Thanks Cas and Flower, I told H that his bomb was a wake-up call for me but learning how to communicate better is something I'm going to learn for myself - not to manipulate him. (And I do 100% mean this! I don't want to go back to my old way!) H kept stating that he had no expectations of me out of this - there was nothing he wanted me to do or change. His "mistake" is that he should have told me this years ago but instead he kept trying to make the marriage work. (He's gone from 6 months to looking back on most of our marriage as being beyond repair and unhappy.) I did point out we had some good times as well and he dismissed it with something like "Well of course if people are together long enough there will be a few good times along the way" He said he has no plan but is thinking hard on how to end this marriage so that it will not be hard on the kids. He didn't have any plans to move at the moment because he doesn't want to leave the kids behind but if him being there is torturing me and I want him to leave then he would. I told him that I respected the way he was thinking about the kids and how important it is for them to have him in their lives. Told him I'm not asking him to move out - I just don't know what's expected of me & am I giving him the space he's looking for...I'm no expert on seperation either. I also told him I loved him and I didn't truly believe that he didn't love me - that deep down inside I think he still did. (He sighed heavily and didn't say it but could tell he was thinking "poor, misguided fool")
Towards the end of the conversation he asked what I wanted to get out of it since he felt we were going in circles. I restated about wanting him to know I'm not perfect but the changes I am making I want to do because I want to learn a different way to treat people/communicate better. I agreed with him that maybe he was right and we should end this converstation until another time which surprised him a lot. (In the past I found it near impossible to end R dicussions because he rarely validated that he heard and at least understood what I was saying...Mars/Venus communications differences I now see.)
Shortly afterwards I went to bed and posted here which was very helpful. H stayed downstairs and didn't come up to bed until about 5:30am...so guess it was just shy of him spending the whole night on the couch.
