Dear Anita,

Thanks for your response and kind words. The blow up was upsetting even for myself, I am usually a calm person and have a high threshold for anger but this time I felt really out of control. I felt that the only way to be heard was this way and not only I acted disrespectful but I also lowered my own standards and values. 

I agree with you that age is just a number and that there is a gap in terms of emotional awareness between us. He did attend to personal therapy at the beginning of our relationship on his own decision because of jealousy related issues in order to prevent them from interfering with our relationship with very positive results. He mentioned to me his jealous thoughts but never acted on them and could clearly perceive how irrational they were even if it was very distressing for him.

Ending the relationship is definitely an option, and I have considered it. But for now I would like to try to work on the relationship as I feel that there is still room for improvement and that overall the good outweighs the bad. I can tell he is receptive to what I have to say but there is a thick layer of defensiveness that prevents constructive dialogue around certain themes. And I also know that he wants to improve (cf. above) and give his best so for now my focus is to re-establish a dialogue around the “elephants in the room”.

I am not sure how to approach him again and also how to manage my own emotions in reaction to his defensiveness and not to become too defensive myself. As I mentioned in a previous post when emotions start to get stronger my automatic response if crying which makes things worst. 

Lea