Organic vs. Synthetic

...I actually tried that--with okay results. 

One day my wife returned home from work and began "venting."  She had not been getting on with her boss very well, and re-hashing nasty events of the workplace is a habit of hers.  I do it, too, every now and again, but--at the time she had this job--it was every other day for an hour or more she was doing this.

I had decided that it (her venting) was a negative holding pattern and I decided that I would coerce her into breaking it...

That particular day I was in a great mood.  I had been relaxing, writing, walking along the lake, and meditating.  When she walked in, and began complaining, I was...just amused.  Amused that she was still taking her boss personally and couldn't let it go.  I was amused and I laughed. 

She noticed me laughing and asked me what was funny.  I told her she was funny.  Then I asked her if she wanted to feel frustrated, angry, intimidated and unhappy.  She said she didn't.  So I suggested she not feel that way anymore. 

She said she couldn't switch gears just like that. 

I suggested she could if she wanted to.   

...During all this, I was really very amused and laughing out loud.  I had decided, and I told her expressly, that I had no intention of giving up my good mood. 

She took offense to that and called me egotistic, since I clearly only cared about my feelings and not hers. 

I countered that I did care about her feelings and didn't want her to feel bad feelings and that's why I was holding my positive level (which, I felt, I really truly was). 

Long story short, she stormed out of the apartment, slamming the door on the way out, being as--as I see it--I had created a space unsupportable of negative emotion.

She returned a few hours later and apologized, though, saying of course she didn't want to feel crummy, but...(Well, negative emotion is addicting isn't it?)  And from there on out she did gain more of an emotional "seniority" at work.  And became aware of her venting and stopped it--actually, we mutually agreed on a time-limit of twenty minutes.   The time limit helped, too.  With a time limit, instead of walking circles, she aimed for resolution. 

...I've tried this type of "coercion" several times now.  I'd say it's fifty percent effective. 

My wife is emotionally volatile.  And she knows it.  She almost never shows her underbelly to anyone but me--which, I think, both endears me to her and makes her (ego) resent me very much.   I say "volatile," because when she does show her underbelly, it's all the way--she breaks down.

She's an emotional type.  I'm an intellectual type.  I do feel my way through problems, but a break down for me is usually purging.  For her the breakdown is shameful.  She's a bit of a perfectionist (from a rich WASP family of over-achievers).  For her to admit that there is a problem means a major emotional, "shameful" breakdown.       

It's created a weird dynamic for me on my path.

I don't have to coerce her into less comfortable spaces; being around her, being who I am and she being who she is, she's made uncomfortable (as am I, oftentimes).   

...Sometimes it feels like her emotional self never grew up, like she's only emotionally ten years old.  Her emotions own her, she doesn't own her emotions.  And that's probably when she suppresses them.  I've seen her consciously choose her attitudes before, but it seems to take a monumental effort for her to do that.  For me, it's difficult, but doable--so it's hard to empathize.

...Sometimes I do look at her like a "slow-poke."

I do agree, Haven. They do know they are being fake- so there is some awareness there- a matter of degrees i guess?