Edit: apologies, this became a catharsis, and I need to post to send it off to the sky. This is your warning to skip past if you're not in the mood for some relationship bullshit.

My greatest wish in life currently is that he would share his feelings with me calmly, directly, and honestly. To have a genuine conversation. This is my home, and it kills me that I've given up on trying to talk about relationship issues. I'm still in love, just not the way I was before I realized this is as deep as it goes.

Even emails (an attempt to communicate calmly) are met with passive-aggressive, blame-shifting defensive replies, cloaked in plausible deniability since the word "sorry" is carefully placed. These include thoughts like "sorry I tried to help," "sorry I reacted that way," and "sorry I can't use words right" (instead of apologizing for saying the thing).

It's too hard for him. He can't bring himself to accept responsibility. He does this self-guilt-bashing thing where he tells himself he's a terrible person, but he doesn't look at the actual behavior and own it.

I'll get a sarcastic parroting of my exact words and a "happy now?"

Writing this out like that is making me see something I hadn't before. The specific mechanism of his defense. The inability to allow the feeling of "blame." If you do bad you are bad. If you're wrong than you as a person are "wrong."

I can't even imagine how bad that feels. It makes sense. But it ruined something in me. I'm working it out and bringing it back, but I'll absolutely never be the same.