Duty, love, and attitude

[Crazy Eddie]

how to connect with someone who's firmly in his shell and wants nothing more than to be left alone.

Isn't this just the typical man?

I don't know about "typical", but looking back it doesn't seem all that conducive to domestic bliss, for either party.

It is possible to have better, if you're open to it. Hell, these days I'm interested in her flower garden. Seriously. She's getting good at growing flowers, and she tells me about the thought behind what she does and the work that goes into it, and I am really fascinated by it. How'd that happen?

I couldn't bring myself to tell her that I was unhappy in large part because I was having an incredibly hard time taking care of her the way that I had promised to

As honourable as that is, stop with the pity party will ya!

Sure. I found better ways to deal with that. I'm just saying that, at the time, while she could tell there were Things On My Mind, I figured I couldn't share them with her without freaking her out. Holding it in wasn't such a good plan either. I had to fix them, instead, and then share ways that she could help that had a high chance of success. She's not my mom, and doesn't want to be (at least not all the time).

which may or may not involve you running out of patience.

You don't have a clue how patient we can be - just give us a try and keep venting, it's doing you a world of good.

(patiently waiting for the next chapter of CE's life)

I was actually speaking of you losing patience with your spouse. I don't mean to accuse any of y'all of losing patience with me. It may happen, but I'm not going to obsess about it. At least not this month.