I seem to be having a lot of breakthroughs recently, a couple of which I've already posted about.  Last night was another breakthrough night for me.  I went to my f2f meeting last night (which was an excellent meeting on the topic of taking care of yourself), and when I came home, AH didn't seem like himself.  From what I could tell, he hadn't been drinking, but he did seem distant, and acted like he was upset about something.  At the same time though, even though he was acting that way, it seemed like he was trying to hide that he was upset about something.  It was just an odd feeling I was getting from him.  I was very tempted to ask him what was wrong, fearing that I may have done something to upset him, but I decided not to ask.  I determined that whatever it was he was dealing with, he was handling it in his own head, and it may not necessarily have anything to do with me, despite my fears.  I also determined that if it did in fact have something to do with me, if it was important enough to him to bring it up, he would in his own time.  And the type of person that he is, he doesn't have any problems speaking up when I've done something to upset him.  So I just let him deal with whatever he was dealing with, and continued on with my evening as if nothing was going on.  I knew that if I tried to encourage him to talk, that I would've risked my own serenity, because the type of person that I am, I take on other's feelings as my own, and it brings me down.  I didn't want that to happen, so that is why I didn't ask.  Instead I gave myself permission to acknowledge how I was feeling, and took a step back to determine what my motivation behind wanting to ask him what was wrong was, and came up with the conclusion that the risk of losing my serenity far outweighed the benefits of knowing what issues he was dealing with in his head.  Once I came to the conclusion it wasn't worth asking about, I felt a sense of peace come over me because I was keeping my serenity intact.  That felt extremely nice too.