Saturday morning at breakfast we hit a road bump. At first, I was furious so I employed the following strategy and it helped. Maybe it will help you too.

After weeks of mentioning an event for BS15 (a sports related gala) the morning of the event DH says "who's going?" I reply "you, me and BS15." Silence. Yep, you know what's coming.

"Not SS16?"

Now, I disengaged months ago, maybe almost a year ago now, I can't remember. In the past few months I have been very clear (or at least I believe I'm clear) that if I'm not kept in the loop by SS15 or even DH about when they will grace us with their presence then I'm simply going to go about my plans and will not include them. My DH still doesn't believe me, bless his foolish head.

So no info on SS15 = no ticket for the gala. I saved myself a headache (and engagement) and I assumed he had other plans.

Then DH says the following: "Did it even occur to you to ask SS15 what his plans were?"

In my head there were simultaneous epic events happening. Pretty sure "angry me" was screaming profanities at him. "Loving me" was clutching her heart and weeping that he was placing blame on me again. "Physical me" punched him in the nuts. And "logical me" quietly closed the book she was reading, took a deep breath, sighed, and waited for her cue to speak.

Not sure that it matters much my exact words, but they were calm (amazingly! Because I was furious) and went something like: I told you, if you two will not keep me in the loop, I will go about making my own plans. The ball is in your court and I will not take it back. Is this the end of our nice breakfast??
He paused and said, "No, what else should we talk about?"

I went home, wrote two blogs I didn't post to vent my fury, and had a few more moments of "Aaaaaaarrrrrrgggghhh!" during the remainder of my Saturday. He obviously felt sheepish and expressed it in his way. It made it easier for me to let my own feelings go. And my feelings were an angry mix of frustration that my words appear to fall on deaf ears, and anger that he wanted this to be about me making a change and not them changing anything, and frustration that I've been talking about the gala and he never once said he wanted his son to attend with us in the weeks leading up to the event.

But I said nothing more, and it worked. I felt so much better, and my DH really didn't need to hear anything more from me so he seemed to feel better that I wasn't rehashing the issue. Because I felt better, I even managed a few voluntary sentences to SS16 on Sunday.

I do feel so much better, and not like I had to give something of myself away or compromise my disengagement.