Dear Lou92:

Thank you so much for the last paragraph, how kind of you to bother and tell me these things, wanting me to feel good about myself. You are incredible!

“Funnily enough, he would be willing to resolve once I’d lost my temper and stormed out. He would always be the one to come and make the first move at repairing. Not sure why“-

-seems to me that the reason is this: while stonewalling you, his anger was suppressed (pushed down, as in holding his breath and keeping his anger in). When you expressed your anger, storming out, he sort of hitched a ride on your expression and released his anger. No longer holding his breath, relaxed,  and seeing you storming out, he was scared that you will leave him, so he went after you.

I think that he experiences a mix of anger at you, and fear that you will leave him. When his anger is down, his fear that you will leave him goes up, and the other way around.

“He has agreed to go to private therapy, which I have arranged for him, so that’s progress, right? It’s psychodynamic  therapy too so really going to delve deep into his childhood“-

– If he talks and gets in touch with how angry he felt growing up with his mother, his current positively pleasant yet infrequent interactions with her will change, I imagine. Maybe his current pleasant relationship with his father will change as well. Hopefully, his anger will be redirected away from you and back to where it belongs (his parents, his stepmother), and that will be a great progress.

“We spoke this morning, where he said he was upset because he just wants things to ‘go back to normal’ – I wanted to ask if he meant before he started doing all of these mind games, or just before I found out about it”-

– I think (and I can’t be sure, of course), that in his rush for things to be back to the old “normal”, he agreed to go to therapy. His motivation: to satisfy your requirement for going back to the old normal, not so to create a.. new normal.

“Hopefully the therapy will teach him how to stop stonewalling, and learn how to communicate more effectively.  I have always said that communication is the key to a healthy relationship. And he used to agree. I would like to say the proof is in the pudding there. Because his lack of communication over the past year has brought us to this point”-

– I like the term the proof is in the pudding. Interesting to me, in his lack of communication, of verbal lack of communication, he did communicate quite a bit. He communicated his anger and fear, that mix I mentioned earlier in this post.

Thank you again for your kindness and please post again any time you feel like it, and I will reply.

anita