Over the years, Eric repeatedly told me that I was negative as a person, and too critical, and I took it to heart. If someone I love and respect points out my flaws, then I work on fixing them.

I was definitely less diplomatic and more “things must be done the right way” 15–20 years ago – I am well aware of that. If something was clearly incorrect then clearly it needed to be corrected. And I usually went about it in a straight and no-nonsense way, without much thought for diplomacy.

I was also anxious as a parent when Ingrid and Adrian were small. I felt very responsible for everything that happened or could possibly happen to the children, so I double-checked things that Eric had done, which of course came across as me being critical of his way of doing things.

I learned. I understood that that was an unsustainable approach. I polished away all my edges, and then some.

I hold back from correcting other people. If other people are obviously wrong about things, however egregiously, I mostly say nothing. I accept all kinds of mistakes these days, and don’t let them bother me.

I learned to express myself carefully. If I do suggest something or correct someone, I couch everything in soft words.

That wasn’t enough, and Eric still saw me as negative, so I kept at it. I became cautious about even just disagreeing with anyone, and my instinctive reaction now is to support every idea and proposal. In a discussion about opinions, I mostly don’t even bother to voice mine unless it’s really important, or someone specifically asks me. Even then I make sure to tone down my dissenting opinions. Just go with what everyone else likes. Because I have been “trained” to view everything else as “negativity”.

None of it made a difference. I still got to hear that I am negative, as much as before. I felt like Eric wasn’t seeing me, the real me, at all, and was stuck in an opinion he formed when I was literally a teenager. Now I was being “punished” for being immature decades years ago. Eric’s view of me remained unchanged, no matter how much I changed myself.

I realised that I was in a hopeless situation. He is fixed in his opinion in that I am a negative person, so this is what he continues to see. And in this context, he has all the power. There is absolutely nothing I can do. I can’t convince him, I can’t prove a negative (haha). So I gave up.