Originally Posted by
LexieCat 
Good for you, tg!
You know what occurs to me, is that early on, he might have felt like your attending the same meeting at the same time made him feel "checked up on"--i.e., like your being there was to make sure HE was being there. That, of course, is HIS problem, not yours, but I kinda understand how it might feel that way.
In the beginning, that is.
So I don't know that it was a huge "control" issue, it might have just been one of those early recovery mental hangups that we get--fear of what others are doing, or saying, or thinking about us.
Just speculating, and imagining how I might have felt in that situation.
I'm glad you went, and I think it was the right thing for you to do. If it makes him feel "weird" still, that is something he needs to get over for his own sake. You keep doing what you need to do.
This dawned on me too, as I was sitting in the room just down the hall. Thanks for saying it out loud...I thought I might be experiencing PTSD from our interactions past...he was always very paranoid that I may be talking about him with others to the point that he would call me a "gossip" whenever I would spend time with my family or friends without him. I remember feeling very defensive about that.
I called him after the meeting - it didn't go well. I
do think it bothered him, and I know it bothered
me to be just down the hall from my husband with no interaction. He kept saying he didn't want to "have a fight", which is kind of a conversation-ender in itself; and very much his typical shut-down MO. Really, I was just feeling a bit sad about it all. And funny how he focuses on "not fighting" when he is often the one to start those fights?!
I am still amazed, even with knowing intellectually to expect nothing this early in recovery - that he still holds tight to some of the very behaviors that led me to move out. And that he still accuses me of those things?! *BIG SIGH*
But I feel great about going to the meeting there. However, I like my old group better... but it gives me another option to keep working on me and that feels good this morning.