It started around Thanksgiving, I suppose. My husband did one of his little mechanisms, which was the 'silent treatment.' He did it for reasons I understand. I left him alone to stew with the family while I went off and had fun with my mom and my sister. For three whole hours--what torture! ;) I had said I wouldn't, but I did. He made us leave and go home. All the while he wouldn't talk.

The problem with the silent treatment is, he cuts off his emotional energy and becomes cold and distant. And when he's done that, it hurts more than you'd think. He did it twice before, and I said if he tried it again, I was going to leave. And I meant it! I said to myself, "The countdown has begun!" My youngest is out of high school in four years. Just let me get a career and I'm gone!

Well, we talked it out. I told him I felt scared, alone, and angry. I don't think he quite got the seriousness of giving me the silent treatment, but he did understand when I said I needed him to be a friend to me.

We had that talk about maybe three or four weeks later, and it was a good thing to do. I'm still doing a lot of changing and have still not ruled out leaving, but as long as we keep working things out, I'll stay. I feel sorry that if he should ever have a crisis, I might be gone. So, along with not wanting to hurt my kids, I'd want to help him if he had trouble. But like other people having a MLC I would love to have something exciting happen.

I'm not going to compromise my soul. I've been wishing I'd gone into the military, but then thought maybe that's symbolic of some other wish. I can still go into the peace corps!

Feelings: deep hate. Frustration. Wanted to hurt him--blow up his spirit, crush his hand and rip it with my fingernails.

Other feelings: deep appreciation and caring.

He listened. I could tell because he said back to me what he'd heard me saying, and it was accurate.