Silence in my childhood home meant the Vol ano Of Rage was going to Erupt. I still associated pure silence with that dread and fear.

similarwise here, leo, reinforced by several sound sensitive volcanos which have since passed through my adult life.

my heavily conditioned reflex is to take advantage of the silence to silently tiptoe right out the door. plying therapy tools.

I've been divorced since 2000 and am not married now, arfie, though I do have a significant other. and I am newly retired like your hubby is. We don't share the same apartment full time, though, so it's not exactly the same.

What you say here:

"have begun to realize shared silence is a flight trigger for me"

did take me back to why I got divorced back in 2000 and why took 13 years for a therapist finally to point it out to me. Abuse in my marriage wasn't always active like it was in the domestic violence of my biological family as a missionary kid growing up overseas. Neglect was used as a weapon by my passive aggressive spouse until the point that even I couldn't ignore it and my therapist confronted me with the need to make a decision about it.

I'm just speaking for myself, mind you, not for your husband or for you. If you do choose to relate to my experience even then you don't have to relate to the degree that I did in my flight going so far as divorcing. The lesson learned for me there was that absence can hurt as much as presence can at times. Sending you my support as you sort this out.

Thank you, Arfie. You're speaking genuine truth and I appreciate you for that. Silence is bliss but it can behave destructively when inappropriate. It can destroy a person's personal space and sense of belonging, if that is the goal then no way, silence is a corrupt tactic for all human species.

However, if silence offers a person time to heal with personal boundaries, and space to seek within and find the love one longs for internally before embracing the world around then I can see how one can become addicted to silent personal space to gain one's own leverage and gain sense of control, awareness.

I personally find pleasure in the little things at home, like cleaning my toilet bowl and seat, because I get to enjoy the rewards of my labor (I like to sit on a clean seat), but what I find fascinating is that with the right and appropriate helpmate, it can make an everlasting relationship flourish into my eternal heartfelt desire and reality blissful outcome, if he wishes.

I've only communicated with a number of people and my circle of trust is small. knowing I am biblical, there is a scripture that haunts me daily "si en lo poco me eres fiel en lo mucho te pondre" I know it is possible to faithfully love wholeheartedly and to faithfully beloved wholeheartedly, as I am discovering in my journey.

Another known discovery is one cannot please God without faith, and one can not please me without faith, hope, and love, and the LORD knows so very well.

I like your entry Arfie, please accept my reply as an acknowledgment of your own good works here on dailystrenth. Silence is an option, Communication is essential.

yup, that's the stuff, muji. pre-divorce silences drive me buggy, even when i don't know either soon-to-be-ex.

thank you, queen. to my senses, not all silences are even close to created equal. the silence of being alone is vastly different from a shared silence. while i cherish a companionable silence, the awkward silences send me into frenzies. personally, i find that silence often communicates more than words.

Have not posted in a few days. I like silence more and more. There is massive psychological warfare at least in the US.

Can you and hubby start to plan date mornings or lunches? Depending on when baby sister is in school. My husband and I are both home all the time in a small house. I wanted a small house before the pandemic but I can hear everything he does in his loft office or phone calls, etc. He does a ton of volunteer work at home, zoom meetings. Sometimes I feel like I get no attention. I have to make an appointment with him. He loves doing this volunteer stuff he does. He helps a lot of visually impaired people learn computer technology so at least he’s not in a bar or with another woman!

I asked him to do a date lunch with me once a week and now it’s fallen away. I’ve had a bad chronic pain summer and now early breast cancer surgery that adds to the pain. So no date lunches in months.

I had a bad dream last night about the grandchildren my daughter won’t let me see, and they were crying for me in the dream. Was a bad thing to dream. Made me feel more alone today even though I had workers in the house. I never dream about the other grandkids that the second estranged daughter has but I’ve not met them. They cry for parental attention and act very unhappy. Sometimes this hangs in my mind and disturbs my peace of mind.

I like your idea of trying to share personal developments and common passions.....not easy but worth the work! When all else fails - the alone quiet time will help to restore

yeah, dani, the most volatile of my estranged family members agree with the "massive psychological warfare" angle. on some obscure angle, i wish i could believe that the u.s. collective is capable of massive conspiracies. alas, i see our collective as something closer to a mountain avalanche with millions of rocks sliding mindlessly down the slope. organized dictators would be much easier to dodge. small, concentrated conspiracies i can believe and have personally witnessed, but they fall apart with the speed of a barroom fight.

thank you for the dating advice, hasty. i wish i could see physical evidence that dating, either pre or post nuptial , actually works. all the dating advocates i know have massive ex-collections to present as evidence.

on the gk angle, i wonder if you can petition for visitation rights. just wondering. . . for certain, multi-generational guidance can help childhood development considerable.

thank you, mel. methinks a large part of what i'm feeling is the loss of ALONE quiet time. before his corporate retirement, hubby was a work-a-holic who routinely worked 60 - 70 hour weeks. i don't get to be alone much any more and the dangling conversations/taboo topics are downright stifling. the more we egg-shell waltz around those topics, the more awkward the silences become. works in progress.

No, I can't petition for GC visitation rights in my state. Number one, I've only met them a few times so not an established relationship, and number two, their parents don't want me in their life so they would not appreciate me taking them to court to petition for rights. Cost a fortune and perpetuate their conflict, disdain, self-absorption, victimhood.

I was just thinking if you and husband did some things together, it would be a way to initiate conversation and interaction. Less isolating. Friendship between spouses is a beautiful thing.

I am a dating advocate without a long string of ex's. At least in my opinion, you can say a divorce shows one can't give advice but it also gives a lot of wisdom if one puts their thinking cap on and improves themselves and does better the next time. Just one ex spouse, 30 years of that bad marriage, he did the parental alienation that led to the daughter's estrangement.

But this current husband is a keeper and my best friend. I told him today that I wanted to go back to date lunch again as soon as my surgery heals. He is my best friend and I've been isolating due to illness. I miss my other girlfriends as I've been isolating from them again also. But I know I have to stop as soon as I can health wise and reconnect. A hard lesson older age has brought me. Husband is currently talking on a zoom meeting, but not to me, and it feels lonely to me since I have been healing and tired as heck. If I was doing my normal female friendship activities, I think my emotional tank would be full up.

care packages for both sets of gk's could be priceless, both for the special days and just random. i have a friend who lives several states away and sends routine care packages to the foster kids and those packages light up their lives. they've met this friend exactly twice for a few hours each time, but the kids love her dearly.

yeah, the dating advocates seem to have been in the vast majority for all of my 69 years. i've listened to more dating advocacy than any other topic i can think of. hubs and i have been married 43 years and still haven't had our first date. i quietly leave the conversation when the dating/ex/current talk starts up. different strokes for different folks.

arfie, for what it's worth, I don't advocate dating. I think people com etogether in any manner of ways from co-working to seeing each other at the gym to sharing a fence line, so I think dating is terrifying.

Sometimes, the best place to be is in one's own nicely controlled quite place.

Much as I love my hubby, and that's a lot, I believe iMHO that a date night won't fix what a good convo (possibly while reading Marriage for Idiots) would.

amen, leo and thank you.

as a child prostitute, i took note that if wifey had romance novels on the coffee table, hubby had a porno stash hidden somewhere. i see the porno and romance as two sides of the same cultural dysfunction. i was still quite young when i started calling romance novels and mags, "housewife porn." i still do. it is especially popular among the youthfully tinted crowd. i'd rather listen to a detailed analysis of how to love someone so much that you want to change everything about them. well? ? ? i'd rather quietly leave the convo and let the dye-heads cackle freely, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

my own hubby and i have our most bonding convos over morning coffee and/or taking care of business.. we are partners, not players in a chick flick.

Wow, arfie, when you wrote "i see the porno and romance as two sides of the same cultural dysfunction" you hit on something. For me it's not re romance novels per se, but regarding another genre of storytelling that's related.

As a cranky old bachelor with women friends who are soap opera fans, I've made wisecracks to them about how soap operas were a form of porn for a certain female audience. Now, though, you're leading me to think that maybe my wisecrack may not have been just a joke.

Hmm.

i was a child prostitute when i made that correlation between romance novels/magazines on the coffee table and porno in some secret spot. some of the hubbies kept their porn next to the romance novels, but to my juvenile senses, both spouses were equally sleazy in their requested services.

as that ptsd snot knot has percolated through the 6 or so decades since, i have grown into an equal opportunity offender. i find porno or romance equally offensive and i advise you to let me leave the convo quietly.