3 weeks

Over the past 3 weeks, Tom and I have been trying to be less dependent on each other, and more focused on doing what we want. This is part of his attempt to work out what will make him happy (which makes me suspect he isn't entirely realistic about what 'happiness' means). It's a really strange situation to be in, because I'm not sure most of the time whether I should include him in my plans or not, and he doesn't seem to know what he wants or expects either.

The biggest effect of this new regime is that we don't plan to eat together during the week. This is hardly ground-breaking, considering that during a normal week I'm out on Mondays and Tuesdays (Italian and knitting), and he's often out with work at least one other evening. Also, he's really getting into the way we ask each other questions (or rather the way I ask him things - he's as tactless and, quite frankly, patronising as ever). Apparently, 'Would you like to see this film with me?' is hurtful, as it makes a refusal sound as though he doesn't want to spend time with me, when actually he just doesn't fancy seeing 'Burn After Reading'. Er, really? If someone says 'No thanks, I don't really want to see that.' to me, I just assume they don't want to see the film, not that the concept of 3 hours in my company is abhorrent to them.

The other major problem I'm having is that he seems to be projecting emotions and reactions onto me. We did some housework, including a trip to our storage unit, earlier today. This is never my favourite pastime, but I got on with it, didn't bitch and even made some jokes about the runner we passed sans socks. From Tom's perspective though, reluctance was 'radiating off me' and he sniped and snarked at me until I left him to it when we got home. Fast-forward 40 minutes to a big, blazing row which cleared the air a little, but left me totally drained. He's at work now. I just wish that he would talk to me if he thinks I have a problem with something. I'll tell him if I do, but if I don't know that he thinks I do, that makes everything really complicated.