In the interim

I'm trying to catch up with some past events in order to get to the point where it will make sense to explain where I'm at now. You probably should read my previous post before you read this one.

Also, I do plan on responding to your comments and would right now, but my kids are waking up so my chance for doing so today is gone. I really will get to them though. 

On Sunday morning we were up and out of the house right away for our day-long drive to our out-of-town-for-three-weeks destination (a work-related trip for my husband and a visit family and friends trip for my children and me). Everything went smoothly and I felt great. I was still so glad I had talked to my husband (H) the night before (really excited and proud of myself still, actually) and I felt at ease about determining in the car when we would talk and waiting patiently until then.

I mentally approached the car ride knowing that there was a good chance I would have to bring up the topic of choosing a time for our conversation to be, and this was good, because I did. After a few minutes though, we determined we would wait until after our trip to talk (during our trip we would be sharing a hotel room with our children and therefore not have any privacy), and that we would determine the timing of that talk on our car ride home. Part of me was a little disappointed we didn't have a firm date, but overall I still felt so good about everything and just looked forward to setting the date on our trip home.

Fast forward through a very logistically difficult and overall quite stressful three weeks (for the entire family, but especially my husband due to additional work stress) to our day-long drive home. Again, part of me had hoped that H would bring up the topic of our discussion, but when we were more than half way home and he hadn't, I wasn't surprised and knew that I needed to bring it up. When I asked him if he had thought of a time for us to talk, he replied, "I don't know," and then was silent. For several minutes. Which is not unusual for H. He is an introvert and really struggles to express himself any time he's feeling any emotion, so I've learned to wait patiently for him to formulate responses in sensitive conversations. But I've also learned that sometimes he withdraws completely from a conversation, and I could wait until the end of my life and never here him respond to something without further prodding. So after a few minutes I asked again and got the same response and the same resulting silence. I decided to give it more time. After at least 20 minutes (I kid you not) of total silence in our car (our children were sleeping) I asked him one more time and when he gave me the same response plus a little hemming and hawing about not wanting to talk but not wanting to wait to talk I suggested we talk Sunday night and he hesitantly agreed.

For the rest of the ride he was subdued, to say the least, but I chalked it up to traveling fatigue. When we arrived home H had less gas left in his tank than our car did, and hit the sack almost immediately after the kids were down. I knew he wasn't doing well, but attributed it to the long day in the car and the need to turn-off after a very demanding three weeks. 

The next morning (the first Sunday in February) I started fasting with the purpose of preparing for my discussion with H. Because I recently weaned my youngest child, this was actually the first time I've fasted in over a year and a half. This child actually was weaned a few months younger than my previous child was, and a little sooner than I anticipated/originally wanted, but I see it as a tender mercy that I had the ability to fast in preparation for this discussion. I would also like to share that while out of town, I received a Priesthood blessing by someone close to me who knows about my situation and was told that in relation to my discussion with H I would be blessed to know a direct path for our family to proceed in.

I assumed that when H woke up Sunday morning he would be himself, having recooperated from the day before in his sleep. But this was not the case. Even after a long nap and an entire day to rest and lounge (he is not active in the church, so he gets extra downtime every Sunday) his behavior had not improved. There was a small part of me that almost gave serious thought to the option of postponing the talk. And if this scenario had arisen more than a few weeks ago, I might have. But I knew there would never be a good time to talk and I felt confident in holding us accountable for having the discussion at the time we had appointed.