I wonder if that's why things are tricky with us and why I don't think the usual DB approach would work? I'm not strictly a LBS. Though I'm not a WAH either. I don't think he really did walk away - in that I'd wanted him to leave for a while and he knew it, we'd ended therapy at the end of last summer with me saying I didn't see a way forward and I wanted to talk about separation, and when he left he didn't have a plan to actually move out - he just took a few things and went to his mother's and it was me changing the locks because he was behaving so aggressively and erratically (shouting, drinking in the day, throwing things - coupled with a single incident of violence the summer before that he'd never taken responsibility for) that hugely offended him. His general line - when he's angry - is 'you chucked me out, you evicted me, you made me leave, now you can live with the consequences' so I think his pride is massively hurt. Though I don't regret forcing the issue by changing the locks - the situation was intolerable and he was uninterested in changing and and my setting boundaries around his behaviour made me feel unsafe. Even when he speaks about wanting to come back, he seems really keen to frame it as 'giving me another chance' (not all the time, admittedly, but often) so I think there's some hurt ego and pride there too. And, as much as I miss him and would like to repair things, I am never ever ever going back to the way it was and I think my resolve on that has hurt and shocked him.
Did you phone him? How did it go?
What's the podcast you mentioned. It sounds interesting and I might check it out myself. I am reading a book recommended by my IC that I am finding really useful and interesting - mainly for people who have had childhood trauma and in how to navigate adult relationships in healthy ways. The author is Richard Schwartz if you are interested, though it doesn't sound like it quite applies to you there's a lot of interesting stuff in it about courage and love and intimacy.
