Lil, There was a time when my H behaved the same way, shortly after we started repairing this whole mess, but it was not permanent. I have no idea what will happen with LFL's H, so that is NOT my intention in writing that..to rain on her parade..just recounting my experience. He acted HD for a while, can't remember how long now. During that time, there were still hangups that he was working on, so I knew that he was a work in progress. It wasn't until our 3rd child was born that he ran completely out of steam and I did too. If I could give one piece of advice to LFL it would be this: Praise his successes and shut your mouth. Let him evolve at his own pace.
I think I set myself back a LOT with my harping. I am not a patient person, by nature, and had a helluva time waiting years for his process to play out. If I would have handled it differently, I firmly believe that I would be in a drastically different M today.
So, iow, he acted like this but it was not a permanent change. He sortof went back and forth for a while and I was not patient enough to deal with this. I wanted things FIXED, not merely "tons better". This was a huge error on my part. Hindsight, eh.
So I basically harped his HDness right outta him by insisting on continual improvement. I was not patient during the backslides and not willing to gently draw his awkwardness out of him--I wanted MY needs met...wanted a man to want ME.
Even now, he shows his desire much more readily but is still guarded. I think that I will have to walk out the door to get the kind of blatant sign that I've been looking for all these years. This saddens me, but it also demonstrates to me that I'm wanting him to be something totally opposite of what he is. If he is THIS resistent, then there is a message in there for me: Back off, lady--I'm not that type of guy.
GEL asked a question the other day that is haunting me: What if this is the way he is, can you live with that?
