pauliscool's Journal

27 April, 2008, 11am, at home

Post note to journal.

Small incident the other day about having coffee with ex wife. My girlfriend knew I was goint to do this and was fine with it. I just hadn’t mentioned it was the same day at 4pm. I didn’t find that “right” moment to tell her; when confronted at the bus stop about what I was going to do I said I have some work to do; she then confronted me about the coffee and I said yes that was what I was really going to do. She confronted me about this several times later. For her, I think it was the lie that was important.

My reflection about this is not about whether or not I lied but that I intended to tell her and later was not happy with my decision to say otherwise. So, what was going on there for me and how can I achieve my intention in the future instead of trying to create a white lie, that I later was not happy about.

For a moment I was not myself … my girslfriend interpreted that as me not being in control. Her thinking then was that either she was controlling me or my ex wife was controlling me.

I disagree … after all I made my own choice what to say … no-one made me do it … however, I was not being true to myself.

What was I afraid would happen if I said what I intended? Do I believe that?

In a way I think maybe my girlfriend knew I was planning to meet my ex wife that day, but was deliberately waiting to see if and when I would mention it. In the end I said something different.

How does this behaviour tie in with my goals? Is there another goal I need to help with decisions like this in the future?

Perhaps to do with courage of convictions. Saying what you mean or intend to. I could say it was hard … but then I would have to ask in what way was it hard.

All I can think of is that I didn’t want to upset my gf. That would be a cop out. Or perhaps I didn’t want to get any grief back from her as we were enjoying the day thus far and I didn’t want to cause an upset. But that is an assumption. In other words, I was behaving in a cowardly way. I think that is it. Tact and diplomacy are useful and can make a difference. This was not really about tact and diplomacy; although at times she asks me to be more sensitive or less cold or more diplomatic. It was about me letting bad beliefs get in the way of saying what I wanted to say.

I had my reasons for seeing my ex wife … in fact my gf knew these reasons and was fine about them.

So, next time, be clear what you want to say. Then make sure you say it. How hard is that!