Well, I had to pull out the stick the other day and set some boundaries...H was really on the kids' cases in an overbearing way, and then was patronizing/angry towards me. I called him on his behavior, but the cool thing was, I was then able to drop it and return to neutrality. This felt so healthy...normally I would just withdraw or stay in angry mode myself. He tried to guilt me for setting a limit but I held my ground, and because I bounced back to myself rather quickly, H began to look at himself...and he apologized! Again,this is huge... normally if I call him on something he'll get all defensive, and I will just simmer and brew, and there will be all this distance with no resolution. Anyway, we were able to talk, and what came out was that he felt he was escalating because he felt I was being too lax with the kids and he felt unsupported. This was also cool because normally he can't pinpoint what lead to his out of control behavior because he's too busy denying it. So we reaffirmed our team approach to handling the kids ( just LOVE the teen yrs) and got back to lovey mode.
The lovemaking has been great...very close..I have come such a long way from when I first started posting here, when my sex drive was amped up from my fantasy world and I wanted H to cooperate. He felt too much distance, but bit by bit we have worked up to a more loving and respecful relationship. We still have a lot of setbacks, the old ways return, but hopefully we will get through. I also feel we have a ways to go...there's more love now, but I'd like to move to a place where there's more play and fun and teasing, what Lil and Blackfoot describe.
Oh and this is for you Jenny, H and I were ML, and I was having this imagery of dangling appetizing carrots!
