Dear Quipper,

I agree with your explanation of responding emotionally, it just doesn't get you anywhere good. I am glad that your wife is seeing that.

The incident I explained to you the other day when I told him not to cop an attitude with me and then left for a 1/2 hour, it did work. Wednesday he came home straight after work and bought dinner rather than me having to cook and we watched movies together. Yesterday he was late but he called and left a nice message saying what he was doing and when he'd be home. I just hope that it sticks but if it doesn't I now know how to respond to it to get a positive reaction from him.

I found a web site yesterday that is very interesting. I will list the links for you and you can see if it is something that may be of benefit to you.

timeout
anger
There are some other things on that site but probably really don't apply to your situation.

Best wishes,
Jade

Dear Jade,

I read your references, and they seem quite helpful. Part of being a victim of anger, is to have the opportunity to coach the angry person. The web references give some good ideas for coaching an angry person. Even your spouse.

My wife has been getting angry, and then cutting off communication. I am planning to have a gripe session with my wife, so we can both discuss our wish lists, with the agenda objective of just getting hte issues discussed, but probably not resolved, at least not at the discussion session.

Best wishes,

Quipper
Married 28 years and still struggling

Dear Jade,

Hope it is a good sign that you are not in need of posting as a means of ventillating for catharsis. Part of any good therapy includes Catharsis.

My changes are that I am seeing my wife's angry out bursts not just as abusive and inconsiderate, but part of a larger problem of frustration resulting from her procrastination and poor planning.

Therefore, in instances of frustration resulting from poor planning, my option for disengaging, and sheilding myself, seems appropriate. "My dear, you certainly have SOME propensity for creating Choas."

There will certainly be some true emergencies for which reasonable planning would have been insufficient, and hopefully I will not be blind to those circumstances, and be there to help.

It does not sound like your husband's expressions of frustration fit into a larger pattern. Only that he feels he can let down his censor with you, and express his feeling without first thinking of your feelings <img border="0" title="" alt="[Cool]" src="images/icons/cool.gif" /> . I have not used any icons or Instant Gremilins before, so I suppose it iis time to try them out.

Best wishes,

Quipper
Married 28 years and still struggling

<small>[ September 24, 2003, 12:20 PM: Message edited by: Quipper ]</small>

Hello Quipper,

Things have been sort of up and down. We had a talk last night which seemed to open up his mind a little. I just have to be very aware of when my boundaries are being overstepped by him and let him know when it occurs rather than just letting things happen so easily. If I don't speak up then he will think it's ok and won't know that I was hurt by something he said or did or whatever. So things are improving slowly, very slowly.

quoting you...."My dear, you certainly have SOME propensity for creating Choas."
I have a suggestion because I think that if you say it that way that she will take that as a big blow from you. YOU statements are very very destructive. It is blaming and although she may be wrong in what she is doing I don't think that that statement will get you anything from her except more anger and she will feel that she is being attacked and go on the defensive. In that statement you are saying "you bring this upon yourself" and that is true but I just don't think it's the right way to go about it. Maybe you could rather say "Honey I would like to help, can I make a suggestion?" and then she will most likely say yes and then you could talk about procrastinating and how that makes things pile up and cause tension and that maybe she could make a list of a few things that she feels she needs to do each day and then it wouldn't feel like she has such a load on her as things wouldn't get all piled up if she did a few things each day. Personally I know that I would get angry with you if you said ...."My dear, you certainly have SOME propensity for creating Choas." and I would not take that constructively because it would feel like an attack of sorts to me and it sounds kind of condesending. But that's just my opinion .

Good luck & best wishes!
Jade

Dear Jade,

Thanks for your idea of re-wording. I am still in the fomrative stages on understanding the breadth of the problem, and how I can encourage improvement. Also I am interested in deriving the maximum inspiration from the marriage, and minimizing or limiting the sucking down effect. Your comments also indicate a different approach to defining the problem, and it will take me a few days to process your ideas more fully.

My wife apologised for a hurried mistake that cost me several hours out of my way, and she appologised. I said that I was accustomed to the chaos. My wife seemed taken aback. I requested that it would be nice if she could put a little more effort into pre-planning, and to arrange her schedule to be more available for when I needed her. My wife has decided to start going to church and exercising starting at 5:30 AM. Previusly she sleep in until 7:30 AM. My wife answered my request with kind understanding words, so apparently I avoided her anger for that moment.

Thanks,

Quipper
Married 28 years and still struggling

Quipper,

It seems our postings have annoyed someone. If you would like to keep in contact then post and let me know and I will give you my email addy. Other than that I am finished with this thread.

<small>[ September 26, 2003, 06:05 PM: Message edited by: jade72 ]</small>

Dear Jade,

Pana's comment that we are creating a novel does not seem to be a serious criticism. It seems to be an off-the-cuff remark. This Resolving Conflicts category gets very little traffic compared to Emotional Needs. Resolving conflicts is an important concept in many marriages. I think Pana has problems similar to ours, but she takes a shorter approach to posting, and thinking of solutions to those problems. In going back over Pana's starts to threads, she starts a new thread every month or so, and leaves previously started threads unatttended, which leaves short threads. I respect Pana's expression of her ideas, but I don't take her criticism of "Novel" as well reasoned, or valid.

It is ironic that Pana is complaining about her husband's hasty reply to a school E-mail, so both Pana and her husband are making off-the-cuff remarks, that my result in unintended hurt.

I did, however, respond to Pana's implication that we had hijacked Parying's thread, and started a new thread, entitled HANDLING ANGER, STEMMING VERBAL ABUSE AND SKIRTING CHAOS.

Hope that works for you.

Best wishes,

Quipper
Married 28 years and still struggling

<small>[ September 30, 2003, 08:45 AM: Message edited by: Quipper ]</small>