View Single Post
Old 01-21-2011, 08:29 AM
  # 3 (permalink)  
Tuffgirl
Member
 
Tuffgirl's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Anchorage, Alaska
Posts: 4,719
Hhhmmm - you could be me right now!

One suggestion - stop talking to him until he starts to respect you. That's setting a boundary and standing firm on it. Tell yourself you don't need anything from him and take care of it yourself. If you do - email him.

The trick to setting and maintaining boundaries with people is acting on the consequences when those boundaries are violated. Like we do with our children. And right now your AH is acting like a child (why do they all act like sullen belligerent teenagers??!!!) so treat him as you would a child without being condescending and disrespectful yourself.

Why aren't you two in counseling together yet? It could serve as a mediation opportunity with your communication. I am recently separated, committed to seeing this through and sticking by my AH if and only IF he grows the heck up and stops trying to push me around. I don't think I will move back to the house without insisting on counseling together about this very thing. If I can't teach him about respecting other people and their boundaries, then someone else has to. I am curious about your journey so far as I anticipate long standing patterns of communication will be hard to break.

I don't talk to my AH if he's being jerky. And thankfully now I don't have to! He still hurts my feelings though. It's not easy being berated over and over again by someone who says he loves you, is it?
Tuffgirl is offline