I feel that I am riding a rollercoaster ride now, and don't know when is it going to stop. My previous post explains my problems on detail, but here is the compress version of it.

During our first years of marriage, he was not big on the romance, but he demonstrate how much he cared for me, complimented me once in a while; then the kids came and things started to change. He stop complimenting me and started criticizing me, telling how ugly I dress or how bad a look, how fat I am, etc. Basically, he started to insult me, my intelligence and been disrespectful. Everything I said or did was wrong, he actually expected to change ME, who I am and tried to make the person he wanted me to be. When all of this started I literally switch him off, ignored his outbursts and stop talking to him, I mean a stop having intimate conversations with him. We started to live in a cordial relationship, we talked about the house and the kids, but I just stop listening to him and accepting his “Advice”, (I have never been a person that accepts criticism and/or rules easy, those were the main problems with my parents when I was growing up).

All of these resulted in us growing apart, I know I Love him, but I lost the passion and he killed my romantic side. I started to look for places to go and friends to talk to, even go out with the kids, so we would have to spend all time together. I have never been unfaithful, but I started to reconnect with my old friends, started to search via websites, for my old classmates and friends. I reconnect with some good friends and basically distant myself from my marriage, I am not proud of this, and accept my faults on this. My H says he started to feel my detachment and even suspected that I had an affair (which I did not), started checking my emails and other accounts. Well, he found a couple of emails that I wrote to a friend of mine (this is a male friend for many years now, that he knows of and that leaves in another country), which had a few comments that I am not proud of.

He felt hurt and offended, confronted me, and we had a fight. I told him how I felt from all the time that he mistreat me, even abuse me verbally, he was surprise that I felt that way since I never said anything before, accepted his faults where they were do and promise me that he is going to change.

Well he has changed completed, he wants to devote his time to showing me just how much he has changed, caressing me, kissing me, holding me, talking w/me....my problem is that he just seems to have shoved everything on a drawer, lock it and forget it. I cannot do that, it is not easy for me just forgive, forget and pick up my life like nothing has ever happen. He is mad because he says that if I asked for all the things he is doing, why have I not just embrace it? I feel that I need time to work my ISSUES out and really need to know if I can trust the changes; I cannot just shove everything under the rug and forget. I need for my mind and my heart to reconcile and start accepting again.

I do not want a divorce or even a separation, we can work our problems out, patch and rebuild our relationship, but it cannot be done ovenight. I kind of mention to him that I wanted to come to a forum for couples and see if we could get advice, and he told me that all the advice I need is with him, that I do not need to asked strangers for advice, since he can give me all the advice I need. I feel that he thinks that I am incapable of thinking for myself, and that he needs to guide me.

Am I wrong on trying to work on the old issues first, resolve them, before we can pick up and move forward? He does not even allow me to have a relaxing time on my own, for him my relaxation should be listening to his music, (since mine it is too noisy), having a conversation, even when it is nothing to talk about, and of course sex which is the cure to all the problems of the world. If I attempt to read a book or watch a show on TV he gets mad. I believe there should be friendship in a relationship, but I also believe that a person should have a some sort of privacy, a ME time, but he does not allow it and if I attempt to take it, then I am trying to avoid, not wanting to talk to him and not wanting to change and repair the broken pieces of our relationship.

Am I wrong in needing time for myself? In wanting to relax with a good book? Please does anybody else have any suggestion on how can I move on from this feeling of been control to having a friend that accepts me for me, who I am and not what he wants me to be.

I apologize for the long letter, but need it to express my feelings and see if anybody else knows what can I do?

Thank you for taking your time and reading this.

Behaviors can change overnight...issues do not.

Don't confuse the two.

You lied to your H for a very long time. You lied by omission, you chose withdrawal and it sounds like you had an EA to meet your ENs...a fantasy one going on.

You create and nurture, build and maintain resentment. It will kill off all your relationships. It's a choice, a sneaky, self-deceptive choice...which is why when you think "if only he would <blank>, then I would feel..." and then he does and guess what? You don't.

Your self-sabotage is something you pass down, too. Lousy legacy. It was already passed down to you...you can stop the continuation...again, a choice. Not a condition.

You want a new marriage with your DH? Where you know, respect, share, grow side by side? Meet ENs and eliminate LBs? Where you follow the four rules of Marriage and thrive?

Then work on yourself...it wasn't DH doing to you...you were doing the same thing to yourself and pointing your finger at him. Each time you didn't know, set and enforce healthy boundaries (hold yourself to them), you betrayed yourself...and resented your H. Your focus abandoned you, and you blamed someone else.

There is no blame in marriage...there is inherent responsibility...mind yours and you will experience your marriage very differently. Your DJs, the co-conspirators of resentment, will continue to sabotage, distort, discount...and keep you from experiencing being loved in abundance...you will be mired in lack. And you will be doing it to yourself.

I know from experience...it was a hard way to live and I am seeing the consequences generationally...I can see me in my grown sons and their marriages. And they look at me now and see differently. Doesn't change what I modeled, what I did...can't be changed.

Your DH cannot go back and undo his behavior...anymore than you can undo all your lies of omission...you can start today, learn to communicate with healthy boundaries, choose new behaviors, and slowly, treasuring one another, respecting yourselves and each other, build a new marriage.

Or not. Resentment will continue to be built into entitlement and your lack of respect will continue, too. That's the recipe for an affair...which is putting anyone ahead of your marriage.

And you did that. You shut out your real partner and allowed member(s) of the opposite sex meet your needs. That's CRUSHING to your real partner. His LBs were real...hurt your love bank...and yours devastated his, too. Understand you both hurt, reacted and distracted...withdrew, shut out and shut down.

Now he is awake, and if you want to partner him, listen to him. Doesn't mean anything except he's choosing you and the marriage. And listen to yourself...you lie when you say "this is what I wanted but"...hear the lie...because when you said, "if only you'd do this, I'd feel that"...and you don't.

Because you told yourself what you wanted, and hid from yourself other conditions...when you wanted it and in the way you wanted it.

Cuts out experiencing love, reality and builds a fantasy resentment wall.

Take it down. Own your stuff. Maybe why you DJ him by saying he wants to put it in a drawer...it's what you've done with your actions, your half of the marriage already.

You can do this.

LA