Nitty in a Nutshell #2

[Nitty]

ROLE REVERSAL

So last night I got an astounding text: "I just realized you probably don't want me to text you so much, so am going to slow it down."

WOW... just wow. Echoes of stuff I said immediately after the BD.

I responded that I was out of the habit of checking my phone frequently. I said I didn't want him to think I was dissing him if I didn't respond right away. He started a R discussion so I asked him to call me.

Apparently he did but it went straight to voice mail while I stared at the phone, waiting for it to ring. Thinking he didn't call, I finally texted that he didn't have to call if he didn't want to, that I was going to bed and good night, and the phone rang right away, him sputtering and demanding why I didn't answer the first time he called. Thank you, Phone Company, for more misunderstandings.

He told me he can't help how he feels, and when I don't respond immediately he feels like "you really want to call it off, and that you're not being honest about it."

I wanted to laugh. After months and months of him not being honest with me, with me holding on through thick and thin, he thinks I'm going to drop him now when he's trying to come home? He thinks I'm the one not being honest?

And yet, I did drop the rope, mentally at least. I let go of him and focused on me. Since his decision to reconcile, I have been feeling ambivalent and cautious because I feel certain he's going to run again. I'm wary of angry outbursts where he blames me for stuff I never did.

I told him I hoped we would reconcile, but that if it doesn't work out, we will both be okay. Wrong thing to say.

He sounded bitter: "Great, you ARE pulling away from me." I asked him why he would think that. He said, "That is how I feel!"

I said I was sorry he felt that way. I said I never saw this side of him before, it was so... so... and I painted myself into a corner on that one, couldn't finish the sentence because I was going to say "needy" or "clingy." That would've been the worst thing to say.

He didn't wait for me to finish and said "Yeah, I feel like the pursuer and I don't like it."

I didn't know what to say after that. My first impulse was not charitable, more like, "Yeah, it feels crappy, doesn't it," but instead I said, "Nobody is pursuing anybody, I hope. We're just figuring this out, taking it one day at a time."