For the first time since last summer, my counsellor came to the house for my session.

I lit a joss stick to help create a sense of calm.

When he arrived he noticed the sense of cam in the house and that the angst and chaos were gone. That felt good that it was so obvious.

After he said hello to the dog and endured her love-headbutts, we sat on the rug and the session began.

Firstly, he asked me about the van driving – that was a fun story to recount about the meltdown I had trying to reverse up the back lane. I observed that my husband and I were very often a good team during practical things.

I said about the times we’d had a coffee since then. One time husband was so anxious that he was scatter-brained and you might have thought that he had dementia. The second time how it got a bit difficult, especially when I mentioned going to London again.

My counsellor is very much for me experimenting and exploring myself. I get a lot of value from his encouragement and validation of my feelings.

We looked at the question of “what are we?” meaning what exactly is the relationship between my husband and me. I said that I strongly felt that we needed to work on friendship before anything else – we have never had that and that feels to me like an essential underpinning of any relationship. Without it, we would simply fall into the same toxicity that we always have done.

Richard (counsellor) said that we needed to establish some boundaries and possibly have a sort of embargo on time we spend together. This confused me initially – was Richard saying that we shouldn’t see each other?

It was rather that we should limit what we talk about a little, and maybe restrict time that we spend with each other.

OK, that made sense.

Maybe sharing about my trip to London to play with Cicero and his friends was oversharing.

I do want to be able to say anything to my husband, but of all the people in my life – and I overshare with most of them – he is the one person that I regularly under-share with.

Richard asked me why that was: the risk associated with sharing my feelings, managing his reactions and emotions before I have even processed my own, the perceived fragility in my marriage, the risk of triggering an episode in him.

That’s a lot to handle before I even get to my own feelings.

Richard said about removing expectations of where our relationship will go. Maybe we will only every be friends again. If one day we do come back together as a couple, that belongs to an unknowable future – attempting to force it most likely will break it – again, without gently addressing the underlying issues of our relationship, we would simply recreate it in its worst state.

I was very emotional at this point. I said that we needed time to recover and decompress. Richard said “what about you?” – I need to time to think in terms of “me” and “I” rather than “us” and “we”.

I hope that my husband will appreciate the things that I could do for him – the basic safety of providing a home, the lack of financial worries, the ability for him to work on the home and not worry about money, my advocating for him, calling ambulances, chasing medications, and generally caring for him. I want him to offset all the good I’ve done against the harm and hurt I have caused him. I also want him to offset the pain he caused me. Basically – I just do not want to have these heavy, difficult conversations again.

I became aware that the session was making me feel anxious and that I have a whistling in my ear – both are alerts to a migraine storm coming.

Hydration and rest were indicated and the storm came to nothing except a feeling of being drained.

I guess feeling emotionally drained, but that tells me that this was a good and necessary session.