Together Separate II

[mizjjd]

Confession. Went totally off the DB chart last night. It happened thusly.

It was about 9:30 and I was tired and had to get up at 4:50 the next day. I announce that I'm going to bed. H makes disapproving noises. (This is often a bone of contention for him because I am too much of an early-to-bedder for his tastes) I go upstairs anyway (a 180 for me) but then second-think and go back downstairs... he's in the office at his computer and jumps a MILE when I walk in - and hurries to shut down the page he's on.... and SMILES at me like a very guilty cheshire cat.

Oh now, isn't that interesting? I see before he's shut it down that its a log in page for an email that I didn't know he had. DB sprouts wings and flies out the window. "What", I ask, "is that?"

"Nothing" he says.

This repeats a couple of times, then I say if its nothing then he should show it to me.

Now its "private" between him and a fellow I'll call "Bubba".

Why would you need a private email for Bubba?

"Just does."

Another minute of escalation. I turn to go, and do something I have NEVER DONE. I hit the office door HARD. (We'll call this a 180? It made the MOST satisfying BANG.) But, S16 was then alerted to troubles. Guess he overheard enough. Enough that he confronted H after I stormed upstairs. Told H he didn't think keeping stuff "private" like that was right and so forth.

H comes up stairs. Gives me a story about Bubba being the only person H can talk to about "us" yadda yadda. Due to H's self isolation, that is more or less true. But heaven help us, I picked the name "Bubba" for a reason, lol. Anyway, H asks if he's not entitled to privacy. I say yes BUT with qualifications because I don't trust him due to his history of affairs, most recently the online EA. (something he still maintains was "no big deal" - last night pooh poohed it because "he has no emotions")

He says "I don't care that you don't trust me." This is worse even than the betrayal to me, because it means there's unfeeling cruelty ON TOP of the infidelity.

And from there we blossom into a full fledged relationship discussion. And oh the hurtful ridiculous immature garbage that erupted from his mouth. Too much to recall. Some highlights - he doesn't like being out alone with me, "Paradise by the Dashboard Lights" was his favorite song for years, he has no connection to me "the cord is cut".

And of course I am crying like Niagra Falls. He keeps going because he "has to get all this off his chest". He brought up things from the past 20 years that 'hurt' him 'severely' that I heard about for the FIRST time just last night.

Ooooh it was awful. He told me to leave if I wanted to - but held onto me when I tried to leave the bed. WTF?

At the end he sort of apologized for "having issues" and told me "he's trying".

Fast forward to this morning when he greets me in the kitchen with a hug and a sheepish directive to "take everything he said last night with a grain of salt" (a GRAIN?? more like a SALT LICK FOR A T-REX)

Fast forward to this evening when he ASKS ME IF HE CAN GO TO THE CASINO.

That's right. HE ASKED. Another WTF? I stared at him for a full minute. And clarified. "Did you just ASK me for PERMISSION?" He said he did. I asked what happened if I told him "No". He said he'd stay home then. I was tempted to test this, but didn't really want him to stay home so told him to go. And you know he's called me twice already.

So I'm thinking that there's more than Bubba in the email and he's feeling a little guilty about that - being "nice" (aka weird) to either throw me off the scent or to make up for something some little tiny part of him knows is wrong.