Give Love- Yes about intimacy and its definition and yes about sex. If I don’t have the intimacy, there is no reason to have sex.. for the most part.
LTD: I like your example; I am kind of in the middle of that road. I currently only blame part of my unhappiness on him.. haha I know I hold the key to my own happiness so I hold that part, but the part I really need to work on owning the fact that I choose to stay in a situation that is less than desirable. I continue to hope that one day he’ll stop verbally and emotionally abusing me and in not making the choice to leave I’m essentially creating that portion of unhappiness as well. Even though I understand the concept I haven’t learned how to live it and not take it personal. I also haven’t made the decision to brush it off every time it happens and live the rest of my life that way.
Perfect example. It is not selfish of you that you don't trust him. That is how you feel.
Expecting him to do what you wish based on your feelings is selfish.
So, you make your choices based on the fact that you don't trust him. (Perfectly reasonable) But, you must then be prepared for him to make his choices, which you cannot control.
I do actually accept this. What’s hard for me to swallow is that in general the pattern has been that his choice is not to remove himself from the situation which he finds undesirable (just like me) but to continue to throw blame at me and what I’m doing instead of taking ownership of his own feelings about it. ( I feel like I’m actually getting it now.. I’m answering my own question.. You guys are so great!) He could say, I don’t want to be in this relationship anymore if you don’t trust me and can’t be intimate with me. But he doesn’t. He just continues to start fights about it and put me down in the process, which starts the whole cycle of broken trust again.
Give Love: I would love to go to counseling.. but we all know how open A’s are to those things. Falls in the category of “Shhyaa Right!”
Brenadette – For me the drinking is not a measure of trust. But I guess the actions that follow the drinking are. If he wants to drink, that’s his business. What I want is for the put downs to stop. However, those only seem to happen following the drinking.
He can still function he isn’t the best helper but I can live with that. I am able to open up to him, but most of the time it’s a little bit like shooting myself in the foot. Because it always comes back to haunt me and he surely doesn’t share the same openness with me.
So far, I don’t really trust myself. I keep telling myself, this time I’m really leaving.. but unfortunately I keep drawing lines in the sand.