Baby steps

[Painter]

Not sure if I should update. Hardly anything new to tell. H and I drift apart, then are drawn back together, then drift apart, etc.

But it feels a lot more apart than together - just glimpses of closeness that H seems to quickly resent. I long for someone who wants to hold my hand and hug me, who wants to spend time together. Not someone who doesn't like being touched or who feels like he is 'forced' if he gives me a hug, and who can't think of a single thing we can do to spend time together.

In conversations, he frequently chooses to bring up something he knows we disagree about. There is also a lot of complaining and negativity about other people. I really want to live with a positive and tolerant attitude, not angry and suspicious. It has always seemed to me that he feeds off anger and talking badly about others.

I am looking very hard these days at what this R really is. It's not what I want for myself, and it hasn't been in a long time. I read many stories here where people were happy for a long time before it went bad. I don't think H and I have been truly happy since back when we were dating. He started raging at me from the day I moved in, and I have never been able to figure out why. He wouldn't tell me when I asked, and wouldn't come to counseling with me. It's been expected that I should be a mind-reader. I'm really bad at that.

What I take from what he says now, is that he feels controlled and like his space is invaded by having a partner. He complains about my presence, the money I cost. We may just be a poor fit.

I always felt that his lack of decisiveness and planning left it up to me to plan and be decisive. Turns out he really wants to just be impulsive and do what he wants, when he wants it. It was a little tricky to live like that with 3 kids, an aging parent (his) and an old house, but the urge seems to be so strong that it sounds like he feels that he has been robbed of his freedom for the last 15 years.

There are signs of a MLC, I think? The almost desperate urge for freedom, wanting to be his own master, buying a motorcycle - but in actuality spending his time exhausted on the couch, watching TV...