Thanks Learn2Live,
I have been amazed that not giving in to the emotional games actually works!
My AW is masterful with the tears and “...don’t leave...” me stuff.
Previously I have given way, but today, much as it tore at me, when she cried and said “...don’t leave me alone...”, and “... will you still have me...”, in-stead of collapsing into pitiful adoration and commiserating cuddles, I answered her with “We’ll see” and similar deflective non-committal but kind comments (Laurie6781
). When she said why should she be punished (Residential take 2. starts tomorrow), I responded firmly that it was not punishment. It was hard but I stuck to my guns.
If you read my very first post here in November you will know she yanked me out of my initial detachment learning with a suicide attempt.
Today she said, “I don’t want to wake up tomorrow”. My reply was to kindly state that if that was the case we needed to go to the Hospital (she knows I mean the psychiatric unit) and that I was not going through that again. It felt hugely uncompassionate at the time, but when she showed up in the living room ten minutes later to watch TV with the kids, you’d think it had never happened.
I fully knew then that she had tried to play me, and I had prevailed.
It felt like a good thing in my otherwise rotten life!