Learning from yesterday, Living for today!

[Ambivalent]

Soon as I read that he said he needed space to "counter" your needs, my thoughts went to aha. This is going to be a huge hurdle .

You are aware of your passive aggression, is he aware of his? Being aware of this is 3/4's the battle.

The pattern behind it , the fear or hurt that causes it is the area which needs to be addressed. The sooner the better, for resentment builds , and it is a former pattern.

Honesty is the only way to keep this from reoccurring. How to be honest with tact is going to be a challenge. For just being honest can also create it's own issues. Such a balance to keep on an already precarious walk.

Have you found the book " His Needs Her Needs " ? It is one that if you guys read it together, may bring up some places for discussion. You can ask each other if the things mentioned/listed pertain to each other? It could be a time where once a week you guys cuddle on the couch with some coffee/cocoa and read. Perhaps set a beginning and ending time and take notes. That way if the buzzer goes off, you have where your discussion left off.

Then reward yourselves with something new or different. Would he or you be able to try this?

[chasingpavements]

For me I am starting to recognize the passive aggressive behaviours and trying to stop it in it's tracks. In the past if I really wanted to do something, or had an idea, I was afraid of how he would react and I could picture what he would say to me. That would stop me from talking to him and I would just hold it all inside. Instead of asking him for his input (which I was afraid of) I would go ahead and do what I wanted.

If I wanted to paint a room in our house I would imagine his reaction of saying, "we don't have enough money in the bank to paint right now, how could you even think about doing that? We could spend the money on something more important." Then I would think to myself, well HE just spent money on a case of beer for the same amount and how important was THAT? And then I would go buy the paint. This, of course, would anger him because I did it without talking to him about it. And thus the cycle continues.

I am starting to talk to him more often about things, without worrying about his reaction. A new, more vulnerable side of me has been coming out. I have been surprised lately because sometimes his reaction isn't what I expected and he has given me positive answers/replies.

Often his reaction is just what I expected, though. If that is the case, I approach it differently. I calmly tell him that it took courage for me to open up to him because I was worried about his reaction, but that the subject was important to me. Me telling him this seems to be helping.

[labug]

That's great, CP!

[Ambivalent]

Good job Chasing! Insight is most of the way to the solution.

[chasingpavements]

Thanks everyone!

I am doing ok, for the most part. Having some ups and downs. Having some emotional days, and some nice,enjoyable days as well. I think what I have learned this week is to distance myself a bit on the emotional days. I was really upset the other day and my emotions were running wild. I ended up arguing with H over something stupid, which I felt horrible about afterwards. Hopefully next time when I start to feel overwhelmed I will at least know well enough not to get into a heated discussion. So hard to do in the heat of the moment!!

Tomorrow we have our 2nd marriage counseling appointment. For now I think I will let him take the lead, for the most part, in the sessions. I do have a couple of areas I would like to discuss. For me most part everything is going good. I feel that he nitpicks at me quite often, or disagrees. It's an old pattern we fall into. It seems I can't say or do anything right (in his eyes).

Today he criticized a lot of different little nit-picky things. It really drags me down when he does this. As he has doing this, I have been experimenting with different answers/responses here and there to see how he takes it. I have tried giving a joking response. He will laugh but he continues to criticize at another time. I have tried saying simply, "You are being contrary." He agreed with me. I feel like I can't win.

When we had our big "talk" about reconciling I had two main issues. One of them was that I wanted to feel that he supported my ideas in life and that he didn't shut down my ideas. When he criticizes me it feels like he is not supportive of me or my ideas.

And it's just lots of silly little things here and there. Today he criticized the amount that I charged my son to do a chore at home. I charged him 50 cents for what I thought was a big job. But he didn't agree with how I had done it. It's little things like that all day long.

I have been going out of my way to do little acts of service here and there for H. But he still manages to find faults in a lot of things that I do and it is starting to bother me.

He wants me to be more independant, so I have been, but then he doesn't like how I am doing the things, because it's not the same as what he would have done.

Arg!

[chasingpavements]

Alright, got my rant out yesterday, and now I feel better!

Had an MRI this morning. H woke up at 4 in the morning to get some hours in at work so that he could come with me to my MRI at 8:30. I am in awe, and it makes me feel good that he would re-arrange his schedule so that he could come with me, and it was nice to have him there. I have had a lot of health issues over the years and it felt nice to have him come to the appointment and be there with me!

Even more, he is leaving work in the afternoon to come to our MC appointment. It is the little things in life, like those that make me feel loved. That someone is watching out for you and cares about your feelings and wellbeing. Someone that will shovel the driveway for you if you need help or grab you a coffee without asking. Of course, it isn't expected, but makes you feel so good when it happens! Maybe "I" am an AOS person! lol.

I think it's funny that my LL's are almost an even spread of all of them.. does that make me extra needy? Poor H! Apparently I need attention in all of the areas, lol.

[chasingpavements]

Just a little update,

Things have been going pretty well for us lately. I had been worrying about him backing off in the affection area.. but I feel better about everything now. He is starting to reach out a bit more now, initiating kissing and hugs and even the odd compliment. I have to say, it feels pretty strange after months without! I am starting to enjoy where we are at now. He is even back to teasing me and joking around with me, so I guess his playful side is back and to me it seems he is no longer depressed.

He seems a lot happier and he is now doing things that he used to enjoy doing, like playing piano and reading books. He has also been so involved with the kids lately, it is really making my heart melt to see him so involved with the kids. He is there at night to tuck them in and he picks them up from school. Most nights he has been helping, making us wonderful dinners and helping cart the kids to their lessons and activities.

The kids had a PA day off school on Friday and he took the day off to watch the kids. I heard all about their day afterwards.. he drove all around town, doing some clothes shopping for the kids, and they were so excited. In the past the burden of buying all of the kids clothes fell on me so to have him do it relieved some of the stress on me and it felt really good not to have to worry about it. Then, when I got home from work he was doing science experiments with them, as my daughter is really into science lately. My son was jumping up and down, so excited, they are really enjoying the time with their dad.

I can still remember back to the summer where he barely spoke to any of us, and when he did it was something negative that would make me feel awful, even though I was trying to hard. So things have gotten a lot better since then. I still do worry about the future, but I don't know how to explain it. I am not so much afraid of losing him anymore as I was during all of our limbo period where I didn't know if we were going to stay together or separate. I have accepted that things could go one way or another and I will be fine.

So for the past month we has still been living at his brother's apartment, and staying over the odd night, typically about 3 nights a week. We have been talking about him moving in. He has been staying over more lately, and hanging around lately doing family things.

We worked it out today that he would stay over every night except for Tuesdays and Fridays. For me, that seems perfect, as he will be home a lot more, yet we will still have a bit of freedom and space apart from each other. I am really enjoying having some time and space to myself. To me, having 2 nights to myself is perfect, gives me some breathing room. I jokingly said to him this morning, maybe that's what all marriages need.. a couple of evenings apart every week! lol... Seems to be a good plan for us right now anyhow.

Have a good week all!
-cp

[labug]

I know the transition to H being here fulltime was more, not difficult, not sure what the word I want to use is but it's a transition and change with all the emotions that go with it.

I need solitude and have to carve out that time for myself now.

I guess I'm saying, remember to take care of you.

[chasingpavements]

Labug,

Just wondering, how long did you and your husband live apart while working on things before you moved back in together? How did you go about moving back in? Did you ease into it slowly or did you just date for a while then when you were ready move back in together all at once?

We are certainly having our ups and downs. Mostly we keep having misunderstandings about when he is staying over, and it is driving me nuts! He will text at the last minute and say he is not coming home and that sort of thing. We are in the process of making some ground rules about this, so that I am not getting my expectations up only to be disappointed.

We are still at the point of needing lots of space apart. It seems like he gets tense sometimes when being around me, even though I am trying my best to make everything go smoothly. He will get grumpy and start nit-picking at me or finding faults in what I am doing. That is my (almost too late) cue from him that he needs space. How did you guys figure out the right balance of finding the space you need?

Thanks,
-cp

[chasingpavements]

Well, a lot has changed over the course of a month. H has been acting moody for a couple of weeks. It seemed like all of a sudden he started looking really sad, and he just kind of pulled away. Less affection, less joking around with me, and a lot more nit-picking and complaining about little things. I tried to ask him about it, and he would just say that he was feeling sad.

We quit our counselor, per H's suggestion, as he felt that she just wasn't working for us, and I agreed. We both decided I would find the new counselor. I looked around and found one that seemed really good, a solutions based psychologist. Thing was, she was booked until the 26th.. so we still haven't seen her yet.

I got sadder and sadder, and anxiety started kicking in pretty bad for me, as I watched H pulling away from me again, after watching him be so optimistic about wanting to work on things. That things, "were different now and that his heart wasn't in it for trying before, but now he was totally committed."

Then Valentines day came. No email during the day from him to say, "Happy Valentines" or anything. I got home from work and asked if he wanted his present. He then told me he hadn't got me anything. I gave him his present, tickets to a cool event. He seemed to really like the tickets. But I ended up going upstairs and crying, just because I was so emotional about the events of the past couple of weeks, and it lead up to the Valentines day (which is our BD anniversary), and then not getting a present or card.

That is when he said he was not sure if he still wants to work on things anymore. He still doesn't have the right feelings for me. He is worried that he never will. He doesn't necessarily want to go another year and still feel the same way. Also, he has been feeling a lot of pressure, with him not living at our family home full time, and just needing so much space. Also, he noticed that it's been a year since our BD and he feels sad that we are still only where we are at now.