last night my husband and i had a very heated argument, followed by a discussion. a long one. actually, he had the heated argument, i tried to tone it down because he kept interrupting me. not really with anything that he had to say, just a series of “oh, listen to you!” , “and what do YOU do”, “it’s because you did….(fill in the blank)”.
do you get the picture? the way this one-sided argument went was that i was trying to make a point about something that happened sunday (i was trying to give perspective — more later), and he was trying to SHUT ME UP. there is a whole list of the techniques he used — countering, denying, blocking, diverting, discounting. and then there was the anger, with the finger in my face. and the fact that we were in the room next to my son’s bedroom. and the fact that he accused me of being angry (well, of course the guy was pissing me off, but i was doing my best to stay as calm as i could, while still trying to ask him to stop interrupting me). goading, provoking. it doesn’t work with me — i don’t engage — he knows i don’t. so then he accuses me of talking down to him. whatever — i think you probably get the idea.
it ended more or less with him saying that it is time for him to move out. before anyone cheers me on here, i want to be the one to control that transition time. or maybe i don’t. i am not sure.
he says he is giving me what i want. because, you know, the unraveling of our marriage is all my fault in his eyes, because he knows, without trying, prescient being that he is, that nothing he ever did or could ever do would be good enough for me. still no intention of seeking individual help.
at the end of the conversation, i told him that i think actually that he has wanted this all along, the marriage not to be. that i know what he does and says, how he acts, when he wants something — i know what his hard sell looks like. we have been together for almost 20 years. i know. and not once did he apply it to working on our relationship, in over 15 years of marriage. in fact, his overall behavior has been to treat me with contempt when we interact. if i need something fixed, like my car, he always took care of that. intimacy? he has no idea how to do it, and is too afraid to try.
when told i think that he wants out (also), this confused him no end. he said “what, i don’t want it to end? of course i don’t”. i said “no, you say you are giving me what i want, but since you have not made an effort to create a different outcome, i think this may also be what you want… and you can’t admit it”.
he stormed off to bed. the kids’ birthdays are coming up in the next four weeks or so. school starts next week. i am numb. i don’t want to ruin birthdays or decimate my son’s academic start to middle school. i can wait till the temper calms down. will he? i don’t know.
before he went to bed, he followed me into the office, and my blog screen was up. i think he caught the name of the blog. i don’t know, and i don’t know if he is technologically advanced enough to realize that it was my blog dashboard. but i don’t want him reading it. i need to come up with a new title to be safe. the url will stay the same….
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