In our marriage, we had occasionally gone to sleep angry but never let it carry out more than one day. Not this time. Over the next week, Hahna proceeded to use psychological warfare she learned from her time living on military bases as a child. Joking of course but she was a master at it. I just wanted to talk through things and come to an agreement. She would agree to talk through things “later” and then refuse to talk to me when the time came. The stress was getting to me and I wasn’t sleeping well as this was the longest we’d ever gone without working things out. We would get the kids down and then I would ask to talk and she would say she was too tired or she would fall asleep in their beds.
One evening, I asked her if she was having an affair and she got very offended with me for having the audacity to ask her that. I didn’t really believe it but threw it out there in my frustration (teaser: she did). It became a big sticking point with her that would eventually come up in counseling.
Thanksgiving was approaching and some of my family was coming into town. I again asked her to discuss it but she wouldn’t. I told her I thought we should cancel my family coming in given how things were going but she said we should still do it. She eventually said let’s get through Thanksgiving and then we’ll talk. What’s that old line about Fool me once…Yeah, I was fooled multiple times so shame on me.
We got through Thanksgiving but she still wasn’t talking. She had never believed in budgeting limits and one day surprised me with news that she had gone out and bought a new phone as hers wasn’t working (teaser: it wasn’t and I have said non-working phone now). She said she traded in the old phone to save some money on the new one. Sure you did. She used to leave her phone on the counters around the house and not have it on her half the time. In my paranoia about what was going on, I noticed she started carrying the phone with her at all times. I asked her what the code was for her new phone and she told me. One night when I couldn’t sleep, I got the phone and tried to enter the access code but it didn’t work. Of course if I called her on that, I would be the bad guy for trying to get on her phone but I was completely at my wits’ end and desperate to figure out what was going on.
I used to always pat her bottom when I walked by and one of the days I did it, she proceeded to tell me she didn’t like it when I did it. If I tried to hug her, she would only give me half hugs. Despite the fact I couldn’t access the phone the first time I tried, I was determined to try to see what was going on. I would go into whichever kid’s room she had fallen asleep in and see if I could get the phone. Several times she woke up in the process. She would later use this as fodder to tell her friends as to why she was physically afraid of me. This was an insane situation but I never came close to hurting her or touching her in anger yet suddenly I was a “threat” to her.
My work had an employee assistance program that offered a few sessions of free counseling. I finally got Hahna to agree to counseling which I set up for a few weeks out. The day before counseling, I came home from work early as I was exhausted from a lack of sleep. I discussed it with her and she told me she still loved me and asked me if having sex later that night would help with things. I of course said yes because what ailment does sex not cure. Later that evening, we had sex but it wasn’t the same and for some reason, it felt like she was having it with me for the last time (which it was).
My buddy had told me that the counseling would be good and that generally, counselors were pretty logical and it wouldn’t go over well with Hahna because of the logic. The session went well enough but Hahna dredged up a multitude of things from years in the past and still seemed a bit distant. Towards the end of the session, the counselor said that if we want to move forward, we have to forgive each other for the past. She had me apologize to Hahna for what I had done, which I did, although most of the things she brought up I had already apologized for when they happened. She had Hahna apologize for how she had handled the last few weeks of psychological stress which Hahna did. This was her reason for never going back to counseling as she had done no wrong in her opinion.
Fun fact: her father, who enabled a lot of her behavior, brought this topic up with me a few months later. How dare the counselor suggest his daughter apologize for not talking to me about issues?
Although Hahna told friends she had tried counseling with me for years and I had always refused, this was the only time we ever did counseling. I set up a follow up counseling session for a few weeks later. We left there that day with me thinking we were in a pretty good spot and things were going to get better. My ability to not read situations should be quite apparent by now and a good reason why I never played quarterback.