Oh, what a busy day I've had, redeux

I've been thinking a lot about my last post, my own inner turmoil, and what I can do to make it better for myself.

I get all resentful on H when I have to make up all the slack. Well, my expectation is that he help me, that he is able to do his part. But he can't. Simple, change my expectation that he can help. If I don’t' expect him to, I won't be disappointed. But I'm still struggling to erase 25 years of expectations that I have for him participating in this life with me.

So while H's busy day doesn't compare to mine, the fact is that I'm not dying of AIDS and he is. So, for him, it is a very, very busy day that is hard for him to do because he feels so sick so much of the time.

And yes, there is the burden part: the fact that I have to do certain things, such as audit his meds, that I wouldn't have to do if he weren't so sick. And that I see him so sick and that takes a toll on me.

What it really nets out to is that the resentment and other things that I do and feel are just masking my sorrow. The sadness that comes from watching someone you love slip and slip and slip. And then when you think it can't slip anymore, it does (and then some).

The hardest part about the sorrow is that I don't feel that I can share it with the one I most need to: that being H. (Oh, and for how bloody long I've been carrying this sorrow.) When I've been most upset and tried to share my grief with H, he drops into one of his family's scripts (the same ones that they used on me last Fall when I was trying to place H):

Criticize: you must be doing something wrong, you're thinking about it the wrong way
Minimize: well at least I'm not in the hospital right now, I can help more than you let me
Discount: I'm not dying - so there's no reason to be sad
Guilt: what am I supposed to do about it, why can't you deal with it?

What I really, really want to hear is: "I'm sorry that this is so hard for you" and to cry with me. That's it. Some sympathy would go a long, long way. Empathy would be better, but unlikely.

See, there I go again: needing something from him. How do you "unneed" someone?