I've been here and reading but feeling a little down on myself and my own situation so I haven't been posting much. We are still muddling through. H came to me a few weeks ago and said that he was unhappy with the money situation. Despite saying that he wanted to find the "our way," he rejected every suggestion I came up with to ameliorate the situation and didn't offer anything beyond his original ask. Since one of his complaints is that I don't listen to him and just do what I want to do regardless of his feelings, I decided to drop the rope (on this particular issue) and give him what he asked for. I felt that this would be a good way to demonstrate that I'm willing to change how I interact with him in order to make him happier in the R. I admit that I also hoped it would encourage him to come around to my point of view on another issue, but I didn't try to make it an express quid pro quo.
Of course, he is still a WAH and despite claiming that he is trying, he wants our M to work, he wants to meet my needs, etc -- I'm not seeing many changes and certainly nothing akin to what I gave him on the money issue.
We keep coming back to the same issue and I really think it's becoming my hill to die on, so to speak. We talked about it in MC last night and I'd like to get your input.
The gist of it is: I need comfort (physical and emotional) and companionship from my H. He needs space. I say those two needs are equal; we are both asking something from each other. H says that he is not asking anything from me. He thinks he is taking what is rightfully his as an individual, but I don't have the right to demand comfort and companionship from him (or anyone). (And I'll go ahead say that intellectually, I'm not sure that I disagree him. But we are not two people having an intellectual discussion; we are two people trying to save a marriage. It doesn't sit right with me that H characterizes his needs as inherent while mine are optional.)
We both have two very specific incidents in recent memory that are triggering this for us. Mine happened a couple of years ago, well before BD. I had noticed H was not affectionate, never seemed to touch me, etc and I had said something to him a few times. Each time, he said that he would work on it and I would get a few awkward arm pats for a few days but then he would stop trying. One night we were in our bedroom getting ready for bed and I brought it up again. I said, "It feels like you don't even want to touch me." And he said, "Sometimes, I don't." And I just crumbled. Literally. I fell on the floor and cried. And he just sat there like there was nothing he could have said or done, like he had no role at all to play in that event. And then later, rather than tell me, "I'm really sorry that my words hurt you so much," he used the incident to justify why he couldn't tell me the truth about how he was feeling. Because if he'd told me that he was leaving outside the presence of the MC, I might have fallen on the floor and cried and THAT would have been too much for HIM to bear.
So this comes up in MC last night. The MC is trying to get me to see H's perspective, which is that he was frozen in that moment and couldn't act because he was emotionally blocked by his own pain. And I'm saying that I get that, I really do, but that's not the marriage I want to be in. I give my H grace all the time, but I can't in this situation. I can forgive him, but he needs to accept responsibility for his role and ask for forgiveness. He can do that at any time and I will forgive him. But, this isn't something that I'm able to be gracious about.
And then I turn to H and say, "H, how would you feel if [MC] was asking you to see Your Thing from my perspective? Because we've tried to have that conversation before and you've told me that you will never be able to see it from my perspective." H agrees that is true, but then goes on to say that His Thing is different because of the aforementioned "right to not be perturbed." H then explains to the MC that His Thing is an incident that happened right before BD, when I stood over H while he was laying down and yelled at him that he was weak because he wouldn't talk to me.
The MC then says that he disagrees with H because they are the same. H says, "But I didn't hit her, I didn't abuse her by not picking her up off the floor." The MC says, "But she didn't hit you either. You could have done something worse, sure, but so could she. The reality is that you both needed something from the other person in those moments that you didn't get. You needed her to leave you alone, and she needed you to pick her up. Those are the same thing."
I have no idea whether or not H is going to change his perspective on this. I honestly don't think I can. Thoughts?
