Is the answer blowing in the wind?

[Trixi]

Hey L_L, I'll have to go find you over in surviving to see wazzup with your sitch.
My sitch is probably drawing to a close. I guess counseling is "helping" in that we're figuring out where he might be stuck, but I don't actually see any improvement.

The past couple sessions (gee I haven't posted for awhile), we figured out that my H didn't really have "safe" people in his life. (Growing up and now.) That I am the safest person in his life. The question was "If Trixi is the safest person in your life, why do you want to leave?")

In the most recent session, it came out that even though I am overall the safest, the time period when I was gone/checked out/hormonally challenged, he felt abandoned, hurt and disappointed. He had never planned to get married a second time, but he took a chance with me and "look how it turned out". He intellectually "gets" I was sick, but he is still mad in his heart. The counselor is hoping to really look at that next session and help him forgive and move forward.

Since that session he has actually seemed more irritable. He called me yesterday and there was an "edge" in his voice. He told me how he was pushing back blackberry bushes in our yard (ie, heavy labor) and how I had complained that it wouldn't look good (long story) but that it DID look good, thank you very much. That was 3 years ago. He was asking me if I was 'sick' then. (IOW, felt like he was trying to find reason's to be mad at me that didn't have to do with when I was sick.) This past weekend I had gone shopping with him to look for plants/trees to put in that area. I hooked him up with an amazing maple this past summer. And he wants to go back in time and remember negative stuff. Then he announces that instead of getting together tonight as planned, he is going out to see a band. Grrrr.

My story is getting too drawn out. Suffice it to say, he says he has been doing A LOT of thinking, he knows he needs to decide, he thinks counseling is helping. From my perspective, it appears that counseling has really helped him access his anger and is now helping him create an 'argument' for why he should decide to leave once and for all. I can only hope she will stop the momentum before it snowballs out of control.

I do think that we are about to identify the root cause of his fear of living together though...maybe not uncover..."address" might be a better word. All of his objections/fears are specific to when I was sick. He has said he can't really articulate his fears, but I think he can and does. I think what he really means is that in his heart of hearts, he hasn't forgiven me and still thinks it was in my control.

I am shutting down. I am tired of being the one to turn a blind eye to his shortcomings while he emphasizes mine. His excuse for bad behavior is that he had "checked out". I can accept that, but I have an actual documentable, physical reason for why *I* checked out, and he can't forgive me (in his heart) for that?

I have stood by him during this time with not being able to drive. I have gone way out of my way to take him places, etc. And then he says in counseling that he thinks I was TOO empathetic (after a bad court date) and that I *should* have just told him to suck it up. Especially frustrating for me--I had specifically asked him on that day how I could best help him and he said to help him hang in there. But then, I find out later how I "didn't do it right" in his eyes.

Last night when he was explaining why I wasn't invited to go out with him tonight to see the band, he said that he hasn't gotten to go out with the guys in a long time and he *needs* to be able to go out with the guys. And since he still doesn't know what is happening with him and I, he wasn't prepared to have me hang out with him and his friends. Maybe *I* need to find someone more mature who doesn't think they "need" to go to bars with their buddies.

Maybe I am being too rigid.