EA, being "friends" with OW, and Boundaries

[NikB]

Just checking in this Monday AM. Hope everyone is doing well and had a good weekend. I’m just doing a little journaling for now – although if anyone’s reading through all this and would like to share comments or suggestions I’d love to hear them!!

So, even without me asking for it, H and I had our first “OW-free” weekend in a really long time. Hooray! Of course we went to dinner at her house last week and he still talked about her a bunch of times, but at least she wasn’t physically with us at all this weekend. Dare I hope it’s the DB principles starting to work??

Saturday was awkward – I think the ski conversation put H on edge and he was really snapping at me about weird little things. For example:

H: Wow the stove looks great babe, thank you for cleaning it!
Me: Sure - it does look good huh? [I admit, it had been looking pretty bad and I spent a lot of time getting it to look practically brand new]
H (in an uncharacteristically rude tone): It’s only been what, 2 years since it’s been clean?
Me: No, I clean it all the time, I just never thought to try the oven cleaner to get the burned-on stuff.
H: Well, at least it finally isn’t so embarrassing.

It was really weird. I did OK for awhile but after about 3-4 exchanges like this about various topics, I finally said “Can we get all the stuff you’d like to snap at me about over with in the next 15 minutes, please? I can’t do this all day.” He looked taken aback and said “That was it.”

I apologized later for snapping back, and he said that he’s “just trying to communicate better.” He said part of why he’s been unhappy is he’s afraid to tell me things because I get upset or shut down on him (like I did that morning). I apologized again and said I was working on how to respond better. He said “Well, I guess I’m not making it easy.” I suggested that we work on some middle ground between “not communicating wants/needs at all” and “snapping at each other.” I REALLY think a good counselor can help us here and will be setting that up today.

Sunday was mostly great. I started the morning by asking if there was anything H was hoping I would do or work on that day around the house. He really seemed to appreciate it. I’m filing it under the “What works” category and will start doing this every weekend, so that if there IS stuff like that “building up” he has a chance to tell me. An icky stove is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but I am seeing a pattern where we get snippy with each other about the little stuff, then it’s not “fun” to be at home anymore, and we escape various ways (he escapes by going and doing fun stuff with OW, I bury myself in work).

Our original plan for Sunday was just to do chores, but it was a gorgeous day out, and instead H came in and said “Forget it, let’s go for a cruise!” The old me would’ve said we had too much to get done, but the new me said “Forget it, we’ll do chores Monday!”, dropped everything and off we went. We drove around together all afternoon and visited some friends we hadn’t seen in awhile, and generally had a great time. It was really, really wonderful.

Sunday night we had another bad discussion related to OW/EA, but I don’t think it was TOO bad. Any feedback is welcome of course. Here’s how it went:

H: I really want to replace our couches. What did you think of C’s couches? (C is the one he’s having the EA with)
Me: They’re comfortable but they are SO ugly.
H: Really? What didn’t you like about them?
Me: I didn’t like the colors, the leather/fabric combination or the shape of the frame - I just didn’t think it looked good at all (and gave a little more details on what I didn’t like)
H: (seeming hurt) Wow. I helped pick them out.
Me: (hurt but not showing it) Really? What did you like about them?
… had a little more discussion about the couches and what we like/don’t like in couches generally…

H: C really knows a lot about picking out high quality couches… (gives a bunch of examples... I kept nodding and talking about couches in general, but felt myself getting upset).
Me: Wow, you two spent a lot of time couch shopping together.

H started to get defensive and I could feel my blood pressure going up, so I walked into the other room to “do some laundry.” As I was walking away I heard H say so quietly that he was pretty much talking to himself: “Yeah, I guess we did, I don’t normally help my friends shop for furniture.”

I came back not long after, and H asked me again about setting up the counseling. He also asked if he’d be able to meet with the MC by himself part of the time too. Interesting. I’m trying not to overanalyze things TOO much but this sounded to me like he has an inner conflict going on. Maybe…just maybe… he wants someone else to help him understand this “friendship” and why he’s so conflicted about it?? (or am I dreaming…?)

Anyway - I know we have a long way to go and this rollercoaster ride’s just starting, but I’m still really happy for the positives this weekend and trying to learn from the negatives. Boy this stuff can be exhausting but I’m glad that I’m now “in the fight” as someone described it, instead of unaware while things continued to decline.