I found this very revealing dialogue I wrote to my ex husband during our time at Retrouvaille, a marriage workshop we went to to try to save our marriage.  The exercise was to write about “What do I have trouble talking to you about?  How do I feel trusting you with this?”   I forgot how terrified I was of him. How I was always walking on eggshells around him.   What a relief to know I don’t have to deal with this crap anymore.

Here’s what I wrote:

“I have trouble telling you that I need space/distance/to get away from you.  I have trouble telling you that I feel smothered by you sometimes and I resent having to take care of you.  I think it’s the resentment about caretaking that makes me really uncomfortable—and my wanting distance too.  I don’t feel particularly nervous about writing this because I think you know I feel this way—but at the moment I usually feel nervous telling you what I need, or my resentments because I’m afraid you’ll get angry.  

I also don’t feel I have a right to my feelings.  I think that’s a big part of our problem.  I rarely feel I have the right to want what I want or feel the way I feel.  I feel you should come first and I should come second—even though I may not act that way.

I have trouble telling you about anything that might make you angry.  I feel I have to be soothing instead.  I have trouble telling you what I want or need in general and am very grateful when you figure it out on your own, like today when you knew I wanted to watch TV and you took care of Freda.  But I had trouble telling you that I was upset about your behavior last night.  You knew it anyway.  I did tell you that I didn’t like you telling Wendy (my girlfriend) to leave but I didn’t feel I had a right to feel that way.