Dear Katie:

I had a new thought this morning about your situation, let me know what you think of it (I will type as I think): you are waiting for him to return to normal so that what used to be between you and him will return, you are willing to suffer in between what-was and what-will-be-again. So, you don’t tell him that you are suffering, you keep it to yourself, waiting for his psychotherapy process to be complete enough to return him to that Normal.

Similar  maybe to the following two scenarios:

(1) your boyfriend and you had a good relationship in which the two  of you expressed your feelings, hopes and dreams. He then had an accident falling, and he needs to not move his legs for two weeks while a physical therapist visits him twice a day. After the two weeks, he will be given crutches and is expected to improve onward. You decide to take three weeks off work and take care of him: feed him, bathe him, etc., and then help him on that one week to get used to the crutches. All very generous and loving of you. You do it because you know that you can return to work after the 3 weeks (time off is limited, covered perhaps by vacation time), and you expect your boyfriend to return to Normal, the relationship to return to Normal, to the way it was.

(2) your boyfriend and you had a good relationship except that he had an anger problem sometimes. He then had an accident and fell, and his anger problem escalated, his anger ongoing, because of the pain in his legs. He is expected to recover just as in the first example, but the pain in his legs is expected to be be chronic. You take 3 weeks off work to take care of him, and while you are taking care of him he gets angry at you for anything and everything, so you keep quiet; you feed him, bathe him, and you notice that if you keep quiet and say nothing that sounds like complaining, he is not angry at you. As long as you keep your needs and feelings to yourself and focus solely on his needs and feelings- he is not angry with you.

-In the first example, you get your Normal back. In the second example, you get a New Normal, which is what I think is happening now. You think that you are waiting and enduring a temporary situation, but with a bit of more time, you will get your Normal back. But you are already in a New Normal: as long as you keep your needs and feelings to yourself, as you do, he is not angry (he is not mentioning the past).

His anger is of the chronic kind, it was there from the beginning of the relationship but it has taken over when he had a sort of a fall, maybe on that day that your daughter was drunk and he was afraid that she will drown, a fall that exacerbated his injuries from the original big fall as a child..  there is no way to fix his original injuries, or there is a very small chance to do so.

As you are waiting for the old normal, you may not be aware that a new normal has already been established and if you get back the title of girlfriend with him, the new normal is that of you being a quietly suffering and enduring girlfriend, focused on his needs to .. not be burdened by what you need, and what you feel.

What do you think?

anita