Sleeping late

Better nights sleep

At one point in the night I woke up on the wrong side, I rolled back onto my right side. Ouch! That really hurt! But then the pain was gone and I slept several hours pain-free.

I’m aching again this morning and getting a little down.

Treasure hunt

I was eventually awakened at half-nine in the morning by my phone pinging: the husband was saying good morning and could I bring some things with me when I see him later please.

I’ve agreed to meet up with the husband this morning. He’s given me a list of things to bring. Finding even a close match is difficult. For a start, the back bedroom is full of stuff from the dining/lounge area. Then finding an exact match for what he wants is also difficult. I’ve been sending him pictures to try and work out whether I’ve got the right thing.

I shouldn’t be, but I’m feeling tired and a little bit low, almost like crying. I don’t know what that is about.

Winchester with the husband

In the afternoon I drove over to Winchester to see my husband. He’s staying in a supported living centre outside Winchester for a while – they have assessments every week to see whether they are ready to return home, which he finds exceedingly stressful.

I gave him a kiss when we met – we do miss each other.

As I started to program the phone to direct me into the city, he said that he knew the way into Winchester. I thought “this could be fun” and I also thought “this could benefit him in someway”. Since it wasn’t far, I let him direct me. He was lost within a few minutes, but he had us close enough for me to be able to find the rest of the way.

Once in Winchester, we found somewhere to park. It was busy, being market day, so parking was harder to find than I had expected.

Once parked, I gave him a long hug, and then we walked to Costa on the High Street. ON the way I asked him if he would be OK helping me move out of the flat when the time came (because with my back doing on my own would be quite painful – if I was able to do it at all).

It was bloody noisy, so I struggled to hear him over the coffee machines, music, and chatter.

Coffee shops

The talk

He talked about a few things:

• Whether I was ASD or not, he still sees it as “self-diagnosis” and got out of a book. He does seem somewhat dismissive of book-knowledge. I think I need to investigate that further at some point. Sometimes he seems to get where I am coming from.
• I said that some of my behaviours might be learnt (“behavioural” he’d say), ASD, or the result of trauma – I didn’t want to say that his illness has bloody traumatised me!
• We still don’t know what we are.
• I talked about spending “intentional” time together (whether we live together or not), so that we can both find fulfilment on our but when we are together we are focussed on each other completely/. I don’t think he quite understood – I think I need to work on explaining it better.
• He talked a lot about my behaviour. I do not know what to say because a) nothing I say will change the past and it is not enough to say “I know” or “I accept that”, and b) I want to scream “what about your behaviour?” but somehow that’s neither fair nor allowed because he was ill and he knows it impacted on me.
• However, it came across from him as rather a barrage of ill-feeling towards me. He hurts. I get that. But I am also left feeling “why are you even bothering to talk to me if I am that bloody awful?” and “Why don’t we just give up now?”

He went to the loo, but on finding that it was disgusting, we decided to find a different place.

More positive

We found this cycle-shop-cum-café not far way; it had a nice relaxed atmosphere and I could hear better. The coffee was very nice, and I had this cake which was rather like an undercooked brownie topped with cornflakes in caramel. It was delicious, but also very sweet and I felt a little bit ill afterwards!

The conversation turned a little lighter and we talked about the house a bit.

He said that he had this idea to create a soft-divide (a curtain) between the lounge area and the dining area. The lounge would be more his space (ie decorated to his liking), whereas the dining area would be more to my taste. He suggested getting a smaller table and a little sofa. I felt really very moved by this suggestion.

When I left him, I felt good about seeing him and more positive about our future.

However, my back is KILLING me again.