Originally Posted by
Florence 
I'd proceed with caution. There's much more to this situation than the "is he or isn't he drinking?" of alcoholism. Start looking for patterns over a matter of months and years, instead of looking for patterns over days and weeks.
Your AH shows a long-term pattern of instability and he leans toward emotional abuse when he doesn't get his way. I wouldn't be eager to cozy up to that pattern, myself.
We get so used to one-sided relationships that we are so hungry we'll take any crumb thrown in our direction. And we'll be grateful for it, too!
Edited to add: Isn't this part of his pattern? Free on the phone but frozen and unavailable face-to-face? I seem to recall you mentioning this in the past.
I'm also reminded of the "cycle of abuse" picture we post on here sometimes. My thought is that if you're asking because you aren't sure, it's not real yet.
So true, and yes I'm taking crumbs at this point but I figure he's got to start somewhere. My therapist asked me this week to reach out to AH and to maybe go on a date with him, etc. She told me it's time for me to start emotionally reaching out, as well, to him and I told her I wasn't ready. She still encouraged me to do so, I think that's why I'm asking here. Trying to pick other people's brains about what their A's recovery looked like and what to expect.
For some stupid reason, I am feeling guilty and I still feel that I am the sole responsible partner for our relationship and I know it's insanity for me to continue like this. So, I get frustrated with myself for holding back. It's like those old enabling patterns are haunting me and calling me to do it, fix it, make HIM feel better, it's what you're good at, just go ahead and reach out and if he hurts you again you'll get over it, blah, blah, blah. I have to tell these voices to shut up on a daily basis. It's amazing how engrained these patterns of relating have become to me and how second nature they seem, almost subconscious and that scares the crap out of me.
Hey, did you get my PM? I have sent a few private messages to folks and never heard back from people so I want to make sure I have my settings right.