Dear Livy:

There is the chicken and the egg element here: what came first, his dwindling affection or your anger. I don’t know. What I do know about this vicious cycle you mention is that you yelling at him, crying, going on and on, showing him how unhappy he is making you, all these behaviors kill one’s motivation to be affectionate.

It doesn’t matter what came first in regard to this pattern: these behaviors are incongruent with him behaving spontaneously and affectionately with you.

When you tell him how badly he makes you feel, crying and so on, he is put on alert: scared to cause you more pain. He is no longer free to be spontaneous, and open communication is not possible.

You think communication is not the problem, but it is because although you have felt comfortable expressing your misery to him, he has not felt comfortable to express his unhappiness in the relationship.

At this point, the way I see it, is there needs to be just that between the two of you: better communication. But it is not going to be easy, to make it happen because he is already cautious, already on alert, feeling guilty, uncomfortable, scared to tell you what is on his mind and heart, scared of hurting you more.

What you can do to improve the communication with him is to take personal responsibility for your feelings and behaviors, to no longer blame him for these. Only if he is assured that you are responsible for these, will he feel, over time, safe enough to express himself honestly.

anita