Putting it back together, but SSM issues linger

[Accuray]

Thanks Labug and Adinva, it's so helpful to get your feedback, I'm hoping that you will continue to point things out to me that I'm not thinking about the right way.

We have established a routine that when we wake up, we hug. If W wakes up first, she wakes me up to cuddle a bit, and I may then go back to sleep or wake up. We've been doing this for several months now, every day.

This morning I woke up and W wasn't there. I went looking for her, if she was in the spare room that would usually indicate that she's mad at me. She wasn't there. I went downstairs and found her on her work laptop. I asked what was going on, she said she had to do some work "is that OK with you?" Yes, that's ok, I just didn't know what happened.

I went back upstairs and tried to lay down again but at that point knew I wasn't going back to sleep. Went back downstairs and asked W if something was wrong or if there was anything she wanted to talk about. She said that the people she works with overseas were online and she needed to take care of some things. I pointed out that last night I had to catch up from vacation work-wise and did about 4 hours, why didn't she do it then? She said she needed to do it now. I said "Ok, I understand, thanks for explaining" and went and took a shower.

Later in the morning she said that she's "better" work-wise in the morning than at night (despite the fact that she frequently works at night). She was sorry that she made me "so upset" this morning, and her eyes were teary. I said I wasn't upset, I was just confused and didn't know what was going on. I said that we had a routine, today was different and I didn't understand why and wanted to know what was going on. She said "no, I made you upset, and it's OK that you're upset".

So this is a good example of what's been going on. She changed our routine out of the blue with no explanation. When I asked her to explain, she took that to be a complaint, and that I was "very upset", so she must have let me down and she's a bad person. Trying to convince her otherwise was futile. It's hard because anything that *may* be interpreted as me being upset will be. I can't ask a question without going to DEFCON 1.

This is very hard to navigate, I'm not sure what to do. I need to be "allowed" to be minorly annoyed once in a while. I'm going to give myself an ulcer trying to avoid anything that might be construed as disappointment in the worst possible interpretation.

I'm also getting the sense that she's feeling that if all she does is disappoint me, this isn't going to work. When I try to have a productive discussion with her, it's interpreted to mean that she's gravely disappointed me, when all I'm looking for is clarification or discussion.

I'm feeling painted into a corner and I'm not sure how to navigate this.

Accuray