This is so nice to read, ST. Holding and being held by someone you love rocks. Doesn't it.

I hope things continue on this upswing. Enjoy your time away.

Mwah!

So glad for you ST.

Congrats

Hope to hear an update soon about how things are progressing

Ivetz

I think all good progress should be marked just to remind ourselves of where we've come from.

Yesterday we achieved loads and it was much like the ST and J of very old.

We narrowed down paint choices to one for the bathroom and 4 for the hall.

We unpacked

We sorted and went through Js wardrobe (not the clothes bit) the xmas cards and paper and b'day wrap and soft furnishings and junk bit and cleared out. And boxed up the stuff I had cleared from the kids rooms last week.

He went through his underwear drawer.

I took the kids to get their halloween costumes (punk witch and pirate skeleton)

J got the light fixed on the car

Cleaned all the dust form the kitchen

Unpacked 6 large boxes of books and CDs and DVDs and bit and pieces and put them back on their shelves ( and sifted for stuff to go)

Hung 3 pairs of curtains.

Set up TV, DVD, Stereo and speakers and Wii

Whilst tripping over the man still finishing the floor

and despite the removal men initially forgetting half our stuff and not delivering the second half til 5pm.

All that and no cross words at all!

Can anyone please answer this?

I'm feeling really cheerful and obviously really positive - have been trying to speak to J today and have sent text message.

I talk to him just now and he is total monotone and speaking in slow motion. I am now really really irritated. No sign of any interest in me from his tone.

How can I stop things like this driving me mad ? I'm now dreading seeing him, where as until I spoke to him I was really looking forward to it.

Need to get somewhere so that I do look forward to seeing him tonight

Hello ST!!!!
I've been kinda consumed with trying to put out some fires in the my real world here,
so I'm getting very far behind with my MB stuff. (nothing in my own M btw, it's good)

I am short on time but I my first impression of how you get somewhere to looking forward to seeing J tonight is ..... don't read more into his tone than there is.
Wait until tonight and ask him if anything was bothering him when you spoke on the phone.
There may be a reasonable explaination, ... or not.
We can so easily get ourselves wound up tighter than a plugged bailor!
This in turn will get our defenses up and you know where that leads!

Love ya and miss ya!

Thanks V,

I hope your fires get extinguished quick and pleased your M is good.

I'm trying to ignore his tone and have emailed a suggestion for something fun to do tonight:

Wait for it... It's really exciting!



Well, it was something he mentioned doing yesterday anyway.

So he emailed back that he was going to suggest the very same fun activity for our evening.

Forgot to mention we had SF for the first time in over 2 months the other day - that's how much closer I've been feeling. It was much enjoyed (and needed).

First, what the heck is an airing cupboard??
Doesn't sound like fun to me, more like a chore.

Second, the SF .....

ST,

I am sometimes short with my wife when she calls me while I am at work. Other times I will call her to chat and she is short with me. In either case is not it a matter of being angry, withdrawn or any other reason related to our marriage, simply that one or the other is busy at that exact moment of the day.

I work in a more or less retail environment. If a customer is standing in front of me, I can't even take the time to answer the phone. In fact, I have had to stop three times while I have been typing this to talk on the phone, answer a question for somebody and wait on a customer.

I also have the occasional crappy day that has nothing to do with my wife beyond her being the beneficiary of my foul mood.

I can also tell you that the biggest threat to romance is probably unmet expectations. I expect a certain chain of events or actions to unfold or I call my wife expecting to share with her the excitement over my finalizing some plans for the weekend, only to discover that she has her own agenda and itinerary for the same time frame.

Mark

Yup, real exciting.

V, I call it a boiler cuboard, you might call it the hotwater cuboard. Its the cuboard where the hot water cylinder lives and people store their linen.

Hey, ST loved this bit GMTA

AND SF

Dont worry too much about the monotone. Like Mark says we are not always on the same up/down cycle as our spouses. Tommorrow will be a better day!

Hmmm... We have a hot water heater and it's bolted onto the wall in our laundry room. Same thing?

(This thread is so internationally educational.)

ST, I agree with Mark and Lil. Don't project if you can help it. (Yes, I know coming from me that's like the pot calling the kettle black.) Especially contact at work. Anything can be happening there at any time. Just last week my H was IM-ing me something important to him when my boss walked in and asked me to join her right then to act as a witness while she fired someone. Needless to say, I had to cut it off immediately with H (sorry, Honey!) and the IM changed rather abruptly.

Any word on the pre-school job?

helllloooo

We had a fun evening tidying the airing cupboard - traditionally as lil says where the hot water cylinder is except when we had our boiler replaced we had a combi one so no longer have water cylinder but kept the idea and the cupboard is about 5'x 3' deep and we had a little radiator put in it to keep our towles ane bedlinen aired.

Linen and our 2 drawer filing cabinet in one side and boiler, airing cupboard and hoover in the other side.

Anyway we now have spares and guest linen on the top shelf our bed and towels on second shelf and kids beds and towels on the bottom shelf and cleared out one black sack full for the monkey sanctuary. (J insisted on keeping the kids towels from when they were babies and a couple of old ones in case we ever get a dog).


A very exciting evening!!!!

we have wii bowling comp. planned for this evening.

(Oh and just between you and me I have an interview for that job next thurs, they've given me a CD and I have to prepare a class for the interview and give it)

ETA: Do you guys mind my very short hand typing - written as spoken with little attention to full sentences or punctuation?

How long till they ask what a hoover is ST?

Hey ST, missed you.............

was waiting to find time to write a really long post to you but time has just run away with me today so I'm just popping in to say hello and let you know how happy I am that you and J will be moving back to the "new" house together.

That is wonderful news and I'm thrilled for you.

Sometimes I just don't understand what you foreign folk are talking about.

Glad you are enjoying such "exciting" times, ST. You must be so thrilled to be back in your home. And to have that (shhh) interview on Thursday. Yay! I'll be sending the good ju-ju your way that day.

Mwah!

Silly ferners...

Hard to believe they call it the same language.

To be honest Mark, reading back over that quote - it doesn't really read like the Queen's english at all.

I would like to let you all know that I am actually quite literate. I was going to promise to make sure my posts were carefully written but I'm usually in such a hurray, it wouldn't be long before I broke the promise - I think you all understand me most of the time... don't you?

As for the 2 of us...

Well, we've done a week together now - well over a week if you count our w/e away, but a week in normality.

So far, so good. We had a good day out yesterday - I had to give him the opportunity a couple of times to speak his mind - ie "J, you don't agree do you, tell me what you actually think"

And then when we got back here at 6.30 with the house a bit of a mess and kids to go to bed he started looking for decking cleaning hints on the internet, so I asked him if he could help me get on and whether we should agree that noone goes on the internet between 5 and 7 and POJAd come other computer rules.

The guys are coming to decorating today, so I asked him if he could please take the pictures down - he said "why can't you do it?" I said "because I can't put full pressure on my finger to grip" so he demonstrated how I could do it without pressure - I pointed out that his hands were bigger than dinner plates and that me trying it like that might not have the same effect.

Later I commented that if he makes it difficult for me to ask for help then I am likely to stop and do everything by myself. He understood.

Thanks for dropping by L4 and Sere

ST,

Be careful as you attempt to use POJA that you aren't just seeking agreement through compromise. Each getting half of what you would like does NOT fulfill POJA and eventually leads to resentment in BOTH of you since NEITHER of you is getting what you would like and what would make you happy.

POJA begins with two view points usually in direct opposition to each other. But POJA is not demonstrated by each giving a little ground and ending up with what might be called SHARING. POJA is finding the answer that makes you both happy and not just an agreement to end the conflict.

Sharing, compromise and lobbying are all methods used by those who wish to manipulate those they are negotiating with. These things along with the sales person's tool, the short close, leads to an agreement (I demonstrate some small point, gain your agreement that it meets some requirement or need of yours, often simply by getting you to nod your head while I continue my sales pitch, but have already made it almost impossible for you to say "No" since you have to have that one thing I showed you early on)) from a person who after the fact looks back and asks themselves just what the he77 they were thinking.

Negotiating to compromise eventually leads not only to resentment but to failing to negotiate in good faith. If the answer always lies half way between what I want and what you want, then it becomes a simple matter of upping the ante. If I begin far enough to my side of the equation, I end up closer to what I want after we meet in the middle. This actually causes both of us to escalate our beginning negotiating point, causing us to be even farther apart to start, and as compromises are tested to begin making selfish demands and DJs in order to stall/slow down the rush so that we might fine tune our position in order to achieve my original goal without giving away too much.

The other thing couples will do thinking that it fulfills POJA is to swap letting each other win; you get your way now and I get mine later. This leads to broken promises and score keeping to determine who is ahead and who is winning. One or the other will always feel cheated since not watching the championship game in order to watch an old movie while cuddling on the sofa will seldom feel like it is balanced out by having meatloaf for dinner instead of fish.

Most of us have learned from early in life to share with others. When there was only one apple, Mom made us cut it in half and each of us got an equal portion. This was reinforced in us by our school teachers and such until it became almost an instinct that we used to overrule our Taker. Sharing became a way of life. It was seen as the goal.

The problem with sharing equally is that it seldom makes for two happy people, more often leads to two unhappy people and in the end does not make Love Bank deposits effectively. It might be fair. It might be equitable. It might be the morally and ethically "RIGHT thing to do, but it is not something that builds up the love you feel for each other.

Let's say you want to see the big game and I know this. If I want to make you happy, I just tell you to go ahead, put your feet up and enjoy...

But if I want to watch an old movie, I already will not be happy if I just let you watch the game. Now a compromise situation might be that you get to watch the game until Halftime and then we'll watch the movie. I might suggest this knowing that the first half is going to be almost over by the beginning of the movie and so I won't miss very much of it. Of course the game will be over before the movie is over and so you'll just have to wait to find out who won from the news at 10:30 that night, along with all of those who got to see NONE of the game at all.

Now if I wanted to punish you for not giving me what I wanted in our last negotiation, this might give me that opportunity since causing you to miss the end of the game, when the winner and loser are being determined would give me some satisfaction at having gotten over on you.

Now two televisions in the house might solve the immediate problem but you have to be very careful that it doesn't lead to IB and result in both of you living independent lives only marginally connected to each other.

What happens with practice is that you begin to realize that you don't have to pump up your opening demands or stall to try to gain a win by attrition or any of those other things we often do when we know that compromise and sharing is in the works. We see the conflict as my way or your way when in reality, there are any number of solutions that might be acceptable, in fact be met with enthusiasm, if we can just find them.

POJA negotiations NEVER seek to sway our spouse by manipulation, education or explanation. IF we are spending time explaining our POV time and again, we simply aren't looking for what is best for both of us but still lobbying for what we wanted all along. It doesn't matter one bit to POJA negotiations WHY you want something or what makes it better than some other thing you have set up in opposition in order to make your point. It doesn't mean getting your way exactly some of the time, giving him his way some of the time and sharing the rest of the time.

POJA is so important because when an agreement is reached it deposits into BOTH Love Banks. No one pays for the other person's happiness with the decision since you are BOTH happy. It can't be POJA until that condition is met. It has to make you both happy and not just equally unhappy for it to be POJA since you will seldom, as in pretty much never, agree to something enthusiastically that makes you unhappy.

Unless of course you plan on using it as a bargaining chip in a later negotiation. In this case I let you watch the game, the semi finals so that next week, we can watch the movie that I really want to see even more than the one that is on today. Of course since today is the semi final match, that makes next week the final game in the championship season and that game is even more important than the one today, but fair is fair and equal time is equal time and I let you have your way now so next week there is no room to negotiate since now it's MY TURN...

That is why sharing, equal time and compromise do not fulfill POJA. POJA is only met when BOTH of you win. If you both lose, even a little or if one of you loses only a little, then it can't really be POJA.

BTW, POJA can't happen on big stuff from the very beginning. It requires a lot of practice to be able to let go of the you vs. me position and view of negotiating to start looking for the solution neither of us considered that turns YOU and ME into US.

Mark

Yep, I see exactly what you are getting at Mark. I didn't have to try and I think looking back J agreed wiyh my POV - he wanted to check something online , so that he could buy the right thing form the shop and get back quicker to spend the evening with me.

I know it really bugs him when I'm on the computer at this time - so it seems the obvious solution.

I will need to watch my POJA very carefully - it is really hard - I am very good at manipulating things to get my way and he struggles to say what he means and wants. Where we are at th moment I am working hard to help him to get it out.

I hope he can feel safe enough to do it for himself before I get annoyed with him not saying what he means.

It makes these discussions hard work when I am trying to get across my POV and help him verbalise his.

And that in itself seems wrong...

I just asked him what he needs to feel safe(cos I guess that is what I have to do) to give his POV - and he said for me not to disagree - can anyone else see the problem with the fact that I'm not allowed to disagree with him? And used that point as the point because I disagreed that to make him feel safe in coversation I have to agree with him (are you still following?)

Does he want to be listened to or not? Does he want a discussion resulting in double enthusiastic agreement or for one of us to be autonomous?