Another long post from me:
Today doing something fairly simple--a project with my husband--I got really angry.  It was a small trigger.  And wow, I was so so angry.  It was out of proportion to the trigger itself, and it was like a dam burst and I wanted him to hear me!  I am so frustrated that he will not hear me!  I am so frustrated that he will not see me!  I know he never will.   Why do I keep imagining he will? 

I am not used to this kind of anger, and I really yelled at him, and I know I was moving my head around a lot, because my hair kept getting in my face.  I know my husband will use anything I say against me at some point in the future.  He has already turned around things from months ago--right when things first came out--when I was expressing hurt and anger--but it was nothing like the anger I expressed today.  I think I have a right to be angry in this situation, though I don't think anyone has a right to hurt someone physically or emotionally even when angry.  but my husband is "hurt emotionally" just by me saying he hurt me.  He now talks about "all the negativity" I've directed toward him--referring to past times when I was not nearly as angry as today.  I am angry and hurt for the past 30 years of cruelty and deception; he is angry at me for expressing this and for trying to hold him responsible. (No it was NOT your dysfunctional family of origin that hurt me; it was you.)

I have worked so hard to write things out and think things out and not work out my feelings "on him."  I have about 250 locked-down digital journal entries.  I don't have all that many hours talking with him.  When I keep my anger under control, he says I am lecturing him.  And I probably am.  He says I am lecturing him even when I am just having a conversation and I am calm and not feeling anger, because I will work myself into a "matter of fact" place.  If I say he has lied to me and I say "that it felt to me like you were lying."  And he says he wouldn't call it a lie.  And then I say "it is a lie because ...."  So then he is angry at me for lecturing.  I just can't even hold him to standards of reality, it is like he does not understand basic concepts of human decency.  I can't express any feelings, or I am "scary" or "dominant" or a "bully" who just wants to "batter and bruise" him.  He just wants to go forward, he says, and work on our communication issues.  Etc.

I know this is all part of his deflection.  But I really think he totally believes it. Totally believes he is the victim to my horrible meanness, with my problem communication skills.  He says things like how I have just been so angry and yelling at him all along.  But I have not.  I have BEEN angry, and I have been emphatic and crying, and my voice raised.  But there have been only two times when I was really really yelling--today was one.

He is also acting really scared sometimes, like a child being disciplined, and feeling controlled he says--attributing me as a super scary person for something like him not calling home after work.  It's like he is cowering "please don't hurt me"--I think he totally believes this.  I think he totally believes I am really scary and that I am hurting him. Or he is a master manipulator and knows he is messing with my head and my responsible, normally even nature.

I keep talking with my therapist about this--am I really the abuser here?  Am I the narcissist?  Am I the one who is not listening?  I beg her to tell me what I need to do to change.  I have been begging her for 5 years--what is my problem?  I know I am not the abuser here, and she assures me I am not.  The reality check helps me.  I just live in Crazy Switched-Up Land.  Back at home, back in CSUL, back in close quarters, I know that anything I say "can and will be used against me." And I am immersed in the alternate reality where I am the scary person just for having feelings, and he is the sweet guy, startled and frightened by me asking him to be honest. 

I need to hold on for a while and keep everything in balance in our interactions, because I have to have a significant surgery this month, and need continued health insurance through recovery.  Also, my husband's biggest past attacks have almost always been when I am ill or have had a surgery.  So I need to keep the "all is well" mask on.  And I did NOT keep it on today, for sure.

Meanwhile, staying in the same house drains me constantly, and if I say nothing to him, everything is fine, and so then he easily "proves" how "changed" he is by being super nice. But when I express any feelings--no matter how simple--all the patterns come back.  (DARVO!  I just learned that term!)  The DARVO is in these small conversations when I speak up, and also the DARVO is just in the overall patterns of our interactions right now because of how I am not allowed to say anything at all to sweet him.  Because if I have any feelings now, he is the victim.  Because he is trying so hard not to be emotionally aggressive.  I will say that he is doing better--in the past I could have counted on attacks out of the blue.  But the patterns are still there if anything happens where he feels challenged.

I am still so hurt and angry about the past 30 years.  He still cannot articulate what he did--it was not malicious he says, etc.  He cannot articulate why I feel hurt.  He cannot even articulate that I AM hurt.  Today he said that he believes he has been so overwhelmed by his own struggles and pain that he just assumes everyone else is ok and he just has not realized all the hurt he has caused.  (I believe this is BS, TBH.)  I said, "how can you not have realized when we were begging you to see it!  When I used words to say "that hurt" and you made it my fault.  When I used words to try to discuss a concern, and you told me i was unreasonable.  When I used words to ask for accommodation for something I wanted to do.  How can he say he just assumed everyone else was OK?  I guess it did get to the point where I hardly ever expressed feelings because I could count on being dismissed.  But even when I did--he DARVO'ed. 

He SAYS he wants me to let him know when he is repeating the blaming and other destructive patterns, but when I do, I can expect an attack.  I try not to say anything about it anymore.  But sometimes I still do.  And weekends are super hard.  I need distance.  The longer I stay in the marriage, the more I fear I really do seem like a bully--and today will fuel that in his mind. 

I am not a bully.  But I really was yelling today.  I am not a yeller (though he will say I am), so this is very very upsetting to me.  It is upsetting to me just to have been yelling--this is not who I am.  This last year has been so exhausting.  But even more upsetting, is how afraid I am, because I am pretty certain this will now be twisted to me as villain.

I am a very articulate speaker--especially when angry, I am learning!-- so that is probably formidable and scary, I am sure.  AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGH!

And I apologize again for another long post.  I'm sure it is repetitive and circular.  There is so so so much I'm working through right now.  And so isolated.  And so exhausted.  Just all worn out.  I know you all understand this.

Help?