Had a pretty quiet weekend, but went over to a friends place for dinner on Friday night. Kept myself busy for the rest of the weekend, with lots of walking, photographing, reading, and so forth. Realised I need to get more socially active. So, I joined a couple of reading groups and coffee meetups.
I also suggested cinema with my H. He couldn't make it as he had plans for lunch with some friends, but suggested drinks afterwards instead. I felt like I didn't want to be on-call, and besides I would have been settled in for the night. In addition, he likes to get to sleep early on Sunday nights and I wanted more freedom than just sitting around looking at the clock. So, I declined and said another time.
That would have been that, except he kept texting me asking me if I knew about certain things. Turns out, he met a friend for drinks in the evening, and they were out well past his bedtime. Well, that pretty much got me. The amount of arguments we have had regarding his sleep in the past are so numerous, I was pretty miffed.
In the end, I texted him to please call me when he gets home so we can chat. Eventually, he calls and I said, "Thank you for calling.... I just want to say that I can be enthusiastic and so forth about what you do, but I require more bonding. I declined tonight's activities because I was being considerate of your schedule plus I was already settled in etc., only to find that it didn't matter afterall." Then he said, "Well, when you say it like that, you have me in a corner." Eventually, he then started to refer to the past again, and how he feels this is a criticism and that he feels like I am asking him to account for where he is/what he is doing.
I said that that I was not asking him to account for where he is, then I repeated that I just want to bond more so that I can support him in his activities. Otherwise, I feel like I am on the sidelines and I don't feel good about that. I remained calm, and made sure I did not raise my voice.
Then he said that he made that date for 6 August and wasn't I happy with that, and that he wants to start slowly and he's just dipping his toe in the water. But that this discussion is just reminding him of all the things he dislikes. That he is into the idea of dating, but doesn't want to account for where he is at.
So, I said, "Yes, I am glad you brought that up because I am a little confused. The last thing you said about that was that you wanted an open dating situation. So, what does that mean? Does that mean we will be dating other people?"
He said, no it doesn't mean we are dating other people, it means that he doesn't want to account for how he spends his time.
I said, "Ok, I am glad that's cleared up because I was confused, and if it were an open situation as in dating other people, then I can't do that as it would screw up my emotions."
He then wanted to dig around as if in defensive mode, and started pulling in all kinds of scenarios and past events and past feelings. I did get triggered a couple of times, and answered him back in defensive mode and started to let lose, but reeled myself back in pdq. Still, he went on and on about how this is exactly the sort of thing he hates, and he doesn't want to feel controlled.
Look, I said, "All I want to do is bond more. And, if I knew that your schedule had changed and it now doesn't matter what time you go to bed, then we could have gone to the cinema. So, what you are saying is that I needn't care about your bedtime anymore."
He said, "No, you don't have to concern yourself with that. I'll take care of my own schedule."
OK!
Incidentally, one of the things I had been doing during the day was watching the Marriage Breakthrough download by MWD from this forum. I took her advice in keeping things short and sweet when talking, and CLEAR and ideally positive - when asking them what you would like to have done. I thought I had done that but maybe not well enough otherwise he wouldn't maybe have felt so defensive.
Somehow, not sure how, but it might have been in response to my H saying, "We always get into these types of discussions. Can't we ever just have fun" kind of thing.
I said, "I've been watching a DVD about this very thing. Maybe I could email it to you to watch, though it's a big file so not sure I can send it along to you. But maybe I could let you borrow my computer that it's on.
Then he said, "Well, maybe we can watch it together on Friday."
I said, "That's a good idea!"
That's how the conversation ended.
Anyway, by the time we ended the conversation, it was 11pm (about an hour of discussion), and he was grumpy and still pissed. I emailed him later to say thank you for the conversation, I appreciated that, and that I felt listened to.
