{"id":20809,"date":"2025-07-05T20:59:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-05T19:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/?p=20809"},"modified":"2025-07-05T20:59:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-05T19:59:07","slug":"dissecting_a_divorce_correcting_him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/2025\/07\/05\/dissecting_a_divorce_correcting_him\/","title":{"rendered":"Dissecting a divorce: Correcting him"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why is the content hidden?<\/a><\/p>\n

If you’re comfortable reading about the details of my divorce, click here to read this post<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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A big part of what Eric perceived and described as my “negativity” was me correcting him.<\/p>\n

I know I used to correct him (and others) when I knew they were wrong, more often than they liked. I worked on it, trained myself out of the habit<\/a>. It was not enough.<\/p>\n

I let him be as wrong as he wanted without saying anything. He can call plants by the wrong name, and I say nothing. He can order “hot cold milk” from a menu written in Italian, and I say nothing. He can say we’re walking east when we’re going north. Whatever. It’s never worth saying anything.<\/p>\n

If I still corrected him EVER then I could see him immediately shut down and get quietly furious. And I did correct him, in two specific kinds of scenarios.<\/p>\n

One was when the discussion topic was specifically about facts, for example if Adrian asked about how something works. I mostly let Eric have center stage in those conversation (see later post) and only added my bits when he had had time to shine. The only time I stepped in and corrected when he was unequivocally wrong about some essential part, and I didn’t want Adrian to walk away with entirely wrong information. I made very sure to express myself very politely and diplomatically, wrapping the correction in soft phrases. None of that was acceptable. He just could not accept me correcting him. <\/p>\n

The other scenario is in particularly stressful situations. Factual errors stress me out when I’m already anxious in a stressful situation. If we’re navigating public transport in a foreign city, or we’re barely on time for some important-ish appointment and someone calls a street by the wrong name. I know it doesn’t matter at all, but it just makes my anxiety worse. Correcting people in that situation is a reflexive action, not even intentional – it’s almost like batting away a wasp hovering in my face. It’s rare, literally happens no more than a handful of times per year. (I have grown to be hyper aware of each time this happens.) But even that was too much, and Eric reacted strongly every time.<\/p>\n

Maybe it is all my fault. Maybe my behaviour twenty years ago traumatised him to the extent that even the slightest criticism now is unbearable. I don’t know, but I accept that it is possible. If that’s the case, then we’re in an untenable situation – if he can’t forgive me (for lack of a better word) then we’ll never get past this. The only thing to do then is to accept that and for both us to move on.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n