On two ends of the world..

[ris]

This morning I got an email from H asking how work was going. We made some small talk about my day and his day. Then I told him I was annoyed about something regarding a paper that I have to write for a course I'm attending. He said he didn't know what to tell me, so I explained that I just need him to listen and try to understand how I feel about it. I asked if I can vent some more and he said sure.

So then I wrote a paragraph about all my frustrations with that course (it just recently piled up on me) and in the end I said "Please ask me questions if there is something unclear. I know there's nothing you can do about it, but making me feel listened to will help me feel better." He replied that he doesn't know what I want.

I always kept those kind of things to myself, but he has complained - and rightfully so - that I don't share them, so I've been trying to. I know it makes him feel pretty helpless so I was trying to explain to him what I need from him. So I replied "I want you to take interest in it so that I don't feel like I'm babbling about something you don't care about. If we were in a room, I'd like you to just sit there and listen to me with attention. I know it's kinda hard to recreate through email... and I'm not upset that you don't know what to do or say. I do feel better now that I got it all out."

Then we joked a bit about the way I worded something and eventually he said "I can pretend to take interest in it". Ummm that's not exactly what I meant... so I said "I'm not sure what to tell you. I'd like you to have interest in important things in my life just like I have interest in yours. I don't mean every silly thing that bothers me, it's ok if you pretend to have interest in that, but not the things that really matter."

He replied "This is another reason why I don't think we should have gotten married." I asked what does he mean but he didn't write back. After a while I sent him another email "I don't understand, do you mean that we shouldn't take interest in things that are important to each other?", no reply either. Yeah, I know, I shouldn't have written the last one, but I almost wanted to tell him that if he thinks so, then maybe we shouldn't be married anymore.

I just don't know what to do now. Ok, yes I know, GAL and PMA. But this is a pattern that keeps repeating, we're having a conversation and suddenly he throws something like this and won't talk anymore.