Things are calm again.

I think that we are slowly accepting that our marriage is, and had been for a long time, broken.

This hurts, but accepting enables us to have different kinds of discussions, things like:

• Sofa choices: today he shared that he’d found a sofa he liked and showed me some pictures.
• We talked about what furniture he is going to take, and what pieces neither of us want.
• The future: we actually talked about some day one day we might come back trigger again.

I said that is really hard for me to feel the feelings of love and care that I intellectually know to be there, but cannot access. But I know that I want him to safe and happy and healing – and as I said that things to him, I felt tears in my eyes: “that I so desperately want you to be safe and happy tells me that I still love you.”

He talked about what he wanted to do with the flat to make it feel like a home.

And we shared thoughts of future holidays, which made me sad because our taste in holidays is the same. Then we talked a little about past holidays – including what was good and bad about them – both of us having a better understanding with the perspective of bitter experience and self-knowledge.

With this calmness, and a reframing of my old role of “carer” (I wasn’t very good at it, but I tried my damnedest) to “supporter” – a subtle change but a necessary one that removes a burden of responsibility from me, an imbalance in the relationship, and instead adds agency to him. The change relieves me of a burden and restores agency to him.

Together, as his supporter, we completed the application form that had caused him to have a meltdown last week. It wasn’t too difficult for me to complete this online form with him, but I swear that it was designed by somebody with a brief to make it as difficult as possible to apply for accommodation!

I also attempted to reassure him on a fear of becoming homeless that he has: as long as I have a roof over my head, I’ll make sure that he has one over him.

After that, we were both a lot calmer and I could feel more of my old feelings of warmth, love, and caring envelope him.