Help evaluating LRT progress

[Olya]

I really appreciate this. Sometimes I wish she came with a manual! I absolutely appreciate the strides she has made and she really has come a long way. The problem is, sometimes she isn't open to affection, which is very frustrating for me. A symptom of our problems I think, and her lack of "feelings". If she ever does think I'm a hero, she's reluctant to say it. That would make her a vulnerable damsel in distress.

Don't we all!

I'm going to be honest with you - that is a problem. She'll probably have to work on it at some point in her life, but that's a decision that she has to make on her own. I would not broach the subject in the near future.

All you can do is change the way you act. It's going to be a touch-and-go. I'm not going to pretend that it's easy. I'm married to someone who used to be extremely affectionate. Now he's not and claims that he never was. He is completely alone in that opinion, but what does his family know? what do I know?

My big mistake was pressuring him to go to therapy. I come with a very deeply ingrained "fix it" mentality. I should have just let him be and let him hurt. He's still hurting - the couple of group sessions he went to during his lunch breaks did not help, nor could they. The only difference is that now he's back to wanting a divorce.

This definitely sounds like an MLC/maturity problem. Back to childish ways. It sounds like he is shutting everyone out and just allowing himself to spiral. I'm certainly no expert on MLC's, but unfortunately I think the only person that can save him is himself...probably after hitting rock bottom.

I suspect that you are right. I just have a hard time doing it. He'll be gone to Kuwait for 10 months. I'm worried that he'll hit that rock bottom while overseas, and he will be all alone.

He seems to do better when he has me to be angry at. The last I saw him, Sunday, he snapped "what" at me quite angrily and quite annoyed the minute I came up to him and said "hey." Why was I talking to him to begin with? Because I needed him to move his car so that I could leave the driveway. Was a begrudged "fine" an appropriate response? No, but that was what I got. He talks this way only with me and with his family. It's a teenage rebellion at 30.