Last summer, the husband and I went to the nudist beach in Portsmouth (read about it here). That time we went to the beach was a little bit angsty, but the coffee conversation afterwards was just horrible.

Earlier this week, I’d said about going to the beach one evening and getting some fish and chips. He had a counter-proposal: the nudist beach at Portsmouth!

Gob smacked!

“Do you want to go, or not?” I’d not responded because I was surprised. I also think that I don’t always show emotions in an “expected” way. This time, I think the not reacting was down to a degree of self-preservation: last time it didn’t go so well – and we really, really struggle being in each other’s company at the moment.

Things began to unravel the night before. Originally, I’d planned for fish and chips on the beach, but he didn’t fancy going and offered to cook pizza. I said yes.

However, once I’d walked the dog, it was already half-seven and that wouldn’t have left enough time to get there and relax and get home. Or maybe it would, but I feel pressure to leave time for my husband.

Instead, I sat in the garden and read about the Anglo-Saxons for an hour, before heading back into the house.

The atmosphere in the house had changed when I went in. Husband seemed irritated and was vibrating a lot. He took his nighttime pills and disappeared up to bed, slamming the door behind him.

I don’t have the foggiest idea what that was about.

I curled up on the sofa and cuddled the dog. We watched an episode of Star Trek together. It’s her favourite show 🤪.

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The husband was up already when I came downstairs. I’d not wanted to get up.

I asked him what had upset him the night before.

I cannot remember what he said! I do remember saying that we are always starting our conversations in a heightened state of anxiety, so we don’t have far too go before either of us reaches the point of overwhelm. I could feel the vice-like grip of migraine tightening around the top of my head as he talked. The brain-glue began.

Ah ha! I have remembered something! He’d asked why I don’t start conversations any more. Answer number one was a referral to the recent marathon talk, answer number two got somewhat cerebral! I began waffling about Schrödinger’s Cat and how the cat only decides whether it’s alive or dead when the box it’s kept on is opened. I said it was like our marriage: I didn’t want to ask any questions that might collapse all the variables and result in an answer that I didn’t like – that we really were over.

That merry diversion into the realm of quantum mechanics didn’t impress my husband: he hadn’t the foggiest idea what I was rattling on about.

I know that I took a Sumatriptan and a propananol (beta blocker for anxiety), and sucked a CBD gummy, then went for a lie down for an hour.

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It was after midday when I re-emerged. I cooked us both bacon butties. These emotional conversations and the resulting overwhelm wipe out my energy reserves.

Then he asked “well?”

Apparently, he’d said something that required an answer! I didn’t have a clue.

And, worryingly, several hours later as I write this, I still don’t have a clue! I hate my brain!

I know that he feels that I keep things from him (I do – it’s so damned difficult to share anything with him).

He talked about going to a kinky club with me. He’s mentioned it before, but I’ve not followed it up – I have been afraid that he would become jealous if I did anything. I haven’t said that’s my fear – I guess that’s a secret that I am keeping from him.

I told him again if my fears around our “conversations” and referenced the last one that lasted several hours. I was exaggerating, according to him. I bloody was not!  SIX OR SEVEN HOURS he talked for last time, even disturbing me in a shutdown and scaring me half to death!

He kept saying that this was all my doing. A fair chunk of it is my fault: I kept my inner darkness from him all our life together, where his was always visible.

I won’t take all the responsibility: when I finally shared that darkness with him, I was terrified, and he responded with anger and pushed me further into it, rather than showing me the light and a way out of it.

I said that I was completely burnt out. I hadn’t taken my holiday entitlement because I could not face being stuck at home with him. At the time of writing, I have eleven and a half days out of twenty five remaining.

I admitted to him that I could not wait for him to move out: in order to recover, we need time and space without this permanent crushing anxiety tormenting both of us.

We both have parts to play.

What moved me, and moved me to tears, was when he said that I felt uncaring now – and that highlighted to him just how much I had cared for him in the past – despite him feeling like I never cared. Him recognising that I had cared, and deeply, for him touched me and loosened my tears.

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There was no beach, but there was a little warming of the temperature between us.

Perhaps, a thaw is possible.