Be careful, don't try to push too fast. It's was on that things are going well. two things from MC that you've got to get through. 1) he didn't want to take away from your pain (meaning he wanted you in pain). 2) he views you as the enemy. Hopefully MC can get you through that. It is very hard to gain a foothold through that attitude.
My vote: keep at it, reread DR, especially the parts about applying changes, observing, and avoiding cheese less tunnels, don't push too hard, keep your request/demands minimal, and really listen carefully when he complains.
Keep at it!
Thanks for your suggestions, Joe. I am intimidated by the enemy comment but I think it's good that he shared it because now we can work on moving past it. He even told me today that he knows it's a narrative that he has to break, but he doesn't know how to break it right now without making himself vulnerable. So far, I'm just listening and not pushing for him to work through that just yet.
I think I may have phrased the bolded part poorly, though. He wasn't saying that he wanted me to be in pain, but that he didn't want to minimize or invalidate my pain by saying that he was in pain too -- as though he didn't have the "right" to be sad about it, because it was his decision. (This was a lengthy dialogue between H and the MC, so the meaning was pretty clear.)
Of course, the irony is that it helps me to know that he's sad. (Not that I want him to be sad, but it does help build trust in an odd way.) It makes me think of the day he came over to get his stuff (2 days after BD) and he was sad and crying. I hadn't seen that side of him in two months and I assumed that he was past that point, but apparently not.
