No Tea

Last night we had our first real counselling session, the last one was really more of an assessment, we met with the same counsellor we had seen before, which was good since it did mean we didn't have to go over ground already covered.   It was a foul evening and we ended up having a little bit of a rush to get there on time.   We quickly settled into a comfortable room with three arm chairs and started, without a cup of tea!

Sometimes it is good to see yourselves through the eyes of others, it quickly became apparent that our problem is that we are simply not functioning as a couple or indeed as a family.   Other things, other people take too much time and emotional energy so there is not enough of either left over for the marriage.   I have committed to giving up some of my activities in order to spend more time with my wife, I think this is a good thing.   However it will not be easy.

I plan to give up working with the Brass Band, I had originally only committed to a couple of months while they looked for a "proper" conductor, that was over two years ago.   I often find I am the only one who attends every rehearsal, and although it has been musically very challenging I have now decided that other things are more important.   It will be difficult for me telling them that.   I am very bad at saying no, I do not like confrontations, I do not like the feeling that I a letting people down, and I hate rejection, all of these factors make me fear the conversation, and the longer I put it off the worse it will be.   We have a concert on Thursday so I think at that point I will warn a couple of the "senior" members of my decision and then confirm it at Monday night's rehearsal.

Interestingly although it was my cross dressing that drove us to this point, it barely came up as an issue yesterday, much more important was our lack of communication, and physical affection.   These are things I know we can work on, and maybe if we improve on these areas of our life then it will be easier to continue to contain my dressing in a way that does not impinge on our family life, at least not too much.

Although sometimes I do wish my wife and daughter would put down their smart phones and actually talk, the cartoons are simply cartoons that came up from a simple Google search, and that made me smile.