Friday, July 3, 2009

Uuuggghhh

I get so frustrated! I've been working on the boundary thing with Mike for the last few weeks and I hate that I have to do it. Right now we don't live together and so any time he says something that is disrespectful or inappropriate I hang up on him. I'm trying to teach/train him on the boundaries of what is acceptable to say to people. It's sooo hard. And I guess I should mention this is at the suggestion of my counselor. In the past he would say I was cheating on him if I needed to get off the phone to do something with the kids or flip out over next to nothing, swearing and calling me names. We're trying to socially train him in what's acceptable when talking to your wife.

This morning we were talking about me not working anymore. He said that it's one thing for moms to stay home when their kids are like two, but my kids are teenagers. First off... my kids are almost eight, nine and 12. None of them are teenagers! But that's besides the point and I didn't even mention that to him. I DID say that I feel it's just as important for a mom to be home when the kids get home from school as it is for a mom to be home when they're toddlers. He told me I was so stupid sometimes. So...CLICK. I hung up. Calling me stupid is one of those boundaries I'm trying to teach him. You can't call your wife stupid. You can tell her that you disagree or whatever, but I'm not stupid. This is hard.

I do see things improving though. When I first started this "training" (and if he knew I called it that he'd flip out) then he would get really mad if I hung up on him. He'd text and call and text and call and leave me mean messages and be really hurtful, but now he's realizing that he said something that was disrespectful to me and I just talk to him later. Of course he doesn't think it's disrespectful. He doesn't even believe in verbal or emotional abuse. He thinks they're made up things by emotionally unstable women. How can you make someone understand the hurt felt because of an unkind word when they don't really feel like we do?

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