Stander...Thank You so much for your comments and insights. Before this happened, there was a shift in me, as I said, when my mom died, I realized life is very short too short to be so unhappy so I forgave him and have been living a blameless lifesince then. Forgiving him (though he never apologized nor did I verbalize it) gave me the freedome to be grateful for him. I sort of "gave up" on him and my expectation for him to make me happy, and I made myself happy. too little too late I guess for him...I haven't felt resentment or bitterness towards him for a long time.
I have the 5 Love Languages (love it!) and read it with H 10 years + ago, I am aware of what he likes and vice versa--we just were too resentful of one another to care to put it into action as much as we should have done. I have been doing it much more over the past year...and in our glorious honeymoon period a few months ago--we were very in tune with this--but he said he was "faking it" and didn't love me or ever did.
That is VERY interesting about keeping the cage door open--thank you for sharing that. Tonight I actually challenged him by saying--if you want to go so bad then, what are you waiting for? I can only assume if you're here, it's work on the relationship.. if not, let's not drag it out...and he said--I am not ready to leave yet. I don't want to go.
Confusing!
also, he has returned to our bed. Why? who knows. I don't take it to mean anything positive.
Detaching is hard. I will have to think more about that. I give him plenty of space. He chooses to sit where I am. I started leaving the living room to spend time up in the bedroom on my own. Now he's there, too.
Thank you for sharing the similarities between us. I wish you lots of luck.
