SD You are SO right about the sweeping it under the rug thing. He'll vaguely mention things about that time last year, but not often. And a few times I've thought things were fine, and found out (either via snooping or a confusing comment H makes) that I was totally wrong and he is again unhappy/miserable/etc. in our M. When he acts like it's fine and everything seems totally fine. It is confusing!
Interesting that you asked and then he replied in MC. That's a good thought.
And yes - I do think I need to open up some kind of R talk soon. Right now I constantly feel like we're going along and things are going well, but there's this massive elephant in the living room. I find myself wanting to just ask "So are you faking it right now, or are we working on making our M better?" (obviously that's not quite the right way to phrase it ).
The main issue I think we need to work on is the same one we've had for a very long time - communication. I have made changes (I think) in that I am a lot more open to listening to H's concerns/complaints about the M. I used to get either really defensive or really quiet (my alternate defense mechanism), rather than listening and talking things through. It made H just stop talking to me and try to ignore whatever was bothering him... leading me to think all was fine or mostly fine. The thing is, I haven't had much opportunity to test myself and make sure I really HAVE changed in this area - and H hasn't had much opportunity to see that change - because he's still afraid to talk to me on a lot of things. How to work on that? Maybe opening up to him more and hoping he does the same.
Overall though I'm happy with how things are going right now. What I want more than anything is to feel "safe" in our M again. I'm not sure what it'll take to get there.
Michelle Thank you - yes, it was a GREAT vacation!!! Soo tough to be back at work this week.
ST Thanks! You're so right about those 180s working sometimes when they didn't before. I think half the battle is actually recognizing your own patterns and ACTIVELY working to change them.
Jak Thank you. I think you're right - particularly guys like my H who just DON'T TALK much. It bothers me to think that practically the ONLY woman other than his Mom he's opened up to a lot is OW. Quite a bit more than me, even, from what I can tell. I wonder what it was about her in particular that made him really "talk" to her. Probably circumstances more than anything since they were both wanting out of their M's at around the same time. Anyway - trying not to dwell on it! And yes, vacation was sooo nice.
Me 35, H 38; Together 13.5 yrs, M 7 Bomb 1 10/07/06 Sep'd 1/14/07 - 4/15 Piecing: 4/07 - 9/07 Bomb 3 10/11/07: Never loved you, let's separate 2/08 slowly improving 7/08 Piecing (7/25/08 rings back on!!) Current thread
). 
