I just had an interesting conversation with H. He's on the West Coast for a conference this week, and he called this afternoon to check in as he promised he would.
H was telling me about his day and his plans for tomorrow (sharing details about his life! what a positive sign) and he mentioned that he is staying with his cousin and he will check into the hotel tomorrow. Apparently, the conference doesn't start until Sunday so these first few days are just for "vacation." Only he didn't mention that before now, and when I asked him a few weeks ago if he would be seeing his cousin during his trip, he'd said, "I don't know. Probably."
I really did not want to get into R talk while he was gone. That was a 180 that I really wanted to commit to. However, H sensed a change in my tone and asked me what was wrong. We are supposed to be working on emotional honesty (i.e., no rug sweeping) so I answered honestly. In addition to feeling misled about his plans, I told him that knowing that he has time to go on a vacation when he complains that he is too busy at work to make time for working on our R makes me feel like I'm not a priority (and work is just an excuse).
H stayed calm and didn't get too defensive. He apologized for giving me the wrong impression about his plans and said that he feels like he is trying to show me that I'm a priority in other ways, but he understands where I'm coming from. He also said that he thinks he should be able to spend a few days with his cousin, and I told him that I definitely agreed.
Then he asked me if I would forgive him for hurting me. I told him that I didn't know that he needed to be forgiven because I didn't think he'd done anything "wrong" per se, just that I was filtering what he did and said through my own issues. H asked if I would forgive him anyway because he wants to make forgiveness a more prominent part of our R. He said that we've never tried asking for and giving forgiveness in the moment, and he thinks it will help.
So, I agreed to forgive him. Then I asked him to forgive me for disrupting the calm between us, and he said that he forgives me too.
H then went on to say that he feels like we have been doing really well lately and that's where we "need" to be, and he really hopes that I can see this as just a bump in the road. I told him that it feels very minor on my end, but since I don't know exactly how he feels there's always a little bit of anxiety there for me. H promised that he was okay and said that he felt it was a good sign that we were able to talk out an issue in the moment and not fall apart. (The whole exchange only lasted for about 10 minutes.)
So, a great exchange but I'd be lying if I said that I didn't feel apprehensive that he is just placating me again until he drops another bomb. How in the world am I supposed to get over that feeling?
