Dear Cali Chica:

Yes, this morning was a lashing out. Yelling at him and going on and on makes it a lashing out event.

Here are the complaints you brought to him this morning: he didn’t put the automatic feeder on, he didn’t close door, he said it’s ok he’s-up-early-anyway, he said I’ll-take-the-dog, regarding Mon night:  you were up multiple times, regarding July 4: the horrid wife’s behavior, and in general: you and him are immature people, idiots who don’t know their limits and don’t enforce boundaries (“act like 20 year olds running around without sleep”), other people in your lives are “blood sucking leeches taking away” your energy.

These are the solutions you proposed:  “If in the future we are out and I say it is time to go, we are leaving… at O’s wedding you want to stay out till all hours of night- be my guest. I am not coming… next time we are out and we are tired, and I say it’s time to go.. we are leaving”.

Now let’s look at what really enrages you: you are envious of C because “she gives (her husband) a ‘look'(and) he will  literally drop his drink or toss it and say gotta go- when she says it’s time to go he obeys like a puppy”. You are jealous of people who “do what THEY WANT” and of the horrid wife of July 4 who “came and left when she pleased”, who worried about herself (“who did she worry about? HERSELF. Who do we worry about, others. Idiots. Idiots we are”-

Clearly what is underneath your rage is your childhood experience- and onward- of not doing what you want, or not getting what you want.

You asserted yourself with him (the solutions you proposed), asserting that you will do what you want in the future. You needed the anger to motivate you to propose these solutions.

“maybe time to go back to the exercise, to get back to the angry roots”-

let’s then: tell me what it is you repeatedly wanted most as a child and didn’t get, will you?

anita