You know, that sounds familiar to me. In that I am a very strong person, and never played the wailing doormat with anyone except for my H. The outside world would have said I was resourceful, resilient, not prone to self pity or depression or anxiety, could get a grip on things and take action, and had dealt amazingly well with some really, objectively traumatic things in my childhood and early adult life. I think I only really trusted H to show that vulnerable side to - which is no bad thing - but it went beyond that, and I actually expected the love of a partner and a marriage to heal the parts of me that needed healing. I know I was very depressed after my youngest was born, and I did nearly nothing to help myself, but expected H to comfort me out of it. And he tried - but of course severe PND did not work like that and it was still my responsibility to seek medical care. The same thing happened in the aftermath of his EA - before I came to these boards. The injury I suffered there was not my fault, but it was my responsibility to heal - and I didn't take that responsibility, I dumped it on H and a lot of damage was done. I see your H doing some of the same things - dumping the damage he has experienced from the SSM onto you (and I can empathise with that - I have been on the receiving end of similar and the damage is real) and the grief and upset he feels over his actions with the OW, and the difficulty he is having in making a decision, and his fear for the future - all dumped on you to make better. The only thing that stopped me dumping my %^&* on my H and expecting him to fix it was him being totally unavailable for it. He just wasn't in the house, and still I chased him and got my fingers burned every time. It was wrong of him to treat me the way he did and when he does it now it is still wrong, but my feelings were always my own responsibility and I didn't get chance to learn that until he totally dumped them back on me and vanished from our marriage.
