Shangrala,
Before I give my opinion on what I think your husband can do, I’d like to tell you that it is possible to come back from that emotional detachment and numbness that you speak of. About 7 or 8 years into our marriage I had completely given up on our marriage. We got married young and grew in different directions. I got to the point that I wasn’t angry anymore, I wasn’t hurt, I was just done. At the time I thought that there was nothing left what-so-ever, our relationship was dead. There was nothing to fight for, nothing to fix, it didn’t exist anymore. Once I accepted that, we split up for almost two years. A real split, with no expectations of reconciliation what-so-ever, no on again off again.
When we decided to “date” again, we didn’t pick up where we left off, that relationship was dead. We started a new one with the new me, and the new him. From scratch, nothing taken for granted, old wrongs were forgotten. We were cautious of course, looking for the other to fall into those patterns again, but we did not fall back into that routine of “you did blah blah blah in 1986” etc.
I think your husband should take some angry management classes or see a therapist about how to speak to people. Not in an effort to fix your marriage, but to become a better, healthier person. Abuse in any form is not acceptable.
In my opinion there should be a definite decision made. Are we together or are we not. This in the middle stuff isn’t fair to anyone involved. It takes two people to make a marriage work and if you’re both not dedicated to fixing it then there really isn’t any point. Being there physically but not mentally prevents both of you from healing and growing.
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I've been married for 24 years and have four wonderful children.
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