Not sure what I want

[capybara]

Some background... For the first decade plus of our marriage, I thought uBPDH was depressed and introverted. He definitely had some red flags of anger which I just accepted as normal, but they were rare.

That changed in 2015 and for about 3 years, our marriage was very high-conflict. I had never experienced fighting like that in my life, and it was awful.

Now we are going to couples counselling and things are much better, and the fighting is much less. But the thought of trying to develop more closeness in our relationship makes me anxious and sad. I don't know if it's possible to come back from everything we went through. Should I try to get him to acknowledge how bad it was for me? Will it help me? Will it be unbearably shame-inducing for him? Or should I try to focus on the future and fighting to have more of my priorities in the relationship? Either way seems so difficult and discouraging.

[coyote]

capybara,
It is a difficult situation to be sure. IME it really does not help to try to get a PD partner to acknowledge how they are making it bad for the other person. It usually just leads to a lot of Circular Arguments and gaslighting. I would suggest you check out the Toolbox. In my marriage learning to set Boundaries, not JADE, avoid Circular Conversations, and Medium Chill have made all the difference. I also keep in mind the 51% rule and the 3C's. There are some good books out there also which you will find in the library here. I hope this helps. Let us know how it is going please.

[not broken]

You mention fighting  to have more of your priorities in the marriage....I am sorry you feel that you have to fight to have your priorities recognized.  No one can tell you what you should do, only you can answer that for yourself.  I would suggest validating your own values, beliefs and feelings.  Also, I agree wholeheartedly that your focus should not be on having him acknowledge how bad it was for you- it is my experience that all this accomplishes is a never ending battle of who is right and who is wrong.  I suggest the focus should be on what makes you happy, because unless you are happy as an individual, there is no way to be happy as a couple.  Good luck.

[capybara]

Thank you both. I do think you are both right. I recently (for the first time) was openly angry at him for his behaviour, which I spelled out in detail. Things didn't settle down until I apologized for misleading him about my feelings when I chose not to get into it with him one morning. I feel like with him, if there is an argument or he is unhappy, someone has to be in the wrong. And we all know who it *isn't* going to be!

I am not sure an MC marriage is going to work for us. BPDH has been love-bombing me since the apology and I did respond to some extent. I even talked about being swept along on his emotions for the past few years and how that's not what I want, and he accepted that calmly. But even if I wanted to, I couldn't fully get as lovey-dovey he is now... too much water under that bridge. I guess we'll see what happens!