Niobe

Hi,
I am a female dating with an AA who has been sober for over four years. For over 95% of the time I am having the best relationship of my life with him; he is very caring, sweet, and affectionate. Approximately, however, once or twice, especially when he is tired or in the morning, a bad mood hits him. It happens so suddenly and he is like totally a different person; cold and distanced. After the mood is gone, he always tells me that it wasn't me who caused the bad mood and he doesn't know why the mood hits him and after that we were fine (or at least he became totally fine). Yesterday morning it happened again. I knew he was in bad mood but somewhat we managed not to mention about it and pretended that nothing had happened. We met again in the late morning and then spent the rest of the day together with his friends. At the beginning I wasn't worried too much because usually his bad mood doesn't last so long but all the time when we were with them, he was acting very distanced from me. He didn't say anything mean nor did something mean to me (he never does) but was just cold. Since he is so affectionate most of the time, him just being so distanced hurt me a lot. Then I started to think what I did wrong even though I knew he would tell me later that it was nothing that I did...and I started to get depressed. Later when we said, "Good night," I told him that I needed time to think about and was not sure if I could do this because he totally ruined my day which I was very much looking forward to. I couldn't cry or show any other feelings in front of his friends...I just pretended that I was enjoying the day as much as they were and it was hard.

I wanted to go home and think but he insisted to talk about it. As we talked he told me that he had been doing something that he really didn't enjoy just because he thought I love doing it with him. He said, "I don't want to lose you so I would do anything but it's just hard sometimes." I was like, "?!" I had never insisted him to do anything! I always ask or invite him politely if he would like to do things with me. I thought he knew how to say, "No."(because he does tell me, "No thanks," occasionally and when that happens, I never give him a fit.) It made me feel so bad, at the same time, it started to make me wonder whatelse he is doing something that he is not enjoying but doing it just because he wants to make me happy? Before, he told me that his bad moods were nothing to do with me, but is that true? Now I am scared to enjoy spending time with him. Because every time we do something, I would probably wonder if he is really enjoying it or not or when his mood would change.

He told me that when he was drinking, he never suffered from this sudden mood change. He said when the bad mood hits him, he would start to think something completely different; it's like someone took over his brain and thinks nothing but mean stuff. He also told me that things look totally different when he is in the mood even MY face!

As I mentioned in the beginning, I am almost overwhelmingly happy with him most of the time but since the gap is so significant, it makes me so scared; what if the time he is in bad mood will increase in the future?

I am still upset and can't put my thoughts together completely...but I just needed to vent to someone...

Thank you for reading...