Thanks so much! I'm feeling a lot better because at least we're talking. It's not all resolved but whatever happens, I got this for myself out it and that was worth a lot.

It's truly incomprehensible to me that anyone would refuse to deal with relationship misalignment head on, but I think there probably are a lot of people out there in the world who have no muscle for healthy conflict, dealing with difficult emotions, communicating what's really going on for them, etc. I just happened to fall in love with one without realizing how deeply entrenched those avoidant mechanisms were for him. James and I get to practice those skills all the time because we live together and have a lot more to negotiate in the day to day. Nat and I haven't had an issue this big in five years and we've only been together for 6, so we haven't gotten to face this much. Now we know how different we are around this, hopefully we can figure something out.