I know that.


Yes, we do. Not nearly often enough for both of us, I expect.

You may not be willing right now...doesn't mean you wouldn't be willing to listen...

In POJA, you both come up with several ideas...and right off the bat, you came up with one (and it was a good one)...and she didn't want to do that.

Okay...so hear her ideas about it. Hear what is really getting to her about it...where her own urgency comes from...hear like she's sharing and reserve deciding if you're enthusiastic about her ideas or not for two days.

Listening to know, not to solve. First part of POJA is being safe to hear and be heard...respect before negotiation at all times...and not to watchdog you getting run-over as top priority (which is really natural for those of us who didn't know POJA before)...rather, top priority is to make sure you really understand your spouse, their ideas and where they are coming from (more complex than the "little" issues, granted).

I believe the best place to begin POJA is at the beginning. And remembering to stop when it's harmful...take that break...and maybe that was what Prisca meant...didn't succeed in conveying, though.

When in love, so much easier...not so much when you guys do not trust one another (and you both are only now learning not to harm one another)...and then one of you hurts the other intentionally.

What would you do, Markos, if you hurt Prisca intentionally get to her to stop hurting you?

LA

It's been nearly two hours; I emailed her to say I was willing to give her whatever space she needs but that she's putting me in a bad situation by not giving me any sort of a time frame.

That's all I'm going to say. Everything is in her court, now.

We're supposed to go shopping together, tonight. (The whole family.) I'm not sure how we're going to do it if she's not talking to me and I'm not allowed to talk to her.

I have told her that I am willing to listen.


It's obviously not very safe for me to be heard right now.


She's made it pretty clear that she means don't email her at all. After her original "Please leave me alone," after some time I sent her a couple of other emails on a different subject and received "Please stop sending me emails. I don't want to hear from you."


I'm not trying to be dense, but I can't understand what you are saying. I haven't hurt Prisca intentionally, if that's what you're asking. Are you saying that she is trying to hurt me intentionally to get me to stop hurting her? Are you suggesting I hurt her?

Ouch.

Right now, she wants to talk to you about something. You keep jumping ahead to how you can POJA the actual topic.

First, you need to POJA how/when to talk about it.

She wants to talk about it right now (or at this time), you want to wait until you feel more comfortable using POJA, OR you want to talk with Dr. Harley. SHe does not want to talk with anyone but you about this.

You need to POJA how to POJA this subject.

Idea examples:

* You each write one page about your thoughts on it and read them to each other. You each summarize what you heard the other person say. Then you table it till the next day.

*You each get 5 minutes to talk on the subject each day. Her turn; you summarize. Your turn; she summarizes.

*One day she talks, one day you talk.

*You write your thoughts down and exchange them. You don't speak about it until the end of the weekend after you've had all your UA time for the week.

*When it's her turn to talk, you hold her. When it's your turn to talk, she holds you. You don't summarize, just listen.

See what I mean?

The PROCESS is what is important. Her talking to you is obviously a big deal. You not wanting to talk hurts her more than the fact that the two of you haven't been able to come to an agreement on the subject yet.

You are afraid to hurt her, so you keep retreating out of fear. Retreating IS hurting her.

I'm sorry markos. You are letting your fear mess the two of you up.

She is trying to give you something very precious--she is wanting to be vulnerable about something that has been obviously very sensitive between the two of you. That is a gift.

You are rejecting it. She's holding out a fragile teacup, and you are saying you don't want it.

You need to be able to listen to each other and talk to each other.

Even if you had responded by trying to *see* and *understand* her, you would have been better off... Everythign else you did came across as dismissive and disinterested.

Ex of how you could have responded:

"I know this is very important to you. It's important to me too. You have been incredibly patient in waiting to talk about it, and I know it's got to be very hard for you to try to reach out to me about it now. I'm so glad we are getting to a place where you feel a little safer with me.

The truth is, I'm scared. Scared that I'll say the wrong thing, or the right thing the wrong way, and scared that I'll hurt you. I love you more than anything. I want to deal with this subject with you. I think we need to figure out how to talk about it so we both feel as safe as possible.

I love you."

See?

You don't mean to hurt her, but you are.

(And I"m not saying she isn't hurting you. she thinks her reasons for hurting are obvious, but they aren't. She shouldn't be doing the crab thing with you.)

Hang in there, Markos!

Markos,

Listen to what I asked.

I asked you what would you do IF you intentionally hurt Prisca to get her to stop hurting you?

When I said you had to be safe to hear and be heard...you said...



You focus on being heard. Not hearing.

and your caveat was:


Stop telling her and DO it. You are not listening to her. You're doing the repeat when you're at a loss, feeling attacked or pushed. You're choosing your old way to respond...which we do...when we have not practiced our new ways into a new habit.

Felt funny? In Fall in Love, Stay in Love, Dr. Harley says it WILL feel funny...and the more you get into the new habit, the less funny it will feel. Feel funny and keep doing.

Until you don't.

Listen to Telly...Prisca was hurt at your suggestion of 2-3 months. I think she might take your "suggestions" as facts...her DJs hurt her and it feels like you do.

She's in full mode to hit you back--and no, I don't see you hitting her. Doesn't change she's feeling hit, 'k? Oh, and you did hit her with "You're putting me in a really bad situation"...that you statement clobbers people. It's a lie, too.

And then you conveyed fact, truth. So many things in one little paragraph.

So stop...look and listen. Really listen. Prisca may be really sensitive to the "not right now." Because you've used it in the past and it became "not right now, not ever." And maybe by accident or negligence.

Well, that's gonna hurt you now, too...because hanging over the open-ended threat hurts like crazy. And you're not crazy, she's not crazy.

She asked you to stop and you didn't. And she responded, although abusively, IMO. Sarcasm and mockery aren't love, Prisca.

You could have waited to respond when you went home and began with a kiss and hello, and then asked about evening plans, and that you would like to listen to what she wants to share about the thing...and hey, you love looking at her, face to face. Then you hug the kiddos.

That's how you act from love even when you feel fear, anger and pain. Not stuffing it--addressing it. Affirming your love even when you don't FEEL it. Choosing to believe you both can work out, find balance, fall in love, each inch of the way.

None of it smooth. I think both of you are making it more treacherous than it is...you both are lethally armed to harm the other in exactly the spot each chose the other to protect.

LA

Okay, I hear you asking what I would do to make things better if I were guilty of intentionally hurting Prisca in order to stop her from hurting me.

Is that what you are asking?

(Your question is still very confusing to me.)

Measure with a micrometer
Mark with chalk
Cut with an axe
Fit with a hammer
Beat to fit
Paint to match

I'll try to get back to explain later if you don't figure it out before then.

I want to do that, but I think I have no idea how to initiate that conversation.


I can see that it is a big deal, and I don't refuse to talk lightly. But it's simply not safe for me to talk about it with her right now, because if on simple subjects she punishes me for making suggestions, how much more will she punish me for the brainstorming session that will be necessary for the big subject?


She is welcome to start explaining her point of view to me on the subject and being as vulnerable as she likes. In fact, if she does so, it will go a long way toward showing me we are getting ready to tackle the subject.

She's declined my invitation to do that. I think my invitation to do that was fairly polite, other than the fact that I politely declined to give my point of view, yet.


She may be perceiving that, but that is not actually what I am saying.

To clarify, I'm not insisting that she go first or anything like that. I'm just saying that I'm not willing at this time to agree to her demand that I talk about it.

And it is a demand. I can tell because I get punished for declining.

I'm not going to change my mind about that right now. To do so would be allowing my Giver to ruin our marriage. I've got my Giver and my Taker at the table right now. The Giver and the Taker are both happy with the idea of me listening to anything she wants to say. They are happy with the idea of me continuing to meet her Emotional Needs and avoid Love Busters. They are very happy with the idea of us beginning discussions about what path we are going to take to become skilled with the Marriage Builders tools so we can use them on our really big problems, like Subject X. They are very happy about the idea of us asking Steve Harley about those tools, like POJA and FGSN. They are also quite happy with listening to Prisca offer additional suggestions.

The Taker is scared about the idea of me giving my point of view on Subject X, and is very much not happy with the idea of agreeing to anything about Subject X right now.

Prisca asked me yesterday:

I can't answer that. She's scared and wants to talk about that fear. I'd be happy to talk about that, but I'm not the one to try to educate her about MB.

Google is my friend. I may figure it out. Please come back anyway.

Yes, that is what I am asking.

Would you consider that listening to Prisca talk about Subject X isn't POJA'ing it? And if you're saying that you will not talk about Subject X (your thoughts) because you cannot do so right now without resentment, and that you expect to have this limitation for two or three months...does that sound reasonable?

Not to decide...to listen?

Not to POJA...to listen?

To share?

Wowsers...

And it's your obligation for the rule of protection to tell Prisca that your Taker is scared of her retaliation...her punishing choices.

And that you feel punished. Go further. How does it feel to you when she retaliates...hits back...punishes you, as her spouse, her partner?

Tell her.

Which is why I was asking, btw.



LA

Does anyone else see any irony between the original title of this thread and the current issue?

Good luck with Google, BTW.

Okay, what would I do to make things better if I were guilty of intentionally hurting Prisca in order to stop her from hurting me? If I had done that, I think I would apologize to her for hurting her and explain to her that she was hurting me and I wanted her to stop. If she did not stop, I would then probably pull back and quit giving her an opportunity to hurt me for awhile.


I agree that it is not. And I am willing to listen to her talk about it. And I've said so from the beginning. Here's the original discussion from yesterday:



I think it is reasonable not to try to negotiate Subject X until we can negotiate smaller things successfully. I think it is reasonable to conclude that we will learn how to do that during the next month or two since we are working hard on the Marriage Builders program. I think I am very reasonable in being willing to listen to her point of view on Subject X right now. And I also think I am reasonably protecting myself in not wanting to share my opinions and suggestions about the subject since doing so on lesser things gets me punished with love busters.


I would hope you would agree that I was trying to do just that!


Well, I did tell her. But only after the requests/demands that I stop emailing her.

lol

Of course, the situation back then was her open-endedly stopping discussion on a subject with no time frame for picking it back up again.

And right now:
* I don't want to talk about something, but I gave her a time frame for when I will talk about it.
* She open-endedly told me to leave her alone and that she didn't want to hear from me. No time frame.


Yeah, I haven't figured it out yet, but I do see that you are back!

Whatever you are describing Mark, it sounds painful. I hope it isn't Marriage Builders.

I suspect you're telling me that's what I'm doing...

And then what? There's no response at all.

I came home to someone who says she wants the shopping trip, but she's not dressed and the kids aren't dressed and we're not ready and noone seems to be getting ready.

No clue in the world what to do.

She's been very clearly told that it hurts me to give me these open-ended "don't talk to me" statements.

She doesn't want to do or talk about anything.