Darn. You know when you're in an untenable, overwhelming situation and you fixate on a small aspect of it that feels only slightly out of reach? You know, you decide that if you just had this One Thing you could manage everything else? But that Thing, really, is a stand-in in your brain for much bigger and more complex Things like, say, the ability to trust and rely on your partner and feel like he's an equal partner in making your relationship work and that he cares about your feelings and respects you as an autonomous human being? And that One Thing, in the end, would not really give you any of those more complicated Things? But keeping fighting for that thing keeps you from looking at any of the rest of it? And maybe you keep yourself there because it's too scary to look at the big picture, or maybe your partner keeps the focus on the One Thing to keep from having the other conversations, or maybe (most likely) (hardest) both?

Yeah. So. That...sucks.