This website has opened my eyes so much. I understand my feelings so clearly now. The whole Love Bank thing. That is why I feel like I am at the end. Like....no more. It literally took just one more outburst and that was the thing that clicked.....my bank went totally empty. Needless to say it has thrown me into total depression. I don't even have the desire to do anything, clean anything, any household duties....whatever. Let it all fall apart. And what is so sad is yesterday, before his outburst, I was having such a great day....kids happy, nice weather, he was being nice. It is so difficult to go from one extreme to another. Exhausting. Anyway, now if someone could tell me what to do. I believe in everything I am reading on this website, I just do not see how it can change behaviour that was learned so long ago. His father treats his mother the exact same way. She just goes into another room and cries. So, thanks for listening to me, or rather reading this. I have begged and pleaded for 5 years for him to just be nice. He wonders why I don't reach out to him but I have no desire. It is kind of scary to me that really everything is shut down, and it happened so quick. It just took one more time and bing, that was it. But in reality,"it" happened over a long period of time. Does anyone honestly think these learned behaviors can change???

Only if the person who needs to do the changing wants to REALLY change you can't make him do it, I found that out first hand after nine years of marriage. In my case he isn't changing I wish you all the luck, it will take alot of work on both of your parts to change a lifetime learned personality.

Absolutely, behavior can change. People do this everyday. Your husband sounds like he's angry, maybe sometimes at you specifically, but in all probability, he is harboring a long-standing anger about something else. You can beg, plead, cry, divorce him, do whatever until the end of time, and it will not resolve his anger issues. This is where a good psychotherapist who is trained in anger management can help. First the base cause of the anger is identified and brought to closure. Then the inidvidual learns to identify anger triggers, stop, think for a second, and deal with the problem without becoming angry.

Cantcope is correct. You cannot force him to change. He must decide to do it for himself. In all conflicts, each of us must ask the question "who owns this problem?" If we find that we own it, then we take positive action to resolve it. If someone else, even if that someone is our spouse, owns it, we may support them, but we must leave it to them to resolve it.

Guess what? Anger kills love, but not permenantly. People who have an angry spouse, may come to believe that they hate him/her. But then the spouse gets the anger under control and after time has past and trust is rebuilt, love will bloom again.

I'll take this opportunity in inject another truism. We will tolerate a troubled relationship with a parent or a sibling for a lifetime, but we won't do so with our husbands and wives for more than a few months. In my opinion, we are much to quick to declare a marriage "bad" and withdraw from it. Maybe this is because marry the worng people for all the wrong reason, but I alwo believe that we have adopted a societal acceptance that marriage is disposable. One thing is absolutely certain: it doesn't appear most of us have a realistice expectation of what being married is supposed to be.