11/06/06 Monday

Met Darlene for lunch. At the very end of it she said she wanted to get together more often with me. She said she wanted to be in our lives more “because we’re family”. She said she wanted us to be ‘more like friends.’ She said she wanted to make herself available more to help us with the kids. At that point I told her that I hadn’t asked, even though she’d offered, because it would be asking favors…I told her she can see the boys anytime she wants.

She wanted to know how I ‘feel’. I couldn’t answer her. I said that it was clear that she was asking for more connection and she agreed. Then again she wanted to know how I felt about it. I couldn’t answer, because it would require much more than what could have been said as we were picking up the bill to leave. She waited until then to bring it up.

I’d had a bit of a feeling that something like this would come up in the lunch today, because there had been an underlying insistence—there wasn’t any way that I could have dodged this lunch.

It’s going to take me a while of quiet time to process all that this brings up. I’m not sure of what I feel even, it’s all stuck together in a big blob: revulsion, fear. I don’t think anger. It did flash in my mind to tell her that I’m fine as things are; but something held back, again the feeling that this wasn’t something that could be said just as we’re standing up to leave. She asked me how I felt, and my feeling was that she wanted the answer NOW. So I could only look her in the eyes, because I didn’t know what answer to give that would stay true to myself yet still negotiate the sticky mine-filled ground between us. Especially with the constraints on it that are necessary for her—when it gets down to herself and her behavior, she does not want to hear that and that is truly explosive ground. As the seconds went by and I hadn’t answered her yet she put her hand across the table and said, “This is stressing you, D” or “Is this stressing you D? Because I don’t want to stress you.” I said, “It seemed like you wanted an answer now” and she said it didn’t have to be now. I said I needed to ‘sit with it’ for a while and she said ok. Not being able to answer her immediately, and needing time with what she said was probably a a bit of an answer in itself. I wonder if she can see that—if there wasn’t unspoken something that alienated me I wouldn’t have had any hesitation in answering. To basically tell her that I needed to ‘think about it” is a pretty big clue that there’s been intention behind my not seeing her socially or any time for just the sake of seeing her. Family obligation only. I think that that fact was tacitly stated by my hesitation.

It did occur to me very briefly when it was clear which way she was turning the conversation (as she’s picking up the check) to merely nod, agree, and make vague promises (to get together with her) that I’d just never find time to do. Just handle it that way, with non-committal agreement that implies a promise but then doesn’t follow through. I wonder if that was what she was really looking for. I started to do it, but it felt so wrong and so false to avoid the bigger issue by making promises I had no intention of keeping that I couldn’t keep it up. That just short-circuited me and kind of stopped me so I couldn’t answer her because I didn’t know how to give her an honest answer. I didn’t think of it in this many words at the time; I just knew I felt kind of paralyzed, and so uncomfortable as a result. It appeared she was waiting for an answer and I didn’t have one I felt was appropriate to give.

As I’ve said before somewhere in this journal, it really would be a lot easier if we were friends. It’d be nice to feel free to use her beach house without internal conflict. It would be nice to have an easy feel about dropping the boys off. It would be nice to not have to make an act of will to see her, or dread times that make it obligatory to be in her presence. It would be nice to look forward to family times rather than anticipate just getting through them. It is definitely attractive, and would make things much more comfortable if we really could be a warm family unit. It would certainly make for a more relaxed atmosphere.

Interesting she approached me. Unless she’s approached Gary and he just hasn’t told me. This gives me the sense that I’m key to the direction to how our relationship and family dynamics go, and I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that. Which is why I hesitated before giving an answer: because to say what first came to me: That I’d prefer things to be as they are, at least for now, seemed tightly associated with continuing an uneasy relationship with her, and affecting the family dynamic of my boys. That I would be choosing to keep us all in a strange world where there is an unspoken wish that she be treated ‘like a REAL grandmother’, of the type where we easily just drop in on each other, and I call for favors, and any activity we do it seems natural to invite her along. Act like REAL families do. The tension between that and the reality on the ground which is so because I don’t have the feelings for her that would be required in order to have that sort of relationship with her—the reality on the ground that we don’t see her very often, we don’t invite her to go with us to places on the spur and then acting as if this is normal family behavior.

So she’s asking me if we can change that. Start acting like ‘real families’.

This request to me seems to indicate to me that I’m key in changing the dynamics and practice of this whole extended family relationship.

And that is weird to me and I want to be with this idea for a while, too, before I accept or assume that that is my role.

Do I dislike her because I keep telling myself I do? Is not liking her something I could change by an act of will…in other words is it illegitimate stiff-neckedness that maintains my dislike for her. Am I being cold and withholding?

I think there are other facts on the ground that would be up to me to accept, because I see them and it seems she and Gary don’t, and don’t want to. Vehemently don’t want to.

These facts on the ground have to do with their relationship which can never be acknowledged, have to do with the way she, and Gary too, handle conflict—the fact that she is to be protected from conflict by letting her have her way.

I’m trying to just write as I think. I did NOT get that hit of immediacy that comes from an encounter with someone’s true self, and I know what that feels like. I know she thinks she was talking to me from the heart…even though she reached her hand across the table toward me, I just did not feel the corresponding warmth inside that is the hallmark of a connection. It seems she wants more in our relationship, to be more of an extended family that includes her more, and it appears she thinks that I may be the key to that.

As I said, I’d had an inkling that there’d be a talk of this sort. I guess I’d imagined it a little more along the lines of her asking if there was something about HER that was an explanation for the fact that I do not make an attempt to spend time with her outside of the obligatory family times. And I never did think of a plan for what to tell her in that case. And having her approach it in that slightly different way was a little unexpected, and I didn’t know what to say.

I want to run as fast as I can in the other direction. There is something about her that gives me the creeps—that I feel a strong reaction to. Like two north poles of a magnet pushing each other away. A repulsion force, I feel that with her. And it’s a problem because she’s my mother in law and therefore an ongoing presence for a while.

I get a little sabotaged as I think because an earlier version of “The Questions” and “steps” (in The Works, and in Nonviolent communication) in my own mind seems to undermine my thinking process. The ‘Is It True’ question that Byron Katie asks, along with the assertion that the only things we can know for sure are what’s located inside us—we can only know our own feelings and thought, and not someone else’s—that seems to undermine my feeling that Darlene, and Gary, aren’t honest about themselves to themselves about who they are. That is, Darlene has a belief about herself that she wants protected and mirrored back to her; Gary refuses to engage things that are very important—the relationship with his sons, the relationship with me. “Nonviolent Communication” seems to undermine my feeling that there is something just under the surface in both of them, a slow-burn anger that they try to ignore, but surfaces very easily, in fact they sort of default to it. But they don’t let themselves acknowledge it. Both of them seem to settle for an appearance of something, rather than independently looking at it to see if it’s reasonable (like Gary’s “children should wear coats” dictum). It’s true that those are all ‘thoughts’ and mine: interpretations of them. So is it my thought: ‘they should be able to communicate more authentically’—is it THAT thought that generates my negative feelings? If I can ‘change my thought’ would that change the experience of my feelings toward them, with a special emphasis on her?

OK, there are some scenarios that come to mind, where I can be true to myself and address this honestly with her, from the authentic inside. I said that it seemed she wanted more connection (I STILL have an intuition that that came from a place that she THOUGHT it SHOULD come from, rather than a place of really true longing—that I COULD feel compassion for. I do NOT feel compassion for her, because—well I just don’t. Her behaviors are really convoluted and irritating ways of getting her needs met—very awkward and unbalanced because she’s not addressing her TRUE needs, and in facts shields herself from them. I KNOW compassion, and what it feels like when compassion flows from one person to another—it’s a connection that is unmistakable. Even as I write that I feel a doubt about it—am I setting the bar too high? Is this just an excuse to maintain my dislike for her? She wants connection, but she’s particular about what it takes for her to FEEL that connection, and the demands that places on other people. I feel hooked into a power struggle about who gets their way. I have to deal with that whenever there’s a potential conflict in our interests in weighing which choice to make. This is very uncomfortable for me, to have to deal with that subliminal competitiveness that sees us as winners and losers over her getting what she wants and I getting what I want. There is something in her that brings up this response in me and it’s uncomfortable. And it’s uncomfortable to deal with her through the fog of that in trying to decide which is the best decision for me: am I just rationalizing trying to win, or is it really best? Wow, this was a long diversion) and she said that she did. Oh yeah, back to speaking from my authentic inside: My feelings can’t be any warmer for her than what they are. Generally it is that warmth of friendship that generates the scenario you’re asking for—a family that is easy with each other, does things for each other, and includes each other and gets together more. And does things on the spur. And right now my feelings aren’t there. I’m not saying they never will. I can agree to see her more, maybe, and invite her to invite the boys more and see if those feelings grow into a deeper warmth. That’s the best I can do.

That’s the best I can do right now.

She wants the things that come as by-products to a warm mutual relationship and I don’t have feelings associated with that for her now. I’m really content to leave things as they are.

I wonder if she has a plan for if I say ‘no’? Just no, we’re going to leave things just as they are because I can’t deal with pretending a warm relationship with you and acting ‘as if’ for the rest of our lives.

Gary’s and her relationship is complicated, and far more complicated than each other is willing to acknowledge, and they can’t acknowledge it because they think it makes them repulsive people. That’s what I meant earlier when I wrote that doing what I thought she was asking for was going to mean take the whole issue that they have a complicated relationship off the table. It’s agreeing somewhere in myself to not do something that brings this to their attention, and just deal with it on my own. Live with it, essentially.

I remember her therapist asking me: “Where is Gary in this?” He’s out somewhere hoping it’ll fix itself and disappear. He doesn’t know the feelings that signal to him that his boundaries are being entangled with his mothers…they’re unpleasant (the signaling feelings) and so he sheds them. So he’s doesn’t have enough information to know where he needs to stand and to claim it back from Mom.

It’s a sort of crux: I thought of it this way: My needs are to have a husband in a certain way of husbandness that I sense is interfered with by her wants and needs, which are for something from Gary—she needs something from him, perhaps that Venn diagram of intersection really in order to feel her needs and wants are being met. And to do what she was asking means to just accept this as a given.

She and I have a complicated relationship too. My inability to just answer her directly and immediately at the table is an acknowledgment of that fact. And I think that on some level my failure to answer her pointed that out to her too. She’s made it clear to me that she doesn’t want to talk about what has complicated our relationship, but the direct result of them is that I don’t have the kind of feelings for her right now that would facilitate me having a friendship with her. I’m not sure if the relationship she wants with our family is one that she can get to through a door of friendship with me. That’s the truth. I just don’t know if I can be that door.

There are other doors. She can see the kids whenever she wants. If as a result of that there are feelings appropriate to inviting her along more, than we will do it, and willingly.

I need to give Darlene credit for bringing this issue up. And I give her credit for catching herself and saying that I didn’t have to give her an answer right then, or ever if I didn’t want to.

A little later:

Think I’ll just leave it at that for a while. Take a breather and transcribe my 1977 diary.

A thought comes to me as I transcribe: as I revisit the dynamics between Jeff and me. I was intimidated by him. And I valued his good opinion of me, and his presence, more than he valued mine. Is that correspondent to Alpha and Beta animals? One dominant and another submissive. I feel troubled as I reread about Jeff, because I can see how much more vulnerable I was to him than he was to me. And the thought that came to me: What makes the Beta submissive is more vulnerability than Alpha; Alpha is less sensitive, therefore less sensitive to their need for another. That’s it; the Beta NEEDS more. Needs connection, and needs reassurances of connection.

Something about Darlene craving connection, yet insisting on it in a form that’s very difficult to tolerate providing.

One thing that was happening with me and Jeff was that I felt that he was seeing me in the worst of lights. I thought he could see through my outside to my nervous and insecure inside, or saw me as looking ridiculous. That’s what it was. In his presence much of the time I always felt an unease, because I was certain I was visible to him as someone pathetic, and that he thought so. It occurs to me that he maybe could have been kinder; perhaps I’d have felt safer around him. I could sense standards from him that were way too high for me to reach. And I felt like I was looking foolish trying.

It occurred to me as I wrote that that what may have broken it up would have been a heartfelt cry from me—just let it burst through vehemently: say, “for crying out loud…Why do you hang around me if you think I’m so stupid! When I’m with you I often feeling like I have to apologize for being stupid. I WANT to grow; I want to be stronger, to see better! You should see what I write in my diaries. It’s like you offer a challenge of what I COULD be, but feel a little contemptuous of me because I’m not there yet.” It seems his best times for hearing me and feeling connected were at times like that—when something burst out from my heart. The authentic place. He always responded to that. Why couldn’t I have just keep that channel of authenticity open. In other words, I wish I may have known how to do that.

10/26/06

So, this is my 50th birthday; my birth was in the evening about 7:30, Mom said. So these are the waning moments of being 49.

Reading more in Nonviolent Communication, I try to think of unmet needs in connection with Darlene. I feel like she wants things that aren’t appropriate to want from other people and that she is manipulative in her efforts to get them. And that she is so well defended from any blame, and self-blame, that it’s an uncomfortable position to be in the face of that want, be unable to directly address it because doing so causes great offense and fireworks, and withholding feels very uncomfortable. I feel like I’m with someone with a huge need that isn’t mine to fill, yet it can’t be spoken of, or her efforts to get that need satisfied that often cause me discomfort, and I suppose I feel responsible for her feelings about her not getting what is not really mine to give. SHE’s the one responsible for filling that hole, but that responsibility is projected out onto her family. And she really believes that it is our behavior that makes her happy, or unhappy, by fulfilling this place inside of her. I perceive it as a demand from her, and old-fashioned

I think at her core, she feels that she is “to blame”, the blamed one. I think the threshold is very low in her to trigger that feeling. A ghost of a suggestion that she do something differently to her is a harsh unwarranted criticism and she’s angry, and her feelings are hurt. I think in some ways of getting her needs met she’s like a big, fat baby. There’s that kind of urgency in the fear that ‘her feelings will be hurt’ which feels like a mine-field we tiptoe around. When I am with her, or thinking about her, my need is to win by preventing her from winning; by blocking the satisfaction she’s seeking. I resent her efforts to satisfy her unacknowledged needs. I feel susceptible to a feeling that her getting her needs is at someone, my, expense. I don’t like the win-lose dynamic inside of me that somehow is activated in her presence. I feel like she has to have her way all the time, or risk some sort of hurt-feelings-consequence, like anger, tears, or both—or some weird undercurrent expression of it, like implying that something must be wrong if I wanted to have time away from my kids.

Yeah, there is something triggered in me that is competitive, and it’s in association with her, where it isn’t nearly so sharp and urgent with other people. And it’s about not wanting her to get her way. Maybe this is another manifestation of one of the things I was writing in my diary about feeling this feeling with girls who were extremely modest. The thought that she may experience the triumph of satisfaction whenever her wants are satisfied brings an unpleasant feeling in me, that she’s won over me. I’ve puzzled over this many times before

Later:

Just as I was sitting down to write this I thought that it was interesting that I’d trod this ground before, but without much resolution. I would notice that I felt competitive with her about Gary’s time, and I felt he deferred to her. I felt strange, icky-strange about their bond. I needed to win, and I felt that meant something really awful about me. Something about the dynamic really brought that competitiveness out in me and it felt irresistible. And sharp and painful. It was jabbing me with a pin. I was flooded with the feeling, very uncomfortable with it, I feared it meant something awful about me, and it seemed that I felt anger and frustration when I ‘lost’. I felt them very strongly. So strong that I needed to talk about it. I don’t know what comes first, something in me wanting to win or something with her. I do have a competitive instinct in other areas and with other friends, but much less intrusive, much less demanding, much more manageable. But it really flares with her. So I don’t know if that means I’m displacing a dynamic in me onto her, projecting I mean. I’m aware of the power of perception, and how it’s shaped by the person receiving the information, how what is perceived is determined by what is selected out of the massive amounts of information coming in. So that where Gary was sure everyone was looking at the scar on his nose, and it stood out to him whenever he’d see it in a mirror; to me, it was just a small part of a whole in his face, and I didn’t see his face in terms of his scar. So, was there a predisposition in me to choose certain bits of information: an intuition, Gary mentioning his mother had been upset because she hadn’t talked to him in 2 weeks, Gary mentioning how he and his mom would go out to concerts and stuff together to form a picture of a bond between them that was troubling to me? Then other things, like he’d be late picking me up for something because he couldn’t get away from her talking, or me on a phone call with him, and the call-waiting beeps and it’s her, and he felt he couldn’t tell her that he needed to go because I was on the other line; or maybe he did tell her but she kept saying,’It’s only for a few seconds’ and finally I hung up and Gary called me back really upset. He seemed to be upset about the conflict he’d been in when he had his mother on one line indicating she didn’t want to stop talking even though someone was waiting for him on the other line, and me on the other line. He sounded conflicted and confused. Noticing that she’d cut him out of a group at parties and talk to him alone—or it seemed she’d do that. The strange thing about standing around and taking forever to say goodbye. And his not doing something to end it.

So here’s what I observe:

Strong feelings in me: competitive feelings around Gary

Feelings of wanting to pull away, or being trapped when in conversation with her. Feeling anxious while in conversation with her; I guess that’s more accurate, entangle? Is that an emotion or a ‘thought’

Tension around Gary ending things with her; a conversation, a visit

Talking for very long periods of time with him when I was waiting

Her anger when I asked if she’d asked Gary to a function and not me because she was angry with me

Her stated assumption that my asking her about that was an accusation that she’s a son-clingy mother-in-law, whatever the mother’s equivalent of ‘mother’s boy’ is. She said I’d accused her—and she never named it directly, we always danced around it, but she did once refer to it as “something terrible”, and that I’d accused her of being it.

She tends to hear a refusal as something extreme. A situation where I thought I was neutral she has a memory of me being extreme: I think of extreme as red-faced shouting, and even physically threatening.

She was born to a very young mother who by all accounts didn’t want her to be there.

She’s an only child

I’ve observed her needing to be right in more than one situation

I think I resent it when Gary can’t break away from her, in little momentary decisions: excusing himself from conversation to come and help me with dishes, say, or when something minor that she wants conflicts with something that I want.

I guess for all these years I’ve been troubled by the worry: am I seeing what I think I’m seeing, or is something wrong with me that I do? Is something in me that’s wrong stitching together selected pieces of information to give a picture of a mother who’s overly emotionally dependent on her son?

And then, “Would you just cut it out?” for her, and “Would you just establish and set limits with her?” to Gary. I’ve felt disturbed that there is an enmeshment between them to the extent that it is. I suppose the reason it has upset me is a belief that a mother and adult son should have clear boundaries, and the mother should not be emotionally dependent upon her son. So I’m weighing this against the other ’shoulds’ I was having insight about the other day writing in here. Something that made me see the conflicts and resolution issues with Gary in a different way. There was a way I could see my responsibility in it that wasn’t threatening to me.

The thing is there is a way I can see that this is a way the two of them have devised to get their needs met, or did when his parents divorced. He said it once, in one of the only times I’ve seen him cry, when we’d gotten separated and he’d been angry and then said it reminded him of ‘when my dad left me’. And he was crying hard. So there was a deep sense of loss there, and it makes sense that he and his mom might have bonded in a way that confused their boundaries. And have felt a bit defensive about, both of them. There’s a part of me that sees that as an inevitable result, and with the two of them so well defended against introspection, it’s bound to continue. They’re doing their best to get their needs met. And because it worked once, they’re going to keep doing it because the prospect of not is too frightening to them. It is true if they were to both come to me, and say, maybe with tears,”this is all we had, and it feels so wrong to change it”, from the heart, my response would be from the heart too. I would feel compassion for a young woman who’d been married and at home for 11 years trying to decide what she’s going to do to be a breadwinner, and compassion for a child who’s at the same age to blame himself and really feel responsible for his mother’s feelings.

Are all of these things I’ve written above invalid, because they’re ‘judgments and diagnoses’?

So what are my needs? And to back up a little, where do my needs fit in to feeling compassionate about their needs, particularly when they are not able to access their feelings about compassion for mine? Does that mean I ‘be the bigger person’, that is, put my needs aside in favor of theirs? Because they really do have pain that one can have compassion for.

OK, I think I’ll take a little break from this and do some transcribing from vol 21.

10/24/06

This time 6 years ago, I was in the first couple days of awareness that I was pregnant with Scott. That was a very happy time.

Odd, that reminds me of a dream I had last night of revisiting the infertility boards, and being in the parenting section for those who’d had babies after infertility—and seeing the name of a woman who had posted regularly and often on the infertility over 40 board. I had a certain feeling inside when I recognized her screen nickname and saw what she had written. It was some kind of regret, and maybe some envy and guilt for envy…as well as some delight and interest when I saw her name.

A couple of interesting interactions. Yesterday with Connor. He was angry and frustrated because he’d had trouble putting one contact lens in and his voice sounded angry mostly in tone. I do not remember what precipitated it but he looked at me and said, “You think I’m stupid, don’t you. You think your son is stupid.” So I had an opportunity to use a suggestion from an insight I’d had when reading “Nonviolent Communication. I said, “I think it’s one of your secret fears, that you have a mother who thinks you’re stupid.” He looked me in the eyes while I said it, then turned away a little, so I busied myself with kitchen stuff while still talking to him. I told him how impressed I am at the connections he makes with his life and the things around him, and the connections he makes in literature and movies. I told him I admired that (though I seem to remember something more specific that I told him I admired about him.) I guess he was defending himself against that fear, and projecting it out onto me so that he could fight it.

Well, I may as well wade into this one because I feel a persistence about it that tells me I should start on it, even though I hang back. I guess my OWN fear is that I will find out that I’m doing something wrong with Darlene. That I’m the one who is doing something wrong with Darlene.

This morning I tried to let myself operate from The Quiet Place. Gary was in a hurry because he was leaving late for work—that’s my guess anyway. (I just had an awareness that I feel tension around the idea that somehow I’m going to like Darlene—or feeling like I’m to be criticized when I don’t?) (People being critical of me is anguishing for me. So I guess that’s why it is important for me to be angry about whether the criticism was “fair” or not. And why I go after the fairness part of it. It’s a defensive act, I think. I suppose part of it is the fear that if someone accuses me, then it means that to their eyes I’m worthy of criticism. That I deserve it, and that I AM it. A person who deserves criticism. I suppose that the part of me that feels that way is defending itself the best way it can with the emotions of indignation.

I can see how on one level indignation is appropriate as a response to something someone says that is hurtful (whether they intend it that way or not).

Here’s the Gary story: He was putting his bicycle into the van. All the seats were in the van, and he’d hoped to lay the bike across the flattened center row. He started to lift it in, and said “I need some help!” There was something in his voice that felt sharp and accusing—I guess I felt frightened and a sort of remorse, very quickly as I heard that. I asked him what he wanted from me, and he said he wanted me to go on the other side of the van and guide it in. His voice still held a bit of an edge to it, and I suppose I felt anger and a desire to tell him that it wasn’t ME doing anything wrong, it was HIM, in his FAILURE to COMMUNICATE CLEARLY. That’s what I’ve been engaging him on, that level. It is true that he is not communicating in a way that someone on that level might be able to relate to less confrontationally—on that level there is a ‘reasonableness’ to feeling upset, because my ‘conversational partner’ isn’t doing what he SHOULD be doing—communicating his needs respectfully. Therefore it is “right” for me to feel offended and communicate that. And then when that is resisted, at some point I lose my self control and act out very angrily.

So this time Something inside me prompted me to say nothing this time, at least not at the time. When our efforts together didn’t get the bike in the car he realized we were going to have to take the seat out, and he said, “Darn it!” and I felt the desire to defend then, too, the ‘rightness’ of our seat being in there (so I could carry my whole family to the Grange in one car). And I wanted to be right, that he was taking the bike out, when I had thought we could get the van seat out without having to remove the bike, and that that would be easier. A thought that he was being critical for not understanding when he was saying “we” (me) needed to move the seat, that he meant the seat of the bicycle, not the van. I wanted to show him that we’d been last talking about the VAN seat, not the bike, so it was reasonable of me to have been moving into position to the van seat—and I wanted to prove to him that it would be easier and less time-consuming my way. I can see that now, and I can truly see why he’d want to defend against that, even if I WAS ‘right’ about it. And I think this might be the key to all of our arguments, is that I’m wanting to ‘prove’ myself ‘right’ (and on a certain level I AM, and I guess that’s where I’ve been confused: because I thought that in that situation the only thing that would bring peace would be for him to admit that he was wrong –which he actually often did quite a bit—and CHANGE HIS BEHAVIOR, which he hasn’t really. So, I had to accept the reality, that he didn’t have the ability to be aware enough of his feelings and how they relate outwardly in his BEHAVIOR to be able to change them. I saw him as therefore too fatally flawed to be in relationship with. So I had to choose: divorce or stay. And ‘staying’ to me meant either living in a battlefield because these things were coming up all the time (which I could see was doing the boys harm), or somehow just sucking up his ‘wrong’ behavior, that is, absorbing him telling me his unhappiness with things indirectly, by implying criticisms in his tone of voice or acting in a way way that seemed hostile, but was ambiguous. For a long time I felt that was impossible, and too much to ask of someone. I felt personally I couldn’t do it, that I wasn’t ‘strong’ enough to not get hooked by feeling hurt, then angry at it’s ‘unjustness’ and angrier yet when he defends it. But what happened this morning told me that it’s true that it’s possible to be peaceful without confronting his “bad” communication as “bad” communication, and yet not have to absorb abuse, or have to be biting my tongue to not respond—that is, under great pain and will-power refrain from tit for tat. If I can be in this Place I’ve been experiencing today and yesterday in my time of being alone with my Self, then it is possible, it really is, to transcend that kind of interaction. If I’m in less of my Self, then it appears that the only way to appropriately respond is on the same level—that is, the same level doesn’t allow for much beyond confrontation, or suppressing the desire to confront. There’s a place where the answer IS Mu. There really is. And somehow telling the Truth and telling the Truth about my emotions about the Truth is something that grounds me in that Self.

A little later:

“How can I tell you what I’d like you to do in a way that doesn’t boss you around, or sound as if I don’t care what YOU like?”

I realize reading that in the book, that Gary often responds to me as if I’m bossing him around when I make a request. I’ve seen that as a character flaw in him, and HIS FAULT that he hears a command when I make a request.