How can you help someone understand that you love them but you're tired of not having a life, unless it's the life they want you to have or an extension of THEIR life?
How do you help them to see that you aren't doing it to hurt them but to help yourself to feel better and not resentful of the fact that they have so much freedom and you have been tied down for years with blaming them for not acting the way you thought they should?
Good questions. I have been wrestling with the same issues with my AH right now.
My situation is a little different, I am reconciling with my AH who is not active right now. But the issue is the same. He wants to be with me all the time and doesn't understand that my wanting to do my own thing sometimes does not mean I don't love him, it means I am starting to love myself too. It came up again this morning.
I think they seem agry and mean, but I think it comes from them being scared. They feel safer when everything stays the same, the 'unknown' is not a welcome adventure but a scary place to them.
I think for my husband it goes with his whole self-absorbed view of the world. He sees everything I want to do from only the perspective of how it effects him or makes him feel. He does not have room in his mind for how it effects me or how I feel about it. (They are the ultimate in selfish, as we all know) So I am working slowly to try to help him see that it is about me, and not him. I am not giving in, I am insisting on doing what I want, I am just trying to soften the blow by staying calm, not feeding into his panic, and showing that he can still feel secure with this new me.
I listen and try to hear the reason for his fear, and if there is any legitimacy I try to think of what I can say or do to ease his mind a bit. If he were upset about not being invited I may have smiled, said "Honey, it is so cute that you sound afraid I may not want you to be there. Do you have a crush on me?" and made a light joke like that. I would have focused on how flattering it is that he wants to always be with me, and said "That devotion may be tested if I choose to go get a mud facial or see an opera next time."
I may fail, who knows. But I am trying to just let him see that my liking other things does not make me not like being with him when we are doing something we both like.
It may help if he sees you as just doing your own thing, whether it was because he was drinking or not. Just a thought.