Danielle always felt like she was walking on eggshells* with me.  Why do you feel like you’re walking on eggshells with me? For four and a half years I have bitten my tongue because I was walking on eggshells with you!  Four and a half years!  Four and a half years just spinning your wheels and you making progress, but me just dangling.  I don’t want to have to think about our relationship all the fucking time.  I just want to be comfortable and not worry about saying the wrong thing that could mean the end of us.  We weren’t getting anywhere as a couple, but you were getting somewhere as a lesbian. You were so worried that I’d get angry or upset when you were drawing away from me which made you believe that you were walking on eggshells with me, but I would bite my tongue during therapy and at home because I didn’t want to start a fight because it was our marriage in the balance.  You didn’t want me to get upset or angry and I was trying to save our marriage.  Do you see the difference?  If not, let’s use the shell analogy.  If we actually were walking on egg shells, your shells were from the Goldcrest** while my shells were from the freaking Ostrich***.  But you know what?  I am angry.  What are you doing to Emily?  What are you doing to me?  How dare you hurt our family and play games with my emotions like this.  I’m not a toy or a pet that you can go to when you need affection and then put aside when you don’t need me anymore.  I’m your husband of twenty fucking years.  I deserve better!

 Some things I had to calculate in my head;

“Do I hold her hand?” 

“Should I initiate snuggling or is that too much?” 

“Do I recommend a date night? Or is that too loving?    

This is the stuff that I had to deal with.  If I do too much it drives her away, if I do too little I feel neglected.  This is a no win scenario.   Imagine my 24/7 goal was to save the marriage and family.  It broke me.   Also, I couldn’t get angry or upset no matter what you said in therapy because if I get angry or upset, it may drive you away.  If I keep it inside then my anger and sadness grows and my passion for anything is gone.  It’s like you were searching for things to complain about because in therapy, you would bring up the one time in a month that you didn’t feel good about what I said rather than the rest of the month when things were fine.   It almost felt like you wanted me to initiate the separation.  You could have and should have gone to stay with your mom or a friend to figure it out and not wait for me to do it because I was 110% in the marriage.  Another frustrating thing was that it seemed that when I drew away and was cold to her was when she would become more romantic.   But being cold, distant, and withdrawn**** is not me, but when being nice, loving, and kind***** isn’t working, I kind of have to do it.  But there’s a point when this CDW Eric persona upsets Danielle and she’ll tell me that she can’t take me acting like this and then I get scared and go back to the NLK Eric persona where I’m snuggling and holding hands even when the therapist has told me not to do it.  I sincerely didn’t know what I needed to do at that time.  I was lost.  

*The expression “walking on eggshells” originates from the 1800s. In these times, people would collect eggs from the hen houses, taking care not to walk on any broken eggshells that might disturb the birds 

**Smallest eggs on the planet

***Largest eggs on the planet

****CDW

*****NLK