Wanting What He Wants

We are at a stalemate.

Our needs are incompatible and non-negotiable.

I want security and she wants freedom.

I want joint decisions and she doesn't want anyone to tell her what to do.

I want honest discussions where I can have reactions and she needs to know how what she says will b taken before she says it.

I want my house to be my safe harbor, where I can exclude the world, and she wants it to be a place where she can share her world and have those people welcomed unconditionally.

Her crazy is driving me crazy and mine is driving her crazy.

"No one has asked what I want!" he yelled at me in my bedroom. And he was right.

The next weekend: "You're going to leave. Even if you didn't, we couldn't live on our own together because we'd kill each other. So you're going to leave. Then she's going to move him in and I won't last with them, so I'll leave. So just shut up and let me pretend like nothing is wrong so I can enjoy my family being together while I can."

I didn't think my heart could break more but it did.

Later, I knelt by his chair, with tears in my eyes. "I don't want you to not have your family. So I'll just try to do what you want. What you decide, I will try my best to live with."

I'm trying.