Keep breathing...

[mamabird]

H and I went another round on the same ol' discussion last night. I just wanted to talk to him about the finances and of course it degraded into our normal unproductive talk (cheeseless tunnel). He's not willing to share his CC info with me at this point, so I have to think he's hiding something, but there's not much I can do about that except for accept it and move on.

My new angle with him is that we've got to try to move forward off this dwelling in the past blaming discussion. When we do talk I take responsibility and accountability. I realize I was no picnic to live with and was pretty unappreciative of everything that he did for me and our family. He's certainly right about that, and that's something I CAN fix going forward.

What I can't fix is the betrayal part of it, all I can do is explain where I'm coming from. I wish he'd read a book to gain some outside insight but that's not going to happen at this point. I asked him to take it day by day, meaning, look at each day as a new opportunity in and of itself.

For the moment, I'm trying to steer these conversations into a peaceful and somewhat resolved ending by giving him a little back rub towards the end of our talk. I think it kind of mends the feelings a little and helps soothe the situation. Last night once we shifted to that we started talking about the kids, and school, and "normal" things. So at least no one leaves the room upset.

At the very least, I kept my cool for most of it. Even though we are arguing, it's still more honest than we were and we are addressing things that have needed to be addressed for a long time. At one point he said, "Don't patronize me" which actually is good, because he called me out on something in the moment, where I could address it directly. Previously, if something happened that he didn't like, it would come up weeks later if at all.