Thank you Melody Lane.

Boy, did you get right to the root of my concern - waiting until January.

As Ms. Analysis Paralysis (lol), I will think about that for the rest of the afternoon.

Sunny, this will get worse. I would guess that you are also suffering physical ailments. Women suffer lasting physical and emotional illnesses from remaining in such situations. And sometimes the damage is irreversible. You owe it to yourself and your children to protect yourself. You won't be much good to anyone if you are hospitalized with a nervous breakdown and/or some other psychosomatic illness.

Don't delay this separation anymore, my friend. The ball is in your husbands court and he has given you his answer: he refuses to do anything. Don't sacrifice your mental and physical health anymore for a husband who does not care, who is only there to gain at your ENORMOUS expense.

YES he thinks this will all just blow over. It always has before. There's no real reason to do anything that you have asked him to do, because he knows you'll just roll over and take whatever he dishes out.

He has made it clear that he is not willing to give you a safe marriage. Now, you need to make it clear that you are not willing to live with his decision. Separate today. You have put up with his abuse for far too long.

There is no point in UA dates if he will do nothing about his angry outbursts.

Again, there is no point. As long as his angry outbursts continue, then all of this is useless fluff. He can say he's doing something for the marriage, but in reality, he's not. Don't play this game.

Request DENIED. He doesn't get a say on this. He either steps up to the plate and does what it takes to keep you, or he loses you. Don't play his games.

Please don't fall into the tarpit of anaylis paralysis anymore, Sunny. You have been in that tarpit since 2006. Make a choice to walk out today. Don't wait until it is too late.

You have endangered your health and made the situation through that strategy.

It all comes down to this:


Frankly, my opinion is that most men who are like this need to think these issues over alone and reevaluate their willingness when it's the only option they have to keep their marriage.

Please reread Prisca's post often - she knows what she is talking about. I'm not just saying that because she's my wife - I'm saying that because she put what she heard from Dr. Harley into practice and gave me the boot, and the end result for us was a happy marriage!

Sunny, please take this bolded sentence seriously.

You know that I've been on here for year after year, hour after hour. I've also been listening to Dr. Harley's radio show now, hundreds and hundreds of hours. Let me tell you it's horrible to have heard so many situations where women put up with abuse and discover how horrible the consequences are. Eventually it literally kills them even if he never lays a hand on her. I have heard women talk to Dr. Harley whose immune systems are rising up and trying to kill them to get out of the stress of what they are living in.

Does your husband have a job, Sunny? How does he support himself now? If he has a job he can get a second job to help him pay for his new place.

In other words, he's still completely, 100% in charge, and doesn't have to do anything he doesn't want to.

This is not love and is not going to result in happiness for you, and I promise you that UA time will not make him change his mind.

Hon, think of the harm it does to your children to live in a household with an angry father and an emotionally unstable/anxious mother.

Separate FOR them. They need you to be at your best. You can't be at your best as long as you are being abused at the hands of their father.

One of the turning points for me that pushed me toward separation was after one of markos' worst AOs directed at me. He left the house in a rage, and left me with the children who were all sobbing. They turned to me, tearfully demanding to know why I didn't just do what Daddy wanted so that Daddy wouldn't leave them. I saw then the emotional damage they were suffering by just living in the house full of AOs. His AOs weren't directed at them for the most part, but it damaged them.

Your husband's AOs are affecting your children more than you realize. Separate FOR them.

Sunny,

I am terribly sorry that that is the stance your H is taking. Without his cooperation your M is doomed. The next logical step will be for him will be to place all the blame on you for the marital problems and I see that is exactly what he�s done. Are you really going to acquiesce to his demand of seeing a psychologist?

Please, please listen to what everyone is telling you here. If he is the only source of your panic attacks why would you agree to any of his terms? Get yourself away from him so you can recover from his abuse and have a clear head on your next steps. Give him the chance to step up and do something to help this M recover.

The whole point of separation is to END the fact that he is in CONTROL (i.e., abusing you). It's not that being apart will magically make things better. It won't! It's that him continuing to control and abuse you will be detrimental to you and you need to get him out of there until he agrees to stop it and do whatever it takes to stop it forever.

When Prisca told me I was leaving because of my angry outbursts I didn't even have money to pay for a hotel! I spent a stressful couple hours figuring out where the heck I was going to stay. But it was my responsibility, because I caused the problem, by being an abusive jerk. I didn't burden her with it other than a request to come get my checkbook. For a little while I thought I was going to have to sleep in my car. Meanwhile, for her part, she had made preparations to change the locks and get her family to intervene and get me out of there if I refused to separate.

You cannot negotiate this with him - or anything else, for that matter - because he is not willing to give up abuse and control. You can't negotiate until he yields that control. Your only shot is that he MIGHT give up that control if that's what he has to do to stay with you. Start by putting him on notice that he is not going to have any control at all until his position on this matter changes - show him the door, and change the locks.

I don't think being separated from Prisca damaged my children at all.

Please don't just read these posts and then move on. Reread them and reread them, over and over again.

Please listen to Prisca and MelodyLane. Your children are depending on you.

He does. Right now he's the larger earner and I'm underemployed. We are doing OK with his employment + my underemployment. If mine is lost, one household will be tight, two may not be possible.

He is concerned about sinking the $ into separation these several months when we might need it if (likely when) I lose my job in Dec. I will have a clearer picture by the end of this week about my job status.

We have assets so we won't starve but they are not liquid, so costly to liquidate quickly. I can see there could be a greater cost (financial, health) to not taking the losses.

I'm still absorbing all of the rest of the much appreciated advice.

Whatever is mentally wrong with you is caused by your husband's abuse.

The exact same thing was true with Prisca.

Neglect and abuse causes all kinds of depression and emotional problems in women, and eventually physical and immune system problems.

Sunny, seriously - I've heard and seen dozens of women who are slowly dying because their husbands won't stop abusing and controlling them and neglecting them. Women who are about to kill themselves. Women whose own immune systems are killing them.

The number one cause of depression for women is their relationship with their husbands or boyfriends.

The first fix Dr. Harley recommends is to fix the relationship!

Again, don't negotiate that with him - that will be his problem and his responsibility. If he doesn't want to live that way, then he should man up and do what a husband is supposed to do.

I know. When I came back in 2013 the new style of advice was quite a shock to me. However, it proved itself out. There was nothing I could change without demonstrating a boundary of self respect (separation). All of your advice helped me contemplate that, and as events unfolded, was proven to be correct.

Trust me, I won't just read and move on. I literally can't.

Have you reread ML and Prisca's posts yet, then?