Thursday, July 23, 2009

Just a spoon full of sugar

I am on strike.

As long as I'm not offering the solutions to our problems, his part in the conversations is the same two things on a perpetual loop.

Eliza, E-liza, Eliz-A...
How do I stress your name? Let me count the ways.
I stress it at the beginning, at the middle, and at the end
As far as my intonation can reach, when feeling stressed
By the ideas of Love and ideal Connection.
I stress your name to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, with frustration and protest.

What do you want me to DO?
This is the useless conversation that just fills up time and gives unfounded hope. It doesn't matter what I say because it will never be done and good ideas might be permanently refused because of their connection to our disagreement. It also really bothers me that the issue is not addressed meaning it will only repeat to infinity because the desire for doing isn't to address the issue but to address the conflict. But then the conflict is resolved by the promise of doing and so the doing never gets done.

When I don't answer that, it goes back to Eliza, Eliza, Eliza...

Earlier today, he actually thought of a solution and implemented it.
YAY!!
I am conflicted over trying to be hopeful because he did it, which is huge, and being realistic because his choice on what to do didn't take me into account at all. My husband's love language is food. I don't care at all about food and have made it clear that his using it to get out of conflicts makes me feel like I'm using him or that I have a butler, not a husband. In the past, I've offered numerous other ideas that would more directly meet my needs at the time but today he fell back on the only thing he knows and made me a breakfast of my choice.

I'm choosing to appreciate it for what it was, to acknowledge that he did in fact DO something of his own thinking, and to realize that it is better than some of the alternatives. It was followed by him picking fights, refusing to help, being intentionally snide, and basically feeling like he had gone out of his way to do oh so much for me and that I now owe him. The concept of remorse seems to be completely lost on him.

I'm trying to give him room to improve and will bite my tongue and hope for more, and when that isn't happening then I'll unemotionally address it and he'll say he understands and is going to act, but when that doesn't come and he again hurts me, I'll let all of it out about how this just keeps happening and how hurtful it is and he'll say that everything was perfectly fine and then I went crazy over some inconsequential thing and then he'll offer me a cup of tea and the cycle will repeat ad infinitum. I feel helpless to change it or to have any effect on my own life. And yet, I again hold my tongue and wait...

4 comments:

  1. "What do you want me to DO?" Oh, how many times have I heard that?

    I want him to figure out what HE wants to do, not wait for me to tell him what he wants to do. It's a vicious cycle.

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  2. Eliza and Abby -
    Oh, I've been there, too. Andy also cooks as love, which is pretty awesome.
    Hey, have you guys seen the ads for that new movie Adam? It's an Aspie-NT love story - that's the actual plot!!!

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  3. I saw it on the front page of Wrong Planet, but didn't see how it will be available. Do you have any other info, Maureen?

    ReplyDelete