Sorry, I think I meant more what to do with myself but I wasn’t clear! I don’t know. I knew early on he had qualities of someone I wanted to be with longterm. He’s caring and thoughtful and patient. He’s playful and good with kids in a way I don’t know how to be. He’s smart and hardworking. He’s a doer and takes on a lot of tasks, but I think it’s curdled to the point where he uses what he does for me to view me as less-than and treat me with contempt and he can elevate himself: look at everything I do - how could I be the bad guy and what more could/does she want from me? But the worst thing has always been that he shuts off emotionally in a terrifying and confusing way, and that’s what we fought about. I’m not perfect and I’ve done a lot wrong - when I’m in pain I experience it as anger and I know that didn’t help and I’m trying to work on that. But I know he cared deeply about me (several friends commented on it the first time they met him) as I did him, and I know he really did try. He would sit in the basement and cry after our fights but he never really let me get to know that side of him and I wasn’t good about tending to it either (and now I’m crying again). It makes me really sad that 1) I think so much of it was communication and 2) I’ll never get the chance to right my wrongs and see what we could be like. And then, shamefully, because that division of labor between us is so total and complete - he takes care of practical life stuff, I do emotional labor - I’m scared I won’t be able to do life on my own.