked for, which leaves two feelings: frustration and annoyance that he CHOSE to overrule my request, and annoyance and frustration that I end up doing the chore over again anyway. I'd rather it was not done, or done...not sort of done, but between us we end up doing it twice...it creates unnecessary bad feelings, upsets two people and wastes time.
LH said that, or are you guessing?
No I didn't guess. I don't spend time mind reading anymore (rarely anyway and not with LH!! :grin). All the comments I made, he said, and that's what hurt me. Particularly this
Worst of all he doesn't see, or even want to see what's at the root of this.
He apologised for that specifically, just lashing out...thank goodness, or we'd have a real problem.
So, gently here, LH's feelings were invalid?
No definitely not. Of course they're valid. I guess I was writing here what he's told me in the past about myself...it's transferrance of anger. You know when you're not really anger about the actual thing your talking about right then, but it trips you off because it trigger's you about something else? He has that problem to deal with at the moment, and I try to suck up a lot of the "disproportionate anger" because I understand that. Sometimes it's hard, especially when you've raised an issue you feel down about already, you know? He has every right to feel how he does, I just know (because he tells me) it's not really to do with that issue directly. I guess rightly or wrongly, sometimes I think he also has to learn to control that, rather than me always sucking it up...that the two street I sometimes feel is busier one way.
...acknowledge that my RWH had tried very hard to fulfill my request for which I was grateful
.
When you ___, I feel ___.
I did do this at the outset. I'm not all insensitive.
I started talking to him by telling him how much I appreciate all his help and know how much he's doing for us. I also went for the "I felt disappointed and frustration when only half the task is completed...." and there in lies the problem. I've got much better (albeit not perfect) at raising things non defensively. Trouble is sometimes when I give a positive he's just waitiing for the negative or criticism (he calls it the shit sandwich! - say something nice, then the problem and then something nice)
In this situation before I'd have got all heated and what not, but yesterday it was all him raised voice and slamming doors, stalking out. I was just left sad and quiet, watching this all go on around me....feeling bad for upsetting him, knowing you much he's doing.
Now don't get me wrong, he cooks, I washup; he does hoovering, I do laundry and change sheets....it's far more equal. And I do that deliberatly because pre and during A I didn't. I just sat in the study, working and wokring, let him go to bed first, then joined him once he was asleep because I was still studying late. I don't do that now. BUT I do apprecaite that by suggesting he should do a chore, might be a trigger back to the bad old days.
My biggest frustration was not and is not the damn chores. They suck, we do them together. We divide them up. It's just that we need to be better at listening to each other. Fulfilling needs isn't all about sex, buying gifts and telling someone they're appreciated. It's also happens in the mundane stuff...one of his needs is to be heard, just as one of my needs is to be heard. So this got to me.
We talked it over, and we're cool. I just hope we can deal with the latent anger that's floating around without stuffing up!
Ultimatley this is a small issue. Real small. We're doing pretty good. As a WS reconciling (once you eventually get your arse into gear
) I have done a huge amount of work on myself. My BS was just trying to hang in for a really long time. He did so much work to hold us together at the start it took a long time for him to recover from doing all the heavy lifting, I should have done. I thank him for that, because without we'd not be here now. Now we're ok. Trust is rebuilding, he rarely verifies...he rarely has too. He says he feels safe for the most part. He's in IC and has a lot of other stuff to work through. I guess I've just been able to actually work on myself for around 18 months and huge changes have happened...he's only just started to be capable of really changing himself and applying the introspection in the last few months, so he's way behind. Even in MC, I was really the person changing as I was the one who been wayward, he was just surviving and seeing what the change would be like. Trouble is, some of the stuff we learnt in MC, primarily about communication is looked for by the BS, but not necessarily used by the BS.
I feel like I'm on thin ice here - I hope I'm explaining this well enough not to upset too many people. I understand why there's such a lag in working on yourself between the WS and BS. And I accept that. I still feel strongly that if the BS also has similar flaws in their skill set, it their responsibility to work on them too. There in lies the opitomy of it taking two to make a marriage work.
[This message edited by OktoberMest at 4:18 AM, September 4th (Wednesday)]