how to 180 when you've been too independent?

[avermont]

Well, I cracked on Monday and sent him an email link to a funny snowboarding video.

why? because I wanted to try out the "90" as DB coach Laurie suggested. Not pursuing, but showing interest. And remember, he was the first to send me a random email story in October.

On Tuesday, I felt really good for the first time in months. Felt on the way to detachment. Felt some progress.

Last night he responded to my email with a very friendly response. AND asked "where are the bills at? should we get together on that?"

This is after we had the angry interaction during the October bill paying and he went NC for the November bills. As he didn't contact me, I just said the heck with it and paid the bills-compentently enough-- myself.

This is all joint financial stuff, and he is an accountant at heart, so it was way out of character for him to drop the bill-thing.

So right now I am regretting breaking the NC (although I was trying something! to see what happens!) and would like to respond just civilly to the bill paying.

Something like:

"it seemed like it didn't work too well when we did bills together in October. As you didn't contact me in November, I did the bills myself. X, Y, Z bills are all automatically withdrawn; I only have to write checks for A, B, C bills. I can either continue doing them myself, or we can look at them together, whichever you are more comfortable with"

The joint quicken account is on my laptop, and yeah, if I were out of the house, I would want to see that. I could probably just send him an exported file of the quicken each time I do bills.

I feel clear that I will just stick to the topic of bills, and not add anything friendly or off topic.

So--I need a balanced way of saying "I took care of the bills and can keep doing so"--which is MORE of the same TOO independent behavior" "but of course we can do them together so you can see where the finances are at."

Suggestions?