EA, being "friends" with OW, and Boundaries Part 2

[NikB]

Thanks UA! It got a little better although it was still entirely weird. H got home pretty early - not long after I posted. I asked if he had fun and he said no, there was too much traffic for a "good" drive. I found myself wondering if "too much traffic" meant "too much of boyfriend's car in front of OW's house" but I used the stop sign approach and stopped that thought. I told him how I did on the treadmill since he had said before that me getting stronger was important to him, and he replied "glad you didn't hurt yourself."

I wonder if he's building up my physical issues in his head to be more severe than they really are to make distancing from me easier? He keeps trying to talk me out of getting out and trying new things for the same reason - doesn't want me to hurt myself. I'm trying not to overanalyze but it's just so odd, it's hard not to. The other day I mentioned the skiing thing again because I really want to try out that sit-ski and he said very seriously "Can I just ask you for one thing? Promise me you won't hurt yourself." I told him I couldn't make that promise any more than he could when he goes racing, skiing, etc. but promised that I'd be careful. I also reminded him it's an adaptive ski school - I mean, they take people who are blind, paralyzed, missing limbs, etc. skiing. I'm pretty sure they are careful! He still asked me not to go, though. I can't decide if I should go anyway as a GAL thing, or honor his request and find some other activities to try. I've always wanted to try skiing but it's not something I absolutely have to do, maybe a 6 on a scale of 1 to 10, so it wouldn't be awful to NOT do it if it's that important to him. Except that I wonder if part of it's to help him keep his mental picture of me being unable to do anything "fun."

He's been sleeping a lot lately and he fell asleep on the couch really early, so I woke him up and suggested he go to bed. He said "Is that OK?" - also odd. He went to bed but tossed and turned all night and kept complaining he was too cold...turned the heater up, was too hot... slept on the couch awhile, got too cold... back in bed, too hot. This morning he said he slept OK though.

I maintained my goal of not talking to him much but definitely let his mood impact me, because I was worried about him. I wasn't negative, just quiet and not overly positive either. It didn't seem fair to be happily bouncing around the house when he was so obviously and visibly depressed.

This morning he said he'd be at the bank tonight and reminded me about my appointment with the MC, and said something again about his appointment with her tomorrow. He really, really rarely remembers stuff like this even when it's on the calendar so it's pretty amazing that he's keeping track of it. I wonder if he's trying to prove to me that he doesn't need me since keeping track of stuff like this has been one of my "jobs" in our M, but I'm using the stop sign thought there too.

Keeping my fingers crossed that MC is helpful today... it was really useful last time.