My husband and I have been together 29 years, and we developed some pretty dysfunctional relationship patterns over the years. We've both been in therapy for some time, and I started making some major changes in the way I approached life and our relationship as the result of what I learned in therapy. In a way, while those changes are much healthier, proactive, and self-actualizing for me, my husband has at times felt very threatened by those changes. My T had prepared me for that. It is pretty normal that when one person in a relationship changes the way they approach life, it upsets the "balance" of things. My husband saw those changes as rejection and abandonment, even though that wasn't at all the reality of what was going on. Feeling rejected and abandoned is sort of his default reaction to change. But I've held my ground, and we've continued to talk about it. He's beginning to adjust to things and is actually starting to adjust and make healthier changes and decisions in his own responses and actions himself. Things are slowly transforming in our relationship and I suspect we'll come through the adjustment period with a much healthier relationship in the end.