He's Just Not That Into You - The Sequel

[mamabird]

Well, today was a mixed bag. Every so often I just totally lose my cool and tonight was one of those nights.

Backing up a little. We had a little party at our house this morning. I did cookie decorating with the kids and a few other kids from the school came over. I made all the cookies and frosting, and had to get the table ready and the decorations and clean the house, etc.

H told me a few days ago he would help set up and clean up but he was not going to stick around for the party. Turns out that a lot of the dads showed up so I was able to convince H to stay. He even decorated a cookie or two. It was really fun, though H couldn't throw me much of a bone on any of it. I even said, "I did a good job!" and he barely responded.

What H did manage to do is complain that I hadn't cleaned up the upstairs of the house sufficiently for guests coming over. Mind you, he spent yesterday watching soccer and napping, while I worked my butt off getting everything else ready. He also complained that I hadn't bought enough food for the adults to nosh on. I told him I thought about it thoroughly but did take his suggestions into account. And I did ask him to fold the laundry this morning, which without complaint - so that's good. He came through on the party and helped, and I daresay he had fun too.

After the party though, he was being especially dicky. I just can't think of another way to say that. Just distant, resistant, icky = dicky. I made the mistake of asking him to rub my back since I'd been on my feet so much. He said, "Not right now." (instant reminder of right before our bomb when I asked him for a hug and he refused). I asked him again. He ignored me. I sat up. I looked at him. He ignored me. I asked him to put down his computer. He ignored me.

Suffice it to say this started what became a big discussion tonight. I'll say now it ended with a hug but I'm still so upset that I'm actually having a little drink to calm down. None of this is good DB but after reading everyone's posts here over the last few days, I was starting to feel a little more resentful than normal, and I guess I felt like I needed to stand up for myself a little.

I told my H that I was frustrated with this process. That I couldn't take his distant stance. He lay there with his arms crossed. I said I was doing my best but was frustrated because it's never good enough for him. I asked him if he would do some work outside of therapy - do a book together, perhaps, or spend some extra time talking. He said no, he would not be willing to do that.

Some other highlights of this wonderful discussion... communication came up and I had to force him to stick on topic there... he said (in all seriousness), "You think that if we had better communication our R would be better?" YES! I said. He just stared at me blankly. Breakdown, I used your example of how he could have been more gentle about the needle thing. He said he did know how to communicate properly and I asked him why he didn't do it then. He gave me some BS response which I don't even remember, but eventually, he did agree to be more respectful when we talk. At least I have the upper hand in this one area, but it's a big one I think.

Basically, what I gleaned from this conversation is that he does not want to be married to me (he said those words) but he's going through his own process to make sure that's right before rushing into anything. It does sound like his mind is made up. He is not willing, at this point, to give me the benefit of the doubt on any of my behavior or even anything that I say. So I asked him then why we were going to MC if he's not willing to do that. He just couldn't give me a good answer on that one.

He kept reiterating that he was on his own timeline and would do things in his own time. I can't really argue with that, but I still hold that he's not getting much of an outside perspective. He will always find ways to make me wrong, for instance, he said that the fact that I don't like our MC is an indicator that we shouldn't be together - we're too different. This is his whole way of thinking. If we disagree, we shouldn't be together because we're fundamentally too different. I am going a little nuts here.

I just can't imagine him wanting to work on this or being able to forgive me, so I guess that means I'm biding my time until we get a D. He did say my second EA was a direct attack on him and our M, and I guess he's right about that. It's just that I'm ready to rebuild and he is not.