Since I had asked H to get back to me about our convo on Mon. by Fri, I knew I was going to speak to him last night; I wanted H to know I'm serious about this.

We've been reorganizing the kids' rooms all week, so H has been in 'overdrive', and our level of stress has been pretty high, but I knew H would be gone all Sat., so I waited 'till we were going downstairs to watch TV, it was pretty late, and this convo was a lot 'messier' than the last.

Me: Have you thought about what I said the other day?

H:little laugh, something along the lines of 'what do you mean'

Me: about the fact that we've ML once in the past 7.5 yrs.

H little laugh 'What's that supposed to mean, we have...(he stopped himself in mid sentance)?'

Me: Do you mean you don't agree?

H: Do we have to go back and reconstruct the history? (I know others have seen this phenomona - but is it really possible that he doesn't realize how absent ML has been???)

Then we move to the couch, H turns on the radio (we listen to the TV through the sterio speakers)

Me: I asked you to think about what I said, and asked if we could spend some time together.
H starts to answer, so I turn off the speakers. H gets upset that I turned it off the 'wrong way', and tries to start an argument, I finally get him steered back to this.
Then there was something about H not remembering what I said, and when I told him I wanted to spend time with him alone without the TV, there was another argument about my grammar, etc...so that I had to restate it a couple of times till I 'got it right'.

H laughs again. Then says again that he wishes I weren't so hostile. Brings up some earlier convos, about other things, and I'm not so good this time at staying out of them, so things degenerate for a while...I do get out of it that he feels I'm defensive (which is true, I do feel often that our convos are about H going on 'till I agree with his POV, but there's probably lots more than that going on, not really sure how to deal with that).

H goes on about not knowing what we can do about this, that we should first be able to talk to each other without fighting...

Me: but can we at least try just spending a little time together?

H: It seems that you don't agree with anything I say, so I've decided that the best thing to do is say nothing. It's going to take enormous amounts of energy to get anywhere, it's much easier to stay where we are.

Me: so are you saying you don't want to work on our M?

H accuses me of being hostile now, I apologize for sounding that way, but that I feel this is important. H says I'm trying to take too big a step right off, I ask if he then has a suggestion for a little step. H huffs and brings up other complains, I say I just want to make a date, or have H say that he doesn't like my idea, and come up with one of his own.

Then H starts asking if we're ever going to watch this show, I stick to this - saying that I will watch, but I want some kind of answer, and that I'm not just going to let it go, because I want him to realize that I'm serious about this.

This goes on for a while, till H realizes he's not going to get to watch TV 'till he gives me some kind of answer

H: your idea might be ok.

Me: so we can set a date? Ok, what day?

H: sighs, do we have to do that now? Me: Yes, or we're just going to 'forget'

H: I don't even know your schedule

I agree, it's true, since I just got my schedule for the fall the other day, I promised to check it and get back to him. I will set a date before H leaves this afternoon.

H did lean over before I fell asleep and say 'Goodnight sweetie'. I acepted it, because he could very easily just continued in his upset mode, but it really did feel like he was tucking his daughter into bed. I wish H could see me as an adult!!

I have no expectations for our 'date' - actually I expect it will be something along the lines of us sitting in a room for a few minutes with H asking if 'this is enough, I have things to do', or if I get him to agree to a walk, he'll spend the whole time asking if it was long enough yet.

I'd really appreciate any comments, ideas for the 'date', etc. This ain't gonna be about sex for a looooooonggggggg time, folks, so if you think I'd be better off somewhere else, let me know?