New to the board, fairly newly LBS from MLC.

[tigerlily78]

It looks like he took most of the money out of our bank account while he was at work today. Effing ridiculous. I am going to try not to jump to any conclusions, but that certainly seems shady and wrong. It is really insulting to be treated like an untrustworthy person by the person in the sitch who is actually being untrustworthy.

Well, here I have to admit that *I* made a big mistake. When I was listening to the automated phone system list all the transactions on the account, it sounded like a large withdrawal had been made yesterday. I asked him about it this morning and it was actually an automatic bill pay for our mortgage. So I was bent out of shape over something that wasn't anything. Of course the reality is we have almost no money right now in our primary account, and there WERE a few charges on there for him going out to eat. But I also splurged a little recently to buy some new makeup so I am not going to make an issue of that. Money is tight because money was tight to begin with.

He reacted kind of badly when I first "accused" him of taking out the money, but then as I apologized for jumping to the wrong conclusion he softened a little. I explained that in my current state (sleep deprived, anxious) that I am really struggling to process things intellectually and having concerns about whether I can trust him. I mentioned I had been reading some things that made me worry HE might do something like that, and he expressed his anger at being stereotyped into the "horror stories someone is telling you online." I validated that he was correct, I misjudged his actions and I should be more careful in the future not to jump to the wrong conclusion.

After that we actually ended up having an okay day. Nothing "great", but nothing terrible happened after that. I rode with him to his work this morning so I could then take the car to run an errand. When we both went to get out of the car in front of his building it became evident he forgot to put the car in "park." It started to roll forward as he got out of the car, and I was already mostly out of the car and ready to close my door. We had a laugh about it.

The portion of the IEP where my son was present was very difficult, but once we sent him off to lunch the meeting went better than I had anticipated. Thank goodness for our Behavioral Therapist who went above and beyond giving me her own specific recommendations and notes for the meeting even though we couldn't afford to have her present.

We went out to lunch together and had a nice time afterward. Mostly small talk, I tried to keep it light. He brought up relationship stuff a few times, I tried to validate and then change the subject. He basically came right out and told me that the more patient I am the more likely he is to come back to me. WHAT?! I thought the MLCer is not supposed to realize this for themselves. Now I almost wonder if he is reading all the same webpages I am. lol. He also mentioned that he would like to look into how much a house like his parent's house costs, because he would like to have a little bit bigger, nicer house one day. I agreed that I like his parent's house and their layout, and that I didn't think there house was a whole lot more expensive than ours... that if I took on a fulltime job or if we could reinvigorate the product line for the small business that I think we could afford a house like that if we wanted it. He nodded and smiled and our eyes met for a minute. Then he asked if I would mind driving over the bike shop in that shopping center to look at bikes. I said I was fine with that, so we did. He used to mountain bike a lot and also use his bike to commute to a lot of places before we moved here. His bike was stolen just weeks before our big move and he never bought another one. It seemed like kind of a waste because where we live is not as bike friendly. But I said I thought it would be good for him to have a bike again and now that he would have the freedom to go and ride some really good trails without having to rely on me. I also pointed out that if he took the front tire off the bike he was looking at, it should fit IN our SUV, we wouldn't need to also buy a bike rack right away. He wouldn't have to put off getting a bike for as long that way. He thought that was a good observation.

This afternoon he sent me a message (we have our own private messaging system for our home computer network) saying "we can't really afford to have three people in therapy right now." I think this was in response to a note I left him in his home office several days ago letting him know that I am interested in pursuing individual therapy for myself. So... I guess today there is the inkling that he might consider doing therapy. Rather than saying: "Oh, so do you think you are interested in therapy now." I replied with a possible solution: "I ran across a flier for a program through your work that pays for up to 8 counseling visits per family member. I will look into the details and let you know what I find out."

Yesterday he told me he intended to be here for dinner for the next few nights (through Sunday), and tonight he stuck around to eat dinner even though I prepared it a little later than usual and he had plans and apparently was "running late" to get going. He got a call from OW as he was going out the door and seemed a little curt with her. I didn't raise an issue about it the phone use in our common space, I could tell he was annoyed to feel like he had to take the call just then.

I feel like because we are actually having arguments and once that initial flurry of reactive anger/disrespect gives way to actual communication that it's a good sign. I know, I know... don't believe anything they say and half of what they do. I am trying not to take anything he said today too seriously. He could feel entirely differently tomorrow.