Back to Square One?

[Wendylon]

Just tell him it's for you, that you feel it's best to separate yourself from the situation for your own health and well being. You're not necessarily saying you don't want the M, but you're leaving some mystery about your intentions and that's exactly what you want to be- mysterious.

That sounds like a great response (if I need it). Thank you very much, AnotherStander. I feel at peace with that response.

I'm worried today that he's beating me at my game. As I'm detaching and going a bit dim, I feel that he is detaching more and going dimmer. Instead of compensating, he's out-detaching. I'm not sure I've expressed that well.

Here's an example: on Sat, I got back a bit later than I would normally. This morning, he asked me if I'd be in this evening. It seemed like such an odd question given that I'm in 99.99% of the time. My texts to him have got shorter. His have got even shorter. It's as if my backing off makes him think that he can back off even further and that the new rules are that we are v detached from one another.

He came home with D15 a few minutes ago and immediately rushed downstairs while D15 chatted with me about the school concert they'd been to. He makes a point of spending very little time in my company. I bet that at supper tonight, he'll leave the table first to go back to his study.

As I said, I know that he's reacting to my doing things differently. I'm just worried he's reacting by by detaching further himself. Even the fact that he's stopped asking me if I'm OK makes me worried.

He can be a bit paranoid and I wouldn't be surprised if he thought that I was thinking of leaving him so he's preparing himself (not by fighting for me but by retreating himself). In fact, I can imagine him saying to me "It looks as if you no longer want to be with me". What would I say to that? He said that to me on my birthday (Aug 14) when I'd been out of the house all day (the day after he'd taken OW to the theatre).

Any advice much appreciated.