Last night we talked again. About the only way I can atone for past behaviour is to listen and give my husband space to talk. It’s a difficult tightrope to walk: he needs to know that I am actively listening and not just a void into which he pours his words with no affect on me (that’s old behaviour). So I question sometimes, I tell him how his words make me think, sometimes I do say “that’s not what it was”. I hold the more extreme reactions back so that they do not deflect and divert the attention from him – for example, some of how I feel during these conversations is beyond uncomfortable: I seriously want to self-harm somehow – I might have banded my balls too death in the past, obviously I can’t do that now and i can’t think what else to do, which I suppose is a good thing. I’d really like to get drunk.

Unwinding and sleeping is hard after an evening like that, and sleeping on the sofa doesn’t help, even though the sofa is quite a comfy sleep. I have the start of a migraine, so I’ll take something to stop it developing.

It’s worth noting that, without looking back in this blog, I don’t remember the last remarkable hot flush was.

He had asked twice now for me to say “two little words”. I do not want to say them. I do not want us to be over, but he is asking why I stayed with him. Why shouldn’t he be asking this?

When we met, he was the perfect man for me: physically he ticked every box, he was older than me (I’ve always gone for “daddy” types), and he was in AA. Alcoholism runs in my family and goes back generations; with my husband in recovery there was (in my mind) no risk of me ending up in an alcoholic relationship. I stopped drinking to support him and was happy to do so. He was wise and insightful and I put him onto a pedestal.

We had been together about two years and had been living together for about one when my husband had a personal crisis and fell off the wagon. At the same time he fell off the pedestal. I never really forgave him. “Do you think I failed?” he asked the other day, to which I had to answer honestly “yes”, but then qualified it by saying that in reality it wasn’t him that failed – it was me.

I lacked compassion and empathy and allowed his illness to excuse every bad character trait and behaviour that I had. I didn’t need to look at myself, I had a ready made answer that enabled me to feel shiny and good and fully inhabit the role of “victim”. That’s not to say that my husband wasn’t occasionally physically and verbally abusive, it is to say that I used those behaviours of my husband – which he only exhibited when ill – as all the reason I needed to pile as much of my shame onto him. Those only made him more ill and the cycle repeated and repeated.

So the question: why am I still with him?

Love. That isn’t enough. Certainly not the way I have sometimes expressed it. Love is more than just a warm fuzzy feeling, it has to be action. He gives me the warm fuzzy feeling still; I guess that I don’t do the same for him. I believe that he loves me.

I care for him. I have cared very much. I have been his carer. I care what happens to him. I believe that he cares for me. His expression of that care has been far superior to my care for him.

My life is richer for having him in it. I have experienced so much that I would never have experienced without him. I have been places that I would never have been without him. I believe that I have been the same source of adventure to him.

But not accepting him as he was? No – that wasn’t it: I would express how I felt in the cruelist way to prevent being challenged and being questioned. I was so fucking insecure. No wonder he questions whether I love him. The love I gave him wasn’t worth shit.

I’ve resented him for not being that ideal that I had in my mind. I have punished him for my failures. This question of whether we open our relationship or not hurt him; I’ve asked for it because I know that it is wrong to continually ask for him to deliver things to me that are not in him to give. I’m afraid that I want more than he can give. I’m afraid that I’m selfish. I’m afraid of not exploring myself. I’m afraid of not doing those things that are in me to try.

But I also want him to go on his own adventure of discovery. I want him to have the same things that I have found – inner peace, community, a sense of freedom and fun.

I’m afraid of losing him.

I want my cake and to eat it.

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Random thought: when I was castrated my underwear (and trousers) all felt looser and more comfortable. Since I’ve been doing less exercise, eating the same amount (or more), and not having testosterone, my weight has slowly crept up: what felt loose three months ago are now starting to feel tight! I don’t like it!