I don't really know how to go about talking through this with him. In the past, if I've been upset about something, he has to resolve it before he can move on. Literally, nothing else can happen until he feels like it's resolved. About a month or two ago, I was upset with him about something, and he knew it. He asked if I was upset, and I told him I was, but I was starting my work day (I work from home). In any event, he knows that when I'm upset, I prefer to take some space to sort through what's really going on so that I can discuss it a little removed from the emotion of it all and so that I can make sure I say what I mean and don't say things in the heat of the moment that I might regret later.

He left to get to work at 8. He came home at 8:30 sat down on the couch next to my desk and stared at my profile while I worked until I stopped working and turned to him. He wanted to get to the bottom of what was upsetting me, but I told him I needed time to sort it out and that I needed to work. He told me he wouldn't be able to work without resolving it, and that if he had to wait all day he would just perseverate on it and get himself totally worked up. Then he'd come home upset and angry, and it would be worse to work it out then. I felt backed into a corner - either give up my request for space/time or he'd be angry when I was ready to work it out.

So we talked it out, with me completely at the mercy of my still raw emotions. I was frustrated and in tears and having a hard time coming up with a single thing or finite number of things to resolve, everything that every made me upset came bubbling up. I was not linear or coherent, and my thoughts got all jumbled up in a heap. (Which, incidentally, is EXACTLY why I need time/space to sort through it all.) Because I couldn't stay on a single track, we just kept talking in circles. I was sobbing and upset, developed a severe headache, and was emotionally spent. Still, he wouldn't leave me alone because we weren't 'resolved'. At one point, I told him I COULDN'T go through this anymore and that I was totally beyond spent. He told me that he was OK walking away now, as long as I committed to coming to him when I was ready so we could be resolved. I honestly have no idea how much more he thinks could have been said, but I told him if he felt unresolved to figure out whatever he needed and do it now, because I couldn't subject myself to any more of this later - I wasn't willing to collect myself then only to be completely broken down again later. So, he kept up the discussion until he felt some sort of closure.

This took place in our bedroom with him between me on the bed and our door (symbolically trapping me - and that felt very oppressive at the time and even now in my memory) for 4 HOURS. He forced me to talk this out through obvious emotional distress for 2/3 of my working day, which in reality obliterated my entire day because I was useless afterwards. All because he can't stand if I'm upset with him. I told him at the end that he had to figure out a way to be OK with me being mad at him, because that's inevitable in life. I'll get over it or work it out with him, but I can't emotionally afford to go through sessions like that every time he ticks me off.

As a result of that experience (and others like it), I simply have no desire to try to work things out with him on my own. It feels like I'm being punished for getting upset with him. So I internalize it and refuse to discuss it with him for fear of being trapped into something that just destroys me emotionally.

As for counseling, he's very supportive *in theory* of going to a counselor with me, but only in terms of dealing with things that *I'm* having struggles with. He and I did attend therapy for 2 sessions together once, and he was ridiculously defensive the whole time. Body language, tone of voice, responses to the therapist's questions...and when I mentioned it to him, he had zero awareness about it. He thought he had been totally open. His view of himself relative to the reality of how others see/experience him is bizarre sometimes. Anyway, counseling/therapy is something he'll do if it's for MY issues, and even then he can't manage it in a helpful way.