After counselling on Friday, I thought to talk to my husband about a few things that had come up. In particular, I recognise that the way I have responded when he’s said that he’s feeling fat and not good about his body wasn’t very good: is make a flat denial such as “you’re not fat!”, which doesn’t give him any opportunity to explore why he’s feeling that way. He started saying that he’s old, and I want him to feel better about himself.

I asked him about it before lunch, but he wasn’t prepared to talk about it then because he was concerned that I’d be worrying about eating. I said we could talk and eat, or we could talk after lunch. It was talk after lunch.

After we’d eaten, he began.

Firstly, he said that he worked hard to separate what happened to him before we met from what has happened since. I am not accountable for what happened before we became a couple.

The things I’ve said and done since we got together I am accountable for. That’s fair.

He talked for quite some time. I tried to interrupt at one point, I don’t recall why, but he said that he was in a flow and wanted to keep talking, so I kept quiet.

I remember at on one occasion that I tried to bring him back to the initial question of how he was feeling about his age and body and how I could better help. The conversation seemed to not want to go there, or maybe this talk really was all about those things, in which case it was me who was missing the point.

Things eventually turned back to the episode with the floor guy. He said that he didn’t believe that I hadn’t instigated things.

I said that I didn’t start things with him because I thought he was straight.

He still didn’t believe me. Fine. “Why did you share that we were an open relationship swimmer you thought was straight?” He asked.

“Because I didn’t think there was anything wrong in sharing it: he asked where you were, I’d just said that you were having fun in Manchester and seemed to want to know what that meant, and he just kept asking me questions.”

“But you wouldn’t share that kind of thing with anybody else!” Said the husband.

“Uh. Yes I have. I told my New Zealand friend…”

I think that surprised him.

The husband thinks that I got what I wanted when I had the encounter with the flooring guy. Really I didn’t. That wasn’t what I wanted, I wanted kinky sex, not a quick fumble. It really only happened because I’d thought that it would be ok and would mean that I was no longer waiting for husband to do something first to make it ok for me to do it.

The husband wants me to apologise for the incident. I regret that it has caused him so much unhappiness, but in the scope of an open relationship and what we had discussed about it, I don’t think I’d done anything wrong. To apologise would therefore be wrong.

Then he asked “of all the things I’ve said today, why did you react to the flooring guy?”

It was the last thing he’d said and I didn’t have to stretch my brain to remember what he’d shared earlier. In fact, I didn’t have a clear memory of what he’d said to begin with.

My husband then started a bit of a rant at me about what’s the point in him talking if I’m just going to forget. I asked him (in as kind a tone as I could) to be quiet for a moment while I thought. He was good enough to leave me to reflect for a a few minutes.

In my mind I tried to replay the conversation. There were chunks of time that were definitely missing and I do not know what was said. I reflected that I really needed to be more involved in conversations and to have them broken into smaller pieces. I’m afraid that I said that he “went on and on”, which wasn’t a great way to express my feelings (I apologised for that).

I said that I wanted to do things differently, to be better able to listen and support him so I wanted to understand what he needed.

I recognised the need to interact with him more in conversation – besides, he has often complained that it can feel like taking into a void when he’s talking to me because I don’t always respond (for whatever reason), and keeping actively involved in the conversation would help with that. As would breaks and movement.

I got upset and a little teary. He asked why.

“I’m sad for all three of us,” I said. Then realised that it needed explaining: “you, me, and us – the relationship.” I explained that I wanted today to be different. And I hoped that we’d get intimate afterwards.

I said that I find it difficult to feel any desire for sex with him when we have these conversations where he gets angry. When he’s angry I feel pushed away from him; if we were to be intimate, then he would need to pull me towards him.

When I shared that there were chunks I couldn’t remember, he started to get angry and loud.

He accused me of being emotionless and robotic in my answers. He’s said that so many times in the past. Not fair! At least I’m communicating.

He was angry that I didn’t want sex with him and thought that I was trying to push him into having sex outside the marriage to make it ok for me to go outside for sex. That wasn’t what I’d said nor my intention.

That’s when the shutdown started.

I don’t totally remember how I got there, but I ended up in bed. I curled up under the covers fully clothed and stayed there, unmoving, for over two hours.

Coming out of it was like fighting my way out of a stone cocoon and took a lot of energy. I couldn’t talk for a while afterwards.

It was too late to go out for food, so it was more bread and cheese for tea, which I was ok with.

He seemed calm and gentle when I came downstairs, which helped me to recover.

We watched TV for a bit, then suddenly his mood changed.

“What’s the point in me talking if you don’t remember anything?” he was angry again. Shortly afterwards, he went to bed. He didn’t say goodnight.

When I went up to bed, I began to write these notes on what had happened in an attempt to recover the list sections of the conversation.

It seems that they are lost.