Originally Posted by
SparkleKitty 
As long as you hand over the power of peace in your home to other people, you risk not getting it. You don't have the power to stop someone from sabotaging your life if they are bound and determined to do so, and are such a part of your life that they can manage it.
I guess my point is that the things you are doing are not changing her, they are just keeping you both stuck in a cycle of believing that If The Other Person Changes, Everything Will Be Fine. I see a guy -- understandably so -- still looking for a way to have his cake and eat it too -- but who is counting on someone else to both give him his cake and to let him eat it.
Indeed... but I am wanting to find a way, regardless of how I get my cake. Still searching for that elusive practical solution. I'm perfectly okay making the decision and taking action, its just that I haven't found the right "way" for me and my situation.
May take a few days to reconcile after the recent blow-up - and I will admit being the one who needs to chill more than her - but need to move forward to the rehab she has admitted needing. She does this crap (occasional blowups/fits) in the last couple or so years (don't remember them happening before +/- 2 years ago and was blaming it on stress of lower limb surgeries and signs of menopause)... and acts like nothing happened the next day - and this isn't about memory or drunkenness, she just moves on like nothing ever was said or happened. It is quite odd how she can pretend like an atom bomb wasn't just dropped in her living room. Honestly can't recall if she has always acted like nothing happened when something did. Unlike me, she likes to start each day anew, but that only works well when the one "starting anew" is the perpetrator - and why not!?! Who wants to be found guilty after a crime, so to speak?