Car111

It was such a strange feeling, to go through all of this. Believing that we were separating and now we are reconciling. We sat down and had a talk about what we would both like from our marriage. We both agree we would like our marriage to be stronger than ever and don't want to go back to how things were. We pointed out areas where we thought improvement was needed and both agreed we would do individual counseling. It felt so strange, after him closing himself off to me for so long he was finally opening up to me and telling me how he felt. We both have a lot of resentments about things that happened in the past that has caused us to close ourselves off.

In the beginning of us getting back together he was reaching out to me and talking to me and giving me lots of affection. It felt so good because he has not so much as hugged me since the big bomb drop. We had never been that affectionate in our marriage, even in the beginning. I became so hopeful, because I realized that was wanted in a marriage, someone to reach out to me in that way. I felt so loved. I guess you get so used to the way things are that you don't notice that you are missing something.

In the past few weeks he has stopped being affectionate again and it has me worried. I feel like things are going back to how they were before, and it makes me sad. I brought it up to him this morning.

I am feeling quite sad. I brought up the affection issue with my H this morning. I told him that I would like more affection. I expressed that when we were starting to reconcile he showed me lots of affection, and I felt so loved. I felt better than I have in years, that I didn't realize it was possible to have a marriage like that, that I was so happy and it felt so good.

I told him that I feel sad now because I feel like it's not like that anymore and asked what might have changed between then and now. He said that it feels awkward sometimes. He told me that he has spoken about affection with his counselor. He said that she feels that he might be holding back in order to punish me. I told him that sometimes it feels that way. I said that I didn't feel it was fair that he was only reaching out to be affectionate when he wanted to make love, and he agreed.

I feel so lost and alone right now and angry. I feel like I want to isolate myself from him in order to protect myself and my feelings. I recognize this is a pattern I often get into. At least I am recognizing it, although I don't know what to do.

Needing help and support, feeling so lost.

I talked to him again before he left for work. I was crying and he asked what was wrong. I just explained that I was so happy at how things were and that now I felt like we were backtracking. He reassured me that this is why we are working at things.

He asked what I needed. I asked him if I told him exactly what I would like if that would help in any way. I was worried that he would see that as pressure or that things would feel forced for him. He told me it was okay to ask for what I needed. I told him that for starters we could try a hug upon seeing each other in the day and a hug upon leaving. And then one kiss or hug initiated by him throughout the day. He said that seems reasonable.

I am glad that we were able to express our needs and communicate with each other, even though we were so timid about doing so. Sometimes I feel so lonely and just afraid to tell him how I am feeling. We seem to be having a lot of breakthroughs lately though, handling things differently now this time around.

Hopefully we are learning from our past mistakes. Sometimes when things get rough I get pretty overwhelmed and things seem hopeless. I just have to remember that things are different between us now and we are both working on our marriage. We can deal with any issues that come up now, and we are doing counseling.