Lecture! Lecture! Lecture! Enough already!

He likes to lecture.

My little chick made the mistake the other day of telling his father "Dad in some things you aren't, but for most things you are cheap". We all endured a 30 minute lecture on fiscal responsibility, prioritizing, and setting long term financial goals. And by the way, he isn't cheap at all.

When he applies the lecture to me, it takes on a completely different.............everything.

Lecture A is usually to establish that he is upset with me and why. Sometimes it is followed by a standoffish attitude from him. It can stand alone, but when it does I know he is thinking, "Why bother, nothing ever changes".

Lecture B always follows A. He will pause for a second to focus then he reiterates that he is upset with me and why, goes on to why what happened isn't good and why it can't happen again. There is a little more anger in his voice. This could be followed by 1 or 2 days of him ignoring me.

Lecture C usually follows in line behind A and B. Here his frustration is fueling his anger. He usually doesn't think I am appropriately appreciative of the matter at hand and how he feels about it. So Lecture B is repeated with more anger and this time how each point and/or my lack of response makes him feel. This always follows with 2 days of ignoring me.

These lecture can take place, one quickly following the other or spread out over several hours.

Lecture A makes me feel guilty.
Lecture B I still feel guilty, but by the end I am starting to resent it.
Lecture C the resentment turns to defiance. You think that's a problem? Sit back and watch.

Then there is, "The Lecture that Never Was". He goes straight to Lecture C. However, he can only manage to make one or two sentences. He stops, he paces, he starts again, then abruptly stops and walks away. I know after this he will ignore me for 4 solid days. I will never  really know what exactly it was that made him so anger. He was never able to get enough out. On the fifth day, he has reset and everything is back to normal. If I still want to know what exactly it was I did to set him off, it just isn't worth it. I know when I ask, it will bring all those emotions up again for him and he will probably ignore me for another 2 days and I still won't know why. This hasn't happen a lot in our marriage, but truly once of this is too much. After these episodes I always feel guilty, depressed, needy and pathetic. I will call him several times throughout the day with the most mundane questions acting like his answer doesn't really matter but I felt I needed to ask. Then I spend the next hour analyzing the 3 minute conversation for any indication of how he is feeling towards me. Pathetic.

Poor guy. In fairness to him, this has been the only tool available for his alpha male self to deal with our issues.

Then we started DD. On the day we started, we reviewed our agreement and decided to focus on one of my rules for now, my health. The list isn't that long but we wanted to ease our way into this by focusing on the most important issue first.

A few days after we started, I started to do something he really doesn't like. It is not a rule. I have been burned by people who were supposedly my friends before. It is hard for me to completely give my trust. I will start out ok in a relationship, then a look, a word, a different attitude will trigger my insecurities.  I will begin to question their intentions towards me. He hates it. However, this time I was analyzing something to someones favor. I wasn't going to that negative place I was trying to find the positive.

He started to lecture (Lecture A). On and on and on........
Suddenly I stopped him.

Wait a minute, this is a lecture. Unless you are going to follow this with a consequence I am out of here.

I wasn't lecturing.

Yes, you were. You didn't like my negative attitude towards people, why it wasn't good for me, how I should deal with this in the future.................. I feel small and guilty. This is a lecture.

He was stunned. He actually apologized.

So lessons learned:

I learned that not all of his lectures are lectures, some are just discussions. Until we really get some momentum down this DD road I think I am going to be asking him to clarify which is happening often.

He learned:
1. That I really do listen when he talks and I take it to heart.
2. That I am far more vulnerable... fragile than I let on, especially to him.