HH,
The butter dish interaction- your response reminded me of me when
I believed I was responsible to do everything perfectly & everything
I did had to be perfect. So I would own all kinds of c__p I didn't need
to. I would actually feel "less than" if my H made a critical comment
about anything I believed, said, touched, cleaned,cared about, etc.
Then one day I stopped. I understood what I was doing to myself.
The comment about the butter on the dish - I would casually say
oh thats so annoying - and then go back to what I was doing & let
H do want he wanted about it. For many criticisms a "thats interesting"
would be all I would say - and go about my business.
I did have a discussion with H about nit picky criticisms were no
longer acceptable, no ones perfect, and I genuinely was doing
the best I could 95% of the time and life's too short for that
anymore. Old habits die hard, but things did change. Most of
all, how I treat myself. Alanon helped me stay on my side of
the street and detach which was invaluable to this process.
The other big thing was we agreed that every time we needed
to ask the other to change something we would start by stating
a positive first. This works well in communicating with anyone.
Of course that doesnt work with asking someone to
get into recovery and stay sober.......