Dear Nan:

What a story! A few things that come to my mind (all at once, I have to slow down my thinking):

The dance of aggression: not different than in a herd of elks (have lots of those around where I live)- the subtle confrontations in a restaurant, similar to two males fighting for who is going to mate with the females. They lock horns and show their strength, subtly. They fight not till death, only to show the other who is stronger. The weaker one retreats, the stronger re-establishes dominance. The confrontation in public places are such shows, the way I see it: he, R-2 Established dominance again and again. Every time he goes on the “What about me?” rant, he is passive aggressively establishes his dominance. His dominance is… this is all about ME, I am the one that matters, not you, so … submit.

I think that you are afraid of him after only two more serious shows of aggression on his part because he established his … strength, dominance in the relationship countless times in more subtle ways.

All those years, then, he was dominant and you were dominated… regardless of you making more money or being more educated and having a higher responsibility job… regardless of these, he was the dominant one and you were the dominated one. Hence, you are afraid to confront, to assert, to initiate a separation.

In a small percentage of situations like yours, indeed the spouse does injure and kill the one that is trying to separate. Most of the times, this does not happen. The show of dominance is most often, just that, a show. As convincing as it is… as long as it works to scare the other into submission…

I think that you are afraid. At that scene in The Bridges of Madison County, I realized only a couple of days ago, that when she held the handle of the door of the truck following her version of R-1, she didn’t open the door because she was afraid. At that moment it was not guilt or anything else but fear. Now her …version of R-2 was not at all aggressive, like yours. She had other reasons to be afraid, simply the change, leaving the familiar.

Back to you, there are probably different fears, leaving the familiar is one. His successful shows of aggression is another.

Baby steps… Tell me about the baby step you are engaged in now…

anita