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

[NikB]

Thank you Once! Haha love that Gray’s Anatomy line. I’ll keep that one in mind.

Yes, the suspense is the worst. I can see this whole situation eating away at my H and it’s so hard to watch and not be able to do anything. Sometimes I feel like we’re both on board working to improve our M and then the next minute I feel like it’s time for the last resort techniques, it’s really confusing. I’m trying to keep it together, as you said.

Yesterday afternoon was pretty great but last night was bad… feeling rather lost again today. In the afternoon I saw OW drive by several more times – crazy, I tell ya. I got sick of feeling trapped by her so I spent about an hour making my hair perfect, dressing up nice, good makeup, and went out Christmas shopping.

H got home about an hour later and called me on my cell, surprised I wasn’t home waiting for him (yay me!!). He sounded upbeat and asked if I still wanted to go to dinner and I said sure, so I finished up a few more errands and came home. He didn’t say a word about my hair, makeup, jewelry, etc. Asked if he had fun skiing and he said no because only one run was open. He was mad again that he’d blown money on the ski pass. He’d done a bunch of chores which was a nice surprise, but he looked very down. I stayed upbeat and smiley.

We got to dinner and he said “I had dinner here alone last night, ate in the bar. I’ve never eaten out alone before, it was kind of fun.” (this was before movies w/the neighbor apparently). He was being pretty chatty about some guy he met and their conversation, then suddenly this switch flipped. I tried to keep talking and keep it light, but he would barely look at me and had this nasty tone in his voice. It was very one sided, and exhausting. Anytime he started to laugh or smile it was like he’d get mad at himself and stop. Every single thing I said was met with a comment that was negative, snotty, or otherwise hurtful (comments about enjoying “single life” and me not getting my hopes up, mostly).

He was deliberately mean which is just not like him. The whole time I felt like what he actually wanted to say was “Fine, I’ll push OW out of my life if I have to but you’re going with her or I’m making your life hell.” I did really well for nearly an hour but finally couldn’t take it and said “I’m very sorry I came to dinner with you, this was a mistake.” All of a sudden, his mood got a lot better, and he said “No it wasn’t, we have fun going out to dinner together.” It’s like he decided he had tormented me enough and was going to stop being a jerk for awhile.

After dinner, he suggested we go check out some Christmas lights by our house. It’s this whole computer synchronized show for a few songs – quite cool!! He was acting really nasty again and standing about 10 feet way from me. I finally said “I’m freezing, can you pretend you like me for a minute?” He came over and put his arms around me and was even kind of bouncing around to the music a little bit – laughed (nicely) at me once when I let out a big “Wow that is so cool!!” but when we got back in the car, back to dark and nasty. I stayed pretty positive though (and really did enjoy the lights!).

When we got home I stayed outside and talked to the neighbors for awhile while they put up lights, and H went in and watched a movie. I needed the break!! When I got inside he was asleep on the couch so I covered him with a blanket. He woke up long enough to thank me. When we finally went to bed I started to put on lingerie (one of my new things, I wear something satiny to bed every night). He said “please don’t wear that – wear one of your old cotton t-shirts” in a VERY angry tone. I almost wore the lingerie anyway, but decided not to. He tossed and turned all night and ended up leaving for work 1.5 hours early this morning because he said he was awake anyway.

I have no idea what all this is about. Maybe it’s the DB working its magic and I’m just having a hard time seeing it being stuck right in the middle. Or maybe I’m in for a whole lot more hurt before any of this gets better.

I’m trying to add to my what works/what doesn’t lists and there are so many things I’m not sure of. The getting “dolled up” and going out seemed like it ticked him off – should I save doing that specifically for dates with him? Or was it good to create some mystery?

And, should I be adding “going out to dinner together” to the “not good” list?? That seems like a really bad idea since it’s one of the things we’ve always enjoyed doing but I can’t sit through a bunch more dinners like last night’s. Are there smaller things about it that I’m missing that belong on the what works or doesn’t lists? (i.e. it’s not the “going out to dinner” it’s something about before/during/after??).

Thanks for listening…sorry I rambled so long!