Blame, blame, and more blame

When I had a few sessions of counselling on my own almost exactly a year ago, I had said to Sandra, the counsellor, that I wanted to stop caring. She took that negatively, not how I had meant it. Maybe there was an element of fuck you, I don’t care any more in it, but fundamentally, I wanted to be able to let the things that stress me, just wash over me, not get caught in the net of angst. Now, I find myself thinking what, if anything, will enable me to let go of the blame that I pile at my Wife’s feet?

After the previous nights Skype call with Kirsty, Our current counsellor, I had wanted to explore this, and She had a free appointment a couple of days later. I wanted to talk about blame. I wanted to talk about moving past it. I wanted to talk about my need to hear apologies from my Wife without them being suffixed by But. To examine whether, when We fight, my Wife’s complaints that I don’t listen are related. (It’s not intentional on my part, but I am aware that I have a tenancy to get lost in my own thoughts at times like that.)

Kirsty and I didn’t talk so much about

Turning tides

I was folding laundry as She came downstairs.
Her: Morning.
She sounded uncommonly subdued.
Me: Morning.
I was unusually cheery. Unusually so for a morning after another fight. (Another fight We’d had about parenting styles which had come about after another fight She had been part of an I hadn’t.) On mornings like this it is usually my Wife who has slept it off an I who is still shrouded by thunder clouds.
Her: I’m glad to hear you sounding positive.
Me: The world’s different now.
Her: Sorry if I said things the wrong way last night.
Nothing from me. I’m tired of apologising. Not that I’m suggesting I didn’t get things wrong.
Her: I’ll have some breakfast and then we can talk.

It was one of those moments when

Napoleon XIV

There seems little point in reporting this. But somehow I feel compelled to record it.

The fights are getting more regular. The irony is, perhaps, that they stem from Us actually talking. Except We’re not really talking – We’re just blaming.

The most recent started with

Undone

Three days.
Three fights.
It’s hard to say which was the worst.
In the middle of the last, We sat down to talk.

For the most part, what She felt She got from

One step forward, two steps back.

Relationship Counselling / Sex Therapy : Session #4.
It’s 3 weeks since our last session.
At Session #3, The Big Bad had been mentioned as a subject for future discussion.
Obviously by The Big Bad, I mean SEX.

We didn’t start talking about sex.

How were we doing?
My Wife opined that