Thanks to all of you for getting me back on track. My impatience will be my undoing...
I did talk with H last night. Probably wasn't a good night to do it, we were both pretty tired, but there aren't many good times for us, and as I said, I get impatient.
I asked H why he felt he couldn't talk to me about sex, or much else for that matter. I didn't really put it that bluntly, tried to make H understand that I loved him didn't want to stay in the same place as we were. It took me a while to keep the convon on track, but I was able to HOM (at this point).
At one point I told H that I wanted change. No matter what it meant, I didn't want to stay were we are. H 'Think what you are saying. Are you saying that anything is better than this?' M I'm saying that I want change. I'm willing to accept that the change might be bad, because I believe it will be better. We went through this a couple of times before H understood I meant it. At one point he said that I insulted him by saying that. I stood by what I said.
It went round and round for a while, finally H blurted out 'I don't know why I can't'. Even though it doesn't sound like much, it felt as if he was finally saying something. It felt like a wall came down. Finally H said that when I yelled and brought up D, (something I haven't done in over a year) it hurt, and he hadn't got over that hurt.
For the first time, I felt H's pain. I didn't feel like he was hiding, I felt him. We went on, and for a while the convo was really good, even though we were both in a lot of pain. H told me he remembered a convo with my Dad who explained about my parents divorce, and H had understood where he was coming from.
I told him that I did not want to grow into my parents, who had divorced without dealing with this (and left my Mom in the childhood stage), or like his parents who just stayed together because that's what they'd done for the past 30 yrs.
I told H I wanted our kids to be able to see that their parents cared for each other, and I wanted them to be able to grow up knowing that being an adult is not so bad if you have someone to share it with.
I told H I wanted to enjoy life, and have someone next to me to enjoy it with. H then said 'What is it you enjoy about life?' Again I was surprised how he can latch on so hard to the negatives and miss out on all the other stuff.
I told H I loved music, art, food, gardening and nature, watching our kids grow, learning about people and life, I told him I had Os listening to music, or looking at art, that I wanted to discover as much about life as I could
H really seemed a little surprised, and there was a very brief flicker of almost respect in his eyes.
I tried then to explain how much I hurt when he complained about how I do things, and while it wasn't an excuse, I exploded because I didn't know what else to do. It degenerated into a convo about housework for a while, but he finally admitted that he does understand that I hurt when he does that. But he also felt I was attacking him for not doing anything. I told him all I was trying to do right now was help him understand how I felt.
Finally we sat silently for a while, then H got up and walked away. We had been sitting on the couch, we were going to watch TV, and somehow I felt it would be good for me to stay there, even though we had been talking for a while, and it was late.
H finally came back, asked if I was waiting for something, I told him I was waiting for him, if he still wanted to sit. He did, and we watched our show, then went to bed. H threw out little jabs about how late it was, and how he wished he had known he was going to have to wait so long, etc.
When we went up to bed H complained that I had moved a pile of clean clothes (which I had placed on his side of the bed the day before since I have no idea right now where he his keeping his clothes (this is not as bad as it sounds). Unfortunately, this degenerated into a pretty fused convo, I tried in the beginning, but H kept pushing.
So I do feel like we made some progress last night, but that H is determined to keep this from going forward.
Chris,
I have thought about C, brought it up at one point last night, H just laughed, and said think about the practicality of that. When I asked him to explain, he wouldn't.
But the truth is, it would be very hard for us to find a C here who would be good for us. Meaning, we both know we wouldn't deal well with the free Cs attached to the state church (Lutheran) for lots of reasons, many cultural. There are a few private Cs here in town, but It would really have to be someone who speaks English at least as well as H, in addition to being someone pro-M (and I doubt anyone here has heard of Schnarch).
That may sound like me giving excuse, and it may well be. I may do some research, and see if I can find anyone promising, but I think I will see how things progress after last night.
I'm still not sure whether to be happy or frustrated, and I'm really unsure of what the next step will be.
