H was here last night to look after the kids while I went out to GAL. He was down and withdrawn and tired - still on the tail end of his sickness and his deadline is growing ever closer. We were a bit gruff and impatient with each other. I was tired too, having stayed up late the night before to finish off a bit of work that had suddenly become urgent. When I came home I apologised to him, then listened and validated as he went on a 20 minute lecture about my faults as a human being. I was pretty wrung out and weepy afterwards. He just kept going on and on and on about how he'd supported me in my work in the past, how he'd put up with all kinds of behaviour etc etc. He wasn't wrong in what he was saying and I validated as well as I could but I didn't understand why he was telling me, what he hoped to achieve, etc.
I asked him that - what he wanted to get out of the conversation. No answer. In the end I had a bit of a brain wave and said, 'are you telling me you are struggling like I was struggling back then, and you need my support now the way you supported me then? Are you asking me to care for you?' and he said yes. I said 'what is it I can do for you?' and he said he didn't want any big talks, only to go to sleep. So he slept over. I woke up feeling really sad and despondent. I really don't know how to support him - partly because of my self absorption in the past and partly because he's kept me at arms length for years and is now, I think, blaming me for not knowing how to be close to him and how to help him. He can't even bring himself to ask for care directly, and all I hear is criticism.
I'm sad this morning. Feeling a bit self pitying but also just some genuine sadness and grief. He'll be done with this big bit of work in about a month - slightly less. And I'll go away on my own for a while to think things through. And while I have tried not to have expectations about what he's telling me - that things will be different and he'll be all-in in repairing things once his head is a bit clearer, I know that I'm probably going to come down to earth with a bump and it is going to hurt. He may feel less burdened and anxious and stressed by his work, but I need him to work on the way he communicates and stop blaming and let himself be vulnerable with me and none of that is going to happen overnight just because his work situation has changed.
I don't think he has the emotional capacity to demonstrate or even feel some empathy for the things I might need to work on letting go of or forgiving and how hard that is going to be for me to do while he doesn't acknowledge that there's anything he's done to hurt me. I don't know if it is going to be possible for me.
I have GAL planned for today and tomorrow and I am going to make myself a fancy coffee and read for a while.
