Hi All, New to the group, and looking forward to connecting with you all. Coach Drew / Community - I seem to have a reoccuring theme with all relationships male and or female. I love making people happy, and I guess with that comes a need to seek validation for my contributions which I guess impacts my self worth when I don't receive that validation. Work - as a Sales support engineer, it shows up in the form of my immediate supervisor not being happy or satisfied with not hitting sales targets, feeling like its put squarely on my shoulders vs. the sales team and I then get defensive, resentful and well difficult to deal with. I want the manager to be happy but his refusal to accept certain facts as true nad contributory. Fun - I play in a band... I do alot for the band and I love to entertain people and receive that validation from the audience. However, the band leader consistently pulls me aside and complains about details and musicianship from his perspective. I want him to be happy but am often conflicted with the response I am receiving from the venue and patrons. In each instance, I stay far two long rather than moving on from situations that are not mutually beneficial. I am often lost at how we got from I love you to, the passive aggressive behavior that typically ends these relationships, accept that things have changed and move on in a healthy way without resentment or regret.

My wife has started unearthing old emails and sharing them with me. These have many negative interactions - is his a win?

I have read so far ... 1. Mr. Nice guy .. about 50% couldn't finish not for me, interesting basics on Bowlby and attachment types but you can get that from ChatGPT in a condensed form 2. Hold me tight: cannot recommend enough .. tons of practical examples I will be shocked if you cannot find your situations in the conversations in the book verbatim.. should be required reading for relationships 3. Understanding women: reading should be required for men who date women. Funny workshop-style listen .. really loved it, and using it all the time it explained EVERYTHING.. :-> 4. Seven principals of making marriages work: by far and away the most data-driven I have read - and this: Love Lab" is one the greatest longitudinal studies ever done, and I have seen it quoted in many, many books, including the Gladwell ones, etc. 5. Letting Go: one of the most abstract books I have read, but it's the one that turned the key for me in terms of understanding my programming and how it was affecting my journey .. it positions itself (perhaps correctly) as the basic firmware (low-level machine instructions) on how the brain/you/mind are processing emotions and how to flip the script to a non-outcome attached approach. More philosophical than practical