I've missed you! I'm glad you're trip went well. Hope we get to chat soon, I really want to know more about the "clean slate" stuff - Jack and I have been having some good communication lately, and I really want to do what I can to keep things positive and on-track!

(((hugs))) - well, just because you're you! :-)

Hey, Julie. I look forward to hearing more about the clean slate stuff, too. I've been doing that with my dh for a while now (mostly because I lost the mental energy to hold on to all the past junk) and it is working out really well. We seem to be communicating better - I just wish the shift would happen in him. It's so disheartening and frustrating to have to work through something again when you thought you'd settled it all with that person.

Hey Annie, you know I just had that conversation with Kevin last night. I have put so much effort into changing how I communicate with him and all day yesterday I was noticing him using the old default aggressive communicating that always set me off, that always set me up to be defensive. I mentioned it to him and he stopped and thought for probably 15 minutes before he came back and said that he could see it too. He was resorting to that. He was tired and grumpy and he wanted to see me lose it because it was easier than coming at me with good intent. Isn't that the key? It is so much easier to say "Why did you take my purse and move it. I set it there for a reason. Now my day is ruined. I had to spend 20 minutes looking for my keys." than to say "I'm really frustrated. I didn't know you moved my purse. I had set it on the table so I wouldn't forget it. I just spent 20 minutes looking for my keys, I'm late and feeling stressed. Would you be willing to ask me next time before moving my things?" It takes so much more work to communicate fairly. It takes work for us to parent this way. It takes work to live in a marriage this way too. It sorta sucks that life takes so much work. LOL I'm hopeful that because I'm raising my kids this way that THEIR lives won't be this much of a struggle because it *WILL* be natural and normal and in their nature.

Yes, I agree. I try to treat others in a way that I want to model for my children, so that they will act the same way and it will come naturally for them. It's very draining to try to be two people, one for your kids and one for the rest of the world when your kids aren't looking, I don't have the energy to be two people, LOL!

I think it's time for a sit down talk with DH about how we communicate. I was hoping that just by erasing the slate with him, he'd pick up on that and turn around and erase the slate with me. He's told me in the past that he needs me to directly tell him what I want, rather than hoping he'll pick up on something, I don't know why I kept hoping otherwise. Probably because we don't have much time together as it is and I'd rather not spend what we do have, talking about serious stuff, LOL! Anyway, thanks for listening through my thought process.

Annie,

That exactly has been a big component of change for me. I guess I left that out. I'm always thinking that DH should be intuitive enough to get the really obvious things like if both kids are crying at my feet help would mean picking one of them up! Seems intuitive to me and you, right? It doesn't come up for DH. DH is also always asking me to tell him what I need not assume he'll figure it out. Yesterday I didn't do that and I got angry when he wasn't doing what I thought was helpful. I tried to explain later that it is just that I'm always "on." I'm always thinking. I'm always having to be 4 steps ahead of everyone else and sometimes I'm just damn tired and I want someone else to have to think, be ahead, shit tell me I need to pick up one of the crying kids ;) It is a tough realization to come to that it isn't going to happen. It isn't. It is a tough realization that conversations have to be so exact.