Things have been rough lately. My mother, 79, had a significant stroke and I've been dealing with that situation on top of what's going on with my relationship. Fortunately, my wife has been very supportive during this time.
She and my Mom did not get along well, and my wife really tried for several years before giving up. In all fairness, my relationship with my Mom was very strained the past couple years, too. She became very difficult to deal with emotionally. But that's a very different story.
That said, things are continuing with the wife. With what's going on with my Mom, it's very hard to be strong and confident around her, but I'm doing my best. We're still sleeping separately and I'd love for that to change, but don't see that happening anytime soon.
There are still some triggers that are happening. Things that may very well be innocent, but still cause me to freak out internally a bit.
Example 1: Last night walking in to her on the bed looking like she was taking a pic of herself. She said she was just checking out her hair (I have seen her use the selfie cam a few times to check out her makeup). It may have been legit. May not.
Example 2: She was talking yesterday again about how much she'd love for us to move to Washington DC (even though it couldn't happen for work reasons until 2021). We'd be much closer to a ton of our old friends (we don't have many where we are now) and closer to her family. And that's totally reasonable. But for me, I freak out internally because the other guy would be about 60-90 mins away.
Once this situation ends with my Mom (to be blunt, we don't expect her to last very long), I want to re-focus my energy on me. Doing more exercise, playing tennis, bike riding. But I also want to be loving towards her. Not begging for anything. Not wanting to talk about the relationship. Just acting "as-if" things were the way I'd like them to be.
