Looking for inspiration

[mdu]

Had an eventful night. Lots to process. I screwed up a bunch but I think there were some good points (I hope). Time will tell, I suppose. I’m trying to forgive myself for all the mistakes, it’s tough.

As part of our reconciliation discussion H and I talked about MCing. I mentioned to him that I had been speaking to a marriage coach and that another option would be he could speak with her and see if he thinks that’s useful (my DBing coach and I had planned this suggestion if H and I ever got to this point). H agreed. So we set up an appt with DBing coach, I quickly debriefed her on the latest happenings then got off the call and H called her to speak. I was not on the call while H and DBing coach spoke. H txted me afterwards and asked when we could speak, I told him after the kids go to bed.

So, I call him last night and ALL THREE of my weaknesses got the better me: expectations, impatience and anger. I expected H to immediately tell me all about his call with the coach. When he did not, I started to get annoyed. In an effort to manage my anger I quickly got off the call. But unfortunately I continued to ruminate about my frustration so called him back and immediately got on him, letting out my frustrations about all that’s happened and feeling like I don’t know what’s going on with him. He said he was going to tell me about his call but that I got off the call too quick. I reiterated that I am just getting so frustrated and fed up because he does not communicate and I don’t know how we will ever make all this better. Obviously I realize that harping on him isn’t the way to get him to open up but to be fair, this was a BIG issue in our M and raises a lot of fear in me with the prospect of reconciling. H is a ginormous avoider and rug sweeper. I told him I’m so afraid that he’s not going to change that behavior and next thing you know, I’m shocked to discover that he’s absolutely miserable and having another A. He said I know, I told the coach I need to work on that and show you I can change it.

Then we talked a bit about some discussion he had with coach about coming home. He actually does NOT feel ready to come home now. He wants to work on the M but he’s afraid to come home and then things that were not good about the M will upset him again and he’ll want to leave. He said that when he was here the first time there were triggers that made him think ‘this will never work, we will never be happy’. I said you’re making it seem like I have to be the perfect wife or else you’ll bolt again. He said no, I realize that I need to change my attitude and not assume that just because we have a bad day that we can never be happy. Having said that, it just underscores the fact that he is clearly looking for consistent changes from me (of course we all knew that’s part of the process). Yet another reminder to work on me, me, ME! He also talked about understanding that I have triggers bc of the A and he discussed a bit with the coach how we can deal with them together. I thought that was really positive.

I must admit, it scares me that he is not really begging to come home. I think his reasons are sound and valid but I feel like I’m supposed to have the upper hand here since he had the A and it doesn’t quite feel that way anymore after this discussion. Does that make sense? Is this bad? Having said that, it seems pretty clear that he does want to work on the M and I get the sense that he will do what it takes to try to fix things with me. He readily talked to the coach and even with my anger during our discussion (which I was able to eventually calm down and apologize), he hung in there and continued to talk to me when in the past he would have shut down, or gotten angry himself. And I think we had some good discussion in spite of how it started.

Feedback, thoughts? Man, this is exhausting already!!