Just want him happy

I wish I could figure out how to make my husband happy. He is very short tempered with me, unaffectionate and usually seems agitated when I'm around. I can't figure out why. I do my best to be a good wife and mom, yet he just doesn't seem to like me. When I tell him how he makes me feel all he says is I shouldn't feel that way and it's my own insecurities. I'm not crazy, I know how he makes me feel, I can't communicate with him. Just want my husband happy.

It's not your responsibility to make others happy. If he doesn't like you then it's no matter what you do. Why are you staying with him?

I had an ex like that. I used to say he had his happiness plug unplugged.
I'd fill him with love and joy and later he'd be complaining and miserable.
Does your husband do anything to make you happy?

No you're not crazy and imagining his cold behavior.

Do you think if you confronted him with finding out why he is acting cold toward you, it will be helpful in getting him to recognize it and change?

You might try simply asking him like my wife had recently asked me -- "Why do you talk to me that way?" -or- "Can you help me understand why you talk to me like that?" -- but you might just get another angry outburst in return because even he might not know. Being lovable does not guarantee love actions in return, and your husband's sickness in the civility department is his own and is not because of you.

He is bloody lucky and doesn't know it; do the same to him and
see how he likes it.

I know it sounds stupid but I love him. I would never want to break up our family. And it's even a tougher situation because my family is across the country. I'm here all alone so where would I go? Not that i want to leave, I just want him happy.

Does he do anything to make me happy? No. But I'm happy when he's happy. He is a great man. I think we have just lost us, everything in our lives is about our kids and there is no time left for us.

Absolutely not. I tried that today, I tried to talk to him so we can see what we can do to make things better and it turned into him blaming me for absolutely everything. He justifies his coldness by saying that it's all a result of me. After our conversation today all I wanted to do was disappear. I think I'm a good person, a good mom, a good wife. But listening to him describe me he made me feel so worthless, he said I was the most selfish ungrateful person he has ever met, he judged me as a mother and a person. He said because I have gained some weight that my unhappiness with myself is making me lash out at him and our kids. Maybe he's right. But i just can't see how it is that I am as awful as he makes me sound. It makes me want to die. I want so much more for him, he deserves to be happy and he deserves better than me apparently. The fact that I can't make him happy is very hard, it's unbearable.

hopeless mom....you are being emotionally abused by him. it breaks my heart to hear you talk about yourself the way you do. there is so much more to things than you being happy to see him happy. it is not your responsibility to Make him anything, his feelings are his.
if you are truly doing all that a person can to be a good person and he finds you to be at fault for everything that is possibly wrong in your marriage/family, then this is not about you, what you do or do not do. this is about him, being selfish and abusive towards you.
you in no way deserve to be in a relationship/marriage where your SO is cold, indifferent, insulting and abusive towards you. a person who loves someone else would NEVER want them to feel so bad they want to die!!
You deserve better too. you deserve better from someone who 'loves' you than how you are being treated by your husband.
I wish you the best. You'll be in my thoughts

Agreed. His dissatisfaction in life is *not* your fault.

Frankly you are being very much abused yet you refer to him as "great man". Great men don't mistreat women. Lately there have been sever threads by abused women who totally lost their worth and put their abusers on a pedestal. Its heart breaking. I also don't understand what you mean by asking "where would you go?". This is not 1950s and there are plenty of places where divorced women could go.

You deserve better than spending life making sure your abuser is happy.

The Verbally Abusive Relationship by Patricia Evans saved my life; hope you will read it. His behavior has nothing to do with who you are and everything to do with his own insecurities and issues. We can't make others happy; that is an "inside" job; if someone isnt happy, they have to figure out why and fix themselves.

This is sad. your whole life revolves around him....you are only happy when HE is. You could be model thin, and look like a movie star, he would still treat you abusively, because he doesn't like HIMSELF.

In other words, it doesn't matter what you do or say, or if you changed everything about yourself he says is "wrong." You should know that everytime we are under stress, the body releases cortisol; cortisol damages our immune system. I am a moderator of an abused survivors' group and have yet to meet an abused woman who doesn't have lots of physical problems.

I don't know how old your children are, but they pick up very easily on tension in a house and hearing abusive words.

Therapy for yourself could help.

It would be great if he was good company, wouldn't it?

And it seems like what he's saying to you when you try to discuss how you are reacting to this is just making things worse for you.

I wonder what is going on for or in him to make him act like this.

It can be so hard to feel all alone. Is it possible for you to make some contacts somehow, to get out more. I know it can be hard with kids but maybe there are some things you can do about this.

I am wondering why it is so important for you to have him happy.

So you have to do some things to make you happy. That will make a difference to both of you.

And it is not healthy to have "everything" about one's kids & you said this is so for both of you. I'm thinking he also may need to do some things to make him happy. You both can start being yourselves, and happy, more. It is a process to lose that and a process to get it back. There IS time for each of you if you work at it. Might take some creative thinking. Maybe you could discuss this with him (in a positive, listening & problem solving way)?