The hubby and I had our las MC session for this year yesterday.
As I told everyone here...I did bring up the MC's assignment to us and the fact that once again....it went undone. I mentioned to our C that I wondered if by the simple fact that I knew about the assignment, and I knew what her point was, knew she meant for it to be 3x in a row....that maybe I set myself up for disappointment and failure.....because when days were going by and nothing was happening, I felt that resentment just bubbling up.
My H spoke up and said that he always looked at her assignments as if they get done great, but it's no big deal if they don't. Got to admit, I really didn't like it when he said that and told him so. I view her assignments as...."assignments", there's a point to it. Her point to our last assignment was to find out if his SD did increase by increasing our frequency.....we still don't have the answer to that.
So obviously....we are coming at her assignments differently. He views them as "suggestions", I view them as "homework". I did tell him though that because he doesn't seem to really take her "suggestions" seriously, that it's hard for me to believe that he really wants to work past the issues we are having.....therefore, I don't trust he will do the work it really takes to do that.
We discussed again that we are coming from polar ends on our R. I'm coming from the perspective of how good I know it can be, he's coming from the defensive position of making sure he doesn't get hurt again due to bad/dysfunctional R's.
So, once again our MC asked us each how would it be different for each of us if both of us had our needs being met to a greater degree. I thought about it and told them both that for me, if my H was meeting my needs a bit more it would mean....I'd reach out to him more, I would be more physical in the ways he likes (cuddling etc). Right now though because I've been going so long without what I need my SD has taken a nose-dive and I just don't WANT to reach out to him and be physical....sure I have my rare moments now like last weekend, but that only happened because I acted instantly and didn't think about it. His answer was that he'd just be happier, if I were happier....that's about all he offered up...he'd just be happier if I were happier.
She brought up once again that my H has trust issues, but that he does seem to be slowly getting past them lately. For example....the other night (he's working nights now) after work he thought he had a union meeting to go to....turns out it was the following week. Well while waiting for the meeting to begin (a couple hours after his shift ended) he and a few guys went to have a couple of drinks, he ran into someone we both know (a guy who runs karaoke) talked for awhile and then came home once he found out the meeting was the following week. Well normally he would have tried to hide the fact that he'd gone to a bar because his X would have had an absolute cow over it. I have told him several times it doesn't bother me if he goes and has a couple of drinks with the guys from work to unwind....but he's still surprised when he tells me (on those rare occasions) that this is what he's done...and I don't get upset, I'm fine with it.
Anyway...our C's observation is that he's telling me things like this more, he is actually communicating with me more the things that he is still afraid I well react badly about....but he's doing it. She observed that even while he was retelling his story about going out that his "non-verbals" were telling her that he was still worried I would get angry......even though his words were saying "she's always ok with it, she never minds....never gets angry about it."
I guess....I never even realized that he was communicating those things to me, too close to it I guess...so I needed her to point that out to me in order to really appreciate the fact that he is actually doing some things that are normally difficult for him. I'm glad she did that.
She also pointed something out that I guess I just needed to hear. I don't see it yet, probably because he and I don't typically sit across from each other, but next to each other in her office.....but she said when he talks about me she can see that his feelings are becoming more "tender" towards me. She asked if it was true that his feelings were growing more tender and deeper towards me his instant response was "Oh Yeah!". I guess I just needed to hear that.
So her suggestion to us until our next session, wasn't sexually orientated it was just for us to find ways to connect and to enjoy each other. That could mean we do things sexual....but it could mean we just enjoy being together as well.
Just hearing her observations made me look much more forward to going Christmas shopping with my H this weekend.
