Thank you for your encouragement and for the verse from Bob Seger, I know it well.
Yesterday was a good night for us. During the day yesterday I picked up tickets for a play coming here May 18 that we already have a sitter for (2nd date night, yeah!) and I bought 2 season tickets for next season. I left the office at 5, as I have been doing lately. W made a good, healthly dinner and we went for a walk with the dog at about 8. During the walk I asked her when we were going to finish our exercise, that I had a couple more. She said just do it now, why do we have to sit down and be all formal about it? So I did one and told her I forgot the other one but had it written down at home. She was right, it worked fine doing it that way.
After kids went to bed, we sat on couch and she was texting and pulled up a website of a bar she is going to in Milwaukee Saturday night after dinner. Having her hand me her phone and walk out of the room was a positive, and this is a really cool English pub I have wanted to go to for a long time, so I told her how jealous I was and how much fun she will have.
After we went to bed, I sat up and told her I had my other apology item (btw, with no expectation of one from her). She got all fidgety about me "being too close in her space and making her feel claustrophobic" so I said ok and backed up. I was pretty taken aback and she could tell and she gave me her hand to hold while I talked to her. That led to a discussion about the five LL and how important it is for me to hear her express it and physical touch. I asked her how she felt love and she said that is a good question and was really pretty stumped. I told her about the book and might bring this discussion up to our therapist because it seemed to connect.
Told her my apology, but the discussion we had during and after was really the valuable part. She took credit for some of her issues as well, not a ton, but some. I used to surprise her a lot with flowers, cards left on her car seat, notes, picking up an outfit for her, etc. Sometime a few years ago I stopped, primarily because the best I ever got was a lame thanks, if anything, and she never did anything like that for me. Resentment built up and at some point, you stop. I told her how much I used to enjoy doing those things and asked her if those things were meaningful or not to her. She said they were, but also she wants to hear me say the words as well. I told her why I stopped, that it felt like a one-way street and she understood.
Anyway, just a good night of spending time together and talking, which is a whole lot more that I could have asked for a month ago!
CB
Me; 42, W; 43 M; 16 yrs S12, D9
3/13 - "I want to move to XYZ City (four hours away) and it might be without you, not sure" 5/13 - "Not sure I meant that"
