Do I say what is on my heart, my mind or neither? Why am I feeling confused? Starsky!!! Where are you? How should I respond before I make this too easy for H? Yet again!
You are correctly reading what he's doing, LaPoo. I believe that over time, we really do teach people how to treat us, and your husband has learned that this "woe-is-me" thing WORKS with you, and so in his time of maximum stress he's playing his comfortable hole card. What you need to do is push it back on him, but do it in a loving (but firm and nobody's-fool) way, like a couple of the responses I suggested above.
If you want a longer response to this, say something to him like "Look, you keep asking me how I feel, but honestly, I'm not even OPERATING on my feelings anymore. I mean I feel what I feel, and I love you and always will, but frankly after the destructive decisions you've made over the years it's only your ACTIONS that I need to see right now, and I'm going to need to see them consistently over time. This really is your work to be done, _______ (H's first name), and no one wants you to succeed this time more than I do, but I really don't appreciate you pushing this back on ME. That's really not fair, and I don't accept it. This is your mess; you need to clean it up."
