Just a few comments from H "you only see what you want to see" "you can't compromise, you don't know how"....I'm right back to feeling like I don't know myself at all. How can I be so different on the outside vs what I think I'm conveying? When I start feeling this way, the few MC sessions that H and I had sort of help me get through because she did not think I was crazy and she seemed to think that I communicated with H just fine, but it was he that would not particpate. That validates my perception and while I'm not all about validating my perceptions, it does help me to not feel so crazy, as H insists that things are not the way I see them.
I finished reading my book on adult attachment and some of the reactions they describe sound like what you are saying here, that your feel your H is seeing you as crazy. The book says this is a common reaction to the anxiety you are feeling and flipping between emotions is part of the blame/defend cycle, trying to find where you can get a reaction in your H to reconnect. Sort of like running up and down a long hallway of doors, knocking on each one to see which will open. Yeah, it can drive you crazy.
What I have been focusing on lately is what I see you needing to do also, become aware of the fears and anxieties each of you have, discuss and acknowledge those needs in each other, then agree to do what you can to sooth them. Your task in “holding on to yourself” is to not interpret his cool façade as implying you are crazy. His coolness in front of the counselor is to protect himself from inspection. That does not have to mean anything about you.
I see your H being a little more open to working with you recently. Perhaps the time you two have not been intimate is affecting him, making him be nice to you just for sex. But what is wrong with taking advantage of that opening? Does his wanting sex from you turns you off because you want him to need you, or at least first show that he is vulnerable to you, thus sparing you the need to be vulnerable to him? Just because your anxieties are not the same as his does not mean you should shut down his way of approaching you. When you turn down his approach, he reads it as your insensitivity to him, which confirms to him what he has been complaining about. This just keeps you two in a “you vs. him” mentality instead of the two of you united against the dragon of vulnerability which is sabotaging your marriage. SWIM?
