Overwhelming change

Yesterday I was chatting with a friend, when the penny dropped and I understood something about my husband.

I realised just how uncomfortable and resistant to change I can be. It somebody (eg husband or a colleague) suggests something new my initial feeling is to push back against it. After a while (hours or days or weeks … or maybe even months) my brain has got itself around it and I am comfortable with it and ready embrace this change.

I realised how many changes my husband has had to deal with: I am non-binary, I am a eunuch, I am ASD, I don’t feel jealousy the way he does, I am very kinky, and so on.

No wonder the poor chap feels overwhelmed a lot of the time!

I shared this insight with him when I got home. he said “thank you, that means a lot”.

Comfort blanket

After tea, I hovered around while he had a cig. He asked me if I wanted to talk.

“You know the other day (or whenever) you asked whether I felt that the duvet I bought form the flat was like a comfort blanket? I have had a think, and it does feel like that – I love it and I feel safe all cocooned up inside it.”

It seems that the husband feels that I am carving our our bedroom as my own space because I don’t like the black and red and love my duvet. I think that he sees the silver duvet that I bought for the flat as somehow a trigger for him feeling unhappy because I was happy in my flat.

I think the change is that I am now able to say what I like, whereas before I went along with what he liked because I didn’t feel confidence enough to speak my preferences.

To be fair, he’s probably hearing a lot of “I like this” and “I don’t like that”.

I suppose that he is actually learning who I am – which goes back to that first thing I said about him being overwhelmed by change.

Wish I’d kept me mouth shut!

The thing is, once I’d opened up the can-of-worms that is conversation, he couldn’t stop and went on for ninety minutes or so.

I feel that he is being one-sided in how he talks about the past, refusing me to add context to my behaviours and things I have said, which feels unfair. He gets louder, I shut up.

I didn’t quite zone out, but when he was finished, I was done. I went to bed, read for maybe ten or twenty minutes, and then went to sleep.

Funny, when I am near-overwhelm, sleep comes easily sometimes as though it is the ultimate escape.

Low mood

Today I feel in a very low mood, which hasn’t passed at all today. I have felt impatient with colleagues and the many, many meetings I have been in have worn me down.

The only highlight has been chatting with a young friend and hearing about the sexpoilts of him and his dads. He’s not long recovered from a serious and life-threatening illness and I am very glad and grateful that I am somebody he has chosen to reconnect with.