- KILL MODE ON -

I've given up wheat, again and so far managed a fortnight, with all that entails. Gluten isn't the issue, but something about too much British wheat definitely is. I'm better with real loaves from the baker (as opposed to the steamed, floppy, 'fortified' pre-sliced stuff in polythene wrappers), but a hunk of bread and butter had become my coping strategy of choice for packing down the vague uneasy sense of a life wasted which hit me every time I stood up away from the laptop, my clients and colleagues and friends, and, in this small bungalow, felt myself so trapped 'within these walls' that the only problem if Googie Withers were to suddenly appear would be where to stand her between the ironing board and the hoover.

So, having just completed an excellent session with a client on her emotional eating problems (and I admit that in the half hour after that I was highly likely either carrying her issues or doing a deep sweep for my own) - I wandered into the kitchen looking for a well earned cuppa.

Husband was taking up all the space, making himself buttered toast. It smelled divine.

Me: Ooh, yummy, just today I really do fancy that toast, ever so much.

Him: Mmm yes its a new loaf, son bought it an hour ago while he was down in town. (pats huge, bouncy new poppy-seeded loaf for emphasis)

Me: (Seeing, smelling and generally mesmerised ) Wow, I wonder if just one slice would put me back to square one. No, I'll tap on it.*

(*EFT tapping - very effective for cravings)

Him: If you don't mind me saying, instead of working on craving the bread, I don't think that's really your issue, you've got a deeper one I've observed in you for a very long time.

(Bless him, he tries to be useful sometimes)

Me: ?

Him: (picking up speed and enthusiasm like a little boy taking centre stage for his science project, and wearing the beatific smile of a cherub about to be really useful) You don't really want a lot of things at all, you just run this need to have something just because someone else has it.

Me: ???

Him: Yes, like how you reacted when you found out I go for a beer with Dave before the radio show every Wednesday.

Now you have to see this in context. We used to go for a swift half before doing the weekend shopping. That was the extent of our 'dates' and our romantic, supportive or family life at all whatsoever beyond the walls of this isolated windswept bungalow, or those of the small local Morrisons.  He's never been one for caravans or holidays, or music events, or 'us time' or even meals out. Always an excuse: too tired, too broke, too worried, too much on TV and recently for about three years, his back has been in too much pain to sit still in a pub chair. Allegedly. But, it would seem, only if that's with boring old me and not fun mate Dave.

So yes, I reacted to the secret pub visits. Did I react badly? Did I scream, shout, or demand to go with? No.  I'm actually pleased that this man who is steadfastly attempting to drag me into his hermitage has actually found someone he enjoys hanging out with.  I just asked him, ONCE mind you, to treat me to a can of something to have indoors on my own while he was out enjoying the bromance. Its nice for him to have someone new to convince of his general worthiness as good company.

Maybe I'll tell him that then. Maybe I'll say:

Me: Your underlying issue is that you need approval, and once you're certain you've got it, your subconscious decides that its either not true, or that approval from the person in question simply can't be worth very much. You dismiss me and consistently fail to see the real me or hear much of what I say, because it doesn't fit with your worldview that anyone who could appreciate you must have shockingly low expectations of life.

Suck on that, git face.

I'm still fuming, still pacing and this brain-dump is a coping strategy, a way to get it out of me and onto paper so I can see.

When he said that about me just being unsatisfied, just wanting to copy him or have the same just for the sake of having it - when he said that so earnestly, I very nearly chewed his head off. I also began (but stopped) listing every single time that if he'd listened  he'd know that I feel completely 100% trapped, stunted, isolated and that I've gone without freely as an act of love and was not simply a cheerful blob happy to occupy herself in a corner for 25 years and that actually I am way more sociable than him, not less! Its not fun to watch a man shrink into himself, so its no fun to list all the things he hasn't done, not even all the ones I asked for, just all the ones he committed to, swore by, volunteered, and then wandered away from, leaving me holding my breath. Sometimes I find it irresistible, but sweetness doesn't get through and nor does freaking out. It's a locked box, that man's brain.

He knows. He knows that, because he knows that if I ever once realised that X or Y wasn't just around the corner, that he wasn't about to come up with the goods (just as soon as A, B and C fall into place), that none of this was ever fucking going to happen, that I would up-sticks and go make it happen for myself. Its smoke and mirrors because he doesn't believe there's anything for me to stay for, otherwise.

So I've decided. I'm going to stay AND make it all happen, for myself. I have emotional work to do. Somehow I still equate having anything 'my' way instead of 'our' way (not a distinction he personally struggles with), that I would somehow being cruel, selfish, dismissive of him and isolating to him.  Quite a few echoes for me to work on perhaps of feeling as though the world rode rough shod over my hopes.

Just got to work on my codependency, Stockholm syndrome, Cinderella complex or just plain sensible fear of the unknown (which all of those probably boil down to anyway). I have to stop thinking as 'we'.

Thank you husband for assuming that lack of complaint meant contentment and that contentment meant 'no further work required'.  Thank you for being oblivious and teaching me that if I want the penny to drop for you that I am, or need to be a certain way, I need to spell it out and demonstrate it too. I seem to be the only one who has even considered the idea that we are waiting to have a shared plan instead of simply coexisting. Does that make me the needy one? I promise to look.

Never mind the female menopause. I'm wondering if this is the equivalent of me having a male one too.  Maybe it was only ever called the male one because only men had the personal freedom to act it out.  I'm going to have fun finding out.

-KILL MODE OFF - (for now).