Oh girl, your H has just spent so much time being a butthead that you no longer know how to talk to him. I was talking, btw, about the "does this mean you're no longer willing..." statement. Not the Where's the Shirt one. Ha haaaa. Dissecting someone's life eventually becomes funny, kwim.
Quote: man just that one sentence scares the crap out of me.
Don't worry; it scares the crap out of all of us! Seriously, we all get kinda skittish about true intimacy..it just means you're human. It's gotten easier for me as the years go by but you have to understand that the R has improved by leaps and bounds so the intimacy gets easier. My point is that these vulnerable statements will be heart-pounding during the time that you are repairing things with H. He may take that vulnerability and stomp on it, he may react in kind, he may ignore it altogether but at least you will have the peace of mind in knowing that you stopped sinking to his level and conversing on HIS terms. (butthead-ese, in other words)
Quote: How do I know for sure if he's truly telling me his feelings, in which case I should try to understand and validate or if he's just creating a diversion, in which case I need to make a boundary and refuse to be dragged into the conversation in the direction he tries to take it??
Well I'm not entirely sure what you mean, but I would say that an easy rule of thumb would be to keep the convo on topic. Don't let it wander all over the place. He diverts it when he puts it all on you. Like Corri said the other day, she hated it when her H would call her a bitch. So she adopted a new strategy: "Yes I am a bitch. But that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about xyz.." So I believe you can validate his feelings while keeping it on topic at the same time.
Quote: I need one on one C with you HP, lol
Oh gosh can you imagine?! It would start out with me asking you to expand on your feelings and next thing you know I'd say, Screw this--let's go get a beer. Then we'd be talking about nail polish and having a drink and telling stories about our kids. I am not responsible enough to be anyone's counselor, LOL. But I play one on the bb, whenever I feel like running my yap.
