I began seeing a counselor in August. My goal for therapy was to process and work through my feelings of ambivalence about continuing in marriage. I wrote about his response to this in the last post.

Shortly thereafter, he began to complain that I had not put enough effort into marriage counseling for the two of us. I reminded him that 5 months before that had been tasked to him. This upset him. He excused his failure to do so with claims that he tried but was not able to find anyone who could see us. Then he accused me of not helping him find a marriage counselor, and told me that “if it was so easy, you do it.”

“No.” I replied. “That was something I said I needed you to do in April to demonstrate that our marriage is important to you. You telling me or challenging me to do it does not show me that you care about our marriage. Therefore, I will go on my own.” This triggered a retort related to the absurdity of going to marriage counseling alone. I let him know that he was welcome to go see someone, if he wanted to work on his marriage.

Within a couple of weeks, he began to see a counselor who had previously provided marriage counseling for us. I was surprised and delighted. I also wondered what they would talk about. I shared this with my therapist, and have worked to release my husband’s emotional development to his counselor. Other than this, September brought no significant notable changes.

I had an unplanned conversation with a realtor-friend in September. Somehow, the conversation landed in theorizing how much equity I have in our home. We had been talking about getting a home equity loan to do some long-discussed, but never yet possible improvements. Hmmm….