Matt,

Thanks for your insights! To answer your questions, I think I am guilty of dumping stress and expecting her to respond with specific tones of empathy and comfort. As you imply, I would probably have better results asking more directly. But I also think I have more visceral/primal urges to dump stress, and that’s a difficult urge to control, even if it’s on rare occasions.

I fear we’re perfectly matched, but in a bad way. She expects me to not express any anger or sadness, I expect her to react to my anger or sadness with comfort. Neither of us is being fair to each other, or to ourselves.

We’ve known each other for 35 years and have been together as a couple for 23 years. We still have lots of work to do.

I’m open to any suggestions on the framework for letting go.