Keep breathing...

[mamabird]

I'm afraid that your H is never going to realize that he needs to work on himself under the current circumstances.

Agree. I don't know if he'll get there on his own, if at all. I'm not seeing a lot of personal growth progress in him, quite frankly. He still hasn't openly acknowledged his role in any of this.

However - he said a couple of things today that were kind of encouraging:

Some friends came over to pick up S6 for a sleepover. H said we'd have to have them over for dinner soon - so now I guess we're entertaining as a family again.

Secondly, we started to discuss a project for one of our rooms. We didn't get very far on the discussion because we just can't agree on it, but he did say it was pointless to talk about right now because we wouldn't be doing it for at least a year. At least he didn't say it was pointless to talk about because we would be D in a year. I see that as improvement!

Next week we both got invited to a friend's birthday party. She invited me first, but checked with my H to see if he would want to go as well. (she's great and I think she is a wonderful model of how to 'stay classy' when friends are going through tough times). She knew I wouldn't mind if he were invited too. Ball is in his court I guess.

This woman also said something encouraging to me. She said to look at as a relationship as a living entity that is always expanding and contracting. So, hooray when you have some positives (an expansion), but a contraction may naturally follow just because that is the natural order of things. Of course she is right about that. She said thinking about it this way instead of as a roller coaster is a lot more gentle!

Still no update on the birthday plans. He has not committed to any of his 3 choices for the evening - eat at home as a family, eat out as a family, eat out as a couple.