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Thanks to all those who offered advice & support before the holidays when I was in limited contact with my uBPDh of 8 years (long-distance, no shared kids). He stayed with me over the holidays, and we worked things out. I no longer suspect him of being addicted to pornography. We discussed his choking me & hair pulling in bed. He thought that I liked it, but since I don't, he agreed not to do it anymore. He still struggles with ED, but we reached a successful outcome on one occasion (which I hope was not enabled chiefly by virtue of the "make up sex" factor). His health had worsened in October & November because of a cardiovascular problem, and he had been hiding from me in part because his absences from work caused his boss to issue him a warning.

I am continuing to see my T as I grapple with this, as well as my slight demotion at work in favor of a younger male (I experienced this as ageism & sexism, though it may not be actionable in legal terms; the rival who displaced me is a person of under-represented ethnic background, and I am not). I have been in recovery/sober for 4 weeks, which has increased my stability and given the H fewer triggers. As it turns out, he never got off the train headed my way back in October (the start of the whole impasse); despite the text he sent saying that he was getting off the train, he rode it all the way to my city. By that time, I was rather intoxicated and was texting & voice-mailing him in anger. So he did the turn-around from my own station, after several hours of hanging around the station! I could have picked him up if I had ignored the texts and sobered up instead of falling apart.

Thanks again, and for now I will post on the "Bettering" board.

Awesome, Sweet Charlotte!      And I want to congratulate you on your sobriety. I'm happy to hear that you were able to talk out so many issues and now he's trusting you with more information about his health. Wishing him well and it's likely that alleviating the stress in your relationship and opening up the communication will help with his CV issues.   

That's great news!   

Can you share any details of the conversation that changed your mind?

FF

Yes, agreed, CatFam.

FF - It wasn't so much a single conversation, but a process, that turned things around. Once I realized that my anger over my slight demotion at work, exacerbated by my increased use of alcohol, was triggering him like crazy, I was able to drop it and welcome him back. I was ready for sobriety too, because I had grown sick of the toxic effects of anger + alcohol on my health and productivity. He showed that he would respect my boundaries of not pressuring me to discipline my D15, and not blaming me because I can't control whether she likes him or not. He can't control this either, but he has more influence over it than I do, through his interactions with her. She in turn was more friendly towards him when she found that he was not acting like a control freak anymore (and when she saw that I had stopped enabling him to be a control freak). So I guess the impasse was necessary, though painful, to allow us to reposition and grow in this way.

That’s great news ! You will feel so much better physically without the alcohol. It’s self care!