"I was trying to get across that I felt we needed to work on ourselves further before attempting to figure out the problems with the marriage. I do understand that there are some close ties between the two, and believe we'll be able to take in each others' criticisms when we have a better perspective of what is most important to each of us. I don't want to distract our current personal efforts with emotionally charged discussion that will turn negative if we are not able to handle it on our own. I failed to get that message across and came off as evasive and controlling. My sincere apologies to you for not being clear."
Not sure if that helped, was unnecessary, or a backslide.
