This is just going to be more of the same shit from last night. You were warned.

It isn't just that he griped me out, or the timing, though those did both piss me off royally, after some thought I suppose it's the fact that it happens so often. He doesn't bitch me out constantly, but he does the saying something without actually saying anything thing all of the time and then says I'm being defensive.

I wonder how he supposes I got to be so defensive?

How about from my dad, my brother, my ex and him all doing the saying something without actually saying anything thing?

It's a pain in the ass to be constantly challenged over even the tiniest things. I always feel this immediate need to defend myself and it drives me to over-explain, to try an make someone understand why I did something in the hopes of reversing or stopping whatever negative judgement is being made.

I've done it all of my life but didn't realize it until I went into therapy.

It started with my father towering over me when I was a kid and had done something wrong with that crazed, frightening look he gets when he's angry and I felt this instant terror to say something, anything to avoid having him hit me with the belt.

It usually didn't work, but I'd keep trying. I think it grew from there. I got into the habit of defending myself and over-explaining my actions and it just carried on into my adulthood.

So I do understand my defensiveness and I see when I'm starting to get that way.

The thing here is, that I'm not always being defensive with Larry. If he says something to me like the things he said last night and I attempt to point out that he might be wrong, he thinks I'm being defensive. If he asks me a question and I don't want to answer it, he thinks I'm being defensive. If he yells at me about something and I speak up or try to explain myself, he thinks I'm being defensive.

I think it's that he doesn't like to be challenged. He's one of those take-charge kind of people who likes to run things, and things to at least a certain degree have to be done his way. It's obvious more and more as time goes on that he thinks of me as one of the children, someone to protect and guide.

I'd be okay with that if he didn't treat me like one. We make the decisions together and we do both have an equal voice in the things that matter, yet sometimes he makes me wonder if he thinks I'm not adequately competent to run this house without his supervision.

And his back and forth I said it without saying it shit has got to stop. I don't think it will though because he doesn't see that he's doing that, however many times I point it out to him.

He sometimes tells me what to do as well and he knows I don't like that. Sometimes he tells me how to feel.

"Stop being angry," is the one I hear most often. "You always say you can't control how you feel but you can. Just turn it off. Stop being angry."

I think a lot of this has to do with some insecurities he may have with our age difference. He's sixteen years older than me. I think it bothers him but I've never considered it to be a problem. I like older men. Not Bob Hope older, more like Mel Gibson or Nicholas Cage older.

Anyway, I wonder if that has anything to do with it?

Most of the time he's great. Better than great. He's a sweet-natured, warm person and I'm very happy to be around him because I love him and know he loves me.

Those behaviours I mentioned are problematic though. If not for the fact that he has so many more positive qualities than negative ones I think I may have done as my therapist predicted I would eventually do and punched him in the mouth.

She told me that one day I probably would.

I don't know. I still may.