He's been sober for 3 yrs........but we still don't connect
I don't get it. Why can we not relax with each other? He fills me with anxiety. It seems my codependent nature tells me I'm supposed to cater to his needs even if I don't want to and if I don't, I feel terribly guilty for neglecting to sacrifice myself for his happiness. He doesn't and cannot see my true self, the easy-going, adventurous, passionate self that has been damaged and jaded by all that has gone before. I don't feel youthful any more. He aged me. I let him.
On the other hand , I know him like the back of my thumb. I know that he is emotionally immature and can get his feelings hurt by the smallest infraction of my attention. He is impractical in his expectations of me. He thinks he should be the center of my attention as soon as he begins to speak. (We have four children, laundry, dinner to cook, cats, neighbors kids, phone ringing, etc.) When will he grow up? When can I begin to live life on life's terms? I've gone above and beyond the call of duty, yet I feel like my life is always and only about duty. If we did not have the kids, I would have been gone long ago. I wonder often if we were ever compatible. When we met we both drank among other things. We were married three yrs before our first child was born. That's when I realized there was a problem.
It's the same old story everyone else tells. You think you have something special. You think you can change them, that their children will cause them to want to change. So you keep going, hoping. Then one day you realize a huge chunk of your life has been spent in limbo and your finished. Then he goes and sobers up! There is a sick irony to all of it! Now he gets to be a hero. And I've no excuse not to support that mindset. After all, isn't this what I've always been waiting for, the moment when he finally gets the victory over alcohol? Yet he doesn't know the first thing about who I am nor does he want to talk about the toll all of those years has had on my sense of self-worth, how it has altered me. I am expected to suck it up and continue to deal with his arrogant attitudes, his snide comments, his impatience all with a smile on my face. How?
And if it is impossible, which it seems it is to have a conversation about MY feelings when he does or does not do what seems appropriate in a given situation, then what is a body to do to rid themselves of the anxiety? He is not a bad person. He has taken up his responsibility to work and help with the house and the kids. Its just us, our one-on-one interactions that seem so contrived, so unnatural. He seems to want to control me and yet he seems to be just as anxious about me as I am of him. I don't think there is any emotional trust left. We've been testing the waters for three yrs and things haven't leveled out yet. We have kids! He is sober! He still freaks me out emotionally! I just cannot communicate with him. He just does not know how to connect with me. But sex we must have even without a connection and a calm exterior in front of the kids and an appearance of happiness to the outside world. I feel like I never stopped enabling him. Does anyone get what I'm saying?