My husband and I have been married for a little over a year, but we have been together a total of 5 years. We have one child, a girl thats 2 1/2. We have always had the most wonderful relationship and i love him more than anything in this world. I should start off by saying i feel like all this is my fault. I have some anger issues that I have been working on for quite some time. If i get irritated or upset, i lash out at people and say really mean things that i dont mean at all. As soon as I say things i feel terrible and disgusted with myself. I know I have lashed out at my husband a lot. Sometimes just little things that happen set me off and I have outbursts. I know I have said a lot of hurtful things to him with the most hurtful being at Thanksgiving this year when he did something to make me angry and i said "I dont know why i even spend the holidays with you" Those words eat at me everyday, but there isnt anything I can do to take them back. About 2 weeks ago, without warning he came to me and said that he just cant do this anymore and he wanted to leave me. This devestated me. I begged him to give me a chance to change and make things right. A week later we were having the same discussion. He has told me that he loves me and he always will, he just doesnt have any feelings left for me. He says I have hurt him too bad, which i agree i have. We have talked a lot and I have convinced him to go to a marriage counselor, we go tonight for the first time. I am just hurting so bad, and its so hard. One minute he seems like everything is fine, joking around with me and loving on me and the next its almost like I dont exist and that is killing me. We used to be so loving, so for him to not want to show me any affection is just killing me. I am just so confused. We hasnt left, we are still together. I am just scared this counselor isnt going to help. I just love him so very much i cant stand the thought of losing him. I know this is all my fault, and I am trying to get help for my emotional issues. I just need some advice or thoughts. Please help!

We went to our counselor for the first time last night. They are suggesting that I see a Dr. for possible Bipolar disorder. I have set up an appt with my doctor already, it just hurts so bad to hear him say that if this counseling doesnt work, he is leaving. I cant stand the thoughts of that. I almost feel like he is putting a wall up between us and I sometimes feel like he has already given up. This is just all so crazy!

Dis, welcome to MarriageBuilders!!!

Best place I can think of for you right now...thanks for acting bravely from your marital commitment by posting.

Okay...what do you do now? You're in counseling...and you really want it to work, correct?

Well, supplement...get Harley's book on LoveBusters today...and read it. You've been draining his love bank...sure, you make deposits in between...but for every one AO/DJ you do, you wiped out 20 love deposits you made by meeting his ENs.

Runs into the negative that way.

So, by stopping your LB's...you get ahead...his loving feelings return...and sounds like, they aren't all gone yet...he feels your deposits get in...only suddenly he'll act cautious if he triggers to his fear of your next LB wiping them out.

Not crazy at all...heck, you had no idea how much damage you were doing...and you weren't doing your amends, either...feeling remorse and acting from it are two different things.

We all have erred...you know that...how we amend goes to how healthy our side of the marriage is...can't unsay or unact anything. Done. Becomes part of history. Which is why LB's are so very damaging...they can be replayed in our heads over and over again...and we'll experience those same emotional reactions as if they are happening again RIGHT NOW.

Even when they aren't.

I know that after reading Harley's His Needs, Her Needs...and reading the articles on this website...especially about LBs...I changed a lot. I revoked my permission for me to LB...worked on eliminating them...staying aware of them.

How I demonstrated my emotions instead of stating them.

Your fear of abandonment kicks in each time you replay in your head your H saying if this doesn't work, he's outta hear. Reasonable...he is telling you his final boundary enforcement.

Up to you to own your actions...because only you can control you. Can't control his choices. I don't think you like yourself for your outbursts...which sound to me to be from a silent, deep resentment in you...don't know until you tell me where it comes from. Usually this behavior is exampled to us in our family of origin (FOO).

Stop focusing all over H...you deserve and require your focus on you...so you can speak without demands or barbs...you can learn to listen and repeat, share what is yours, hear what is his...and have a thriving marriage!

You can do this...

Welcome!

LA

Distraught you've got ONE of the BEST MB veteran posting to you. READ carefully what she tells you, let it become part of you.

Loving Away,
Thank you for this insight. You have no idea how much your words are appreciated. It helps so much to hear positive feedback on things we can do. I have really taken a lot from what you have said and I greatly appreciate the fact that you took the time to help me out. I am trying my best to control my own emotions and try to make up for what i have done in the past. I am praying he is noticing all that I am doing. Its just so hard to go through this. I never thought our marriage would be in this position. I am praying we can fix this. I love him more than anything.

If anyone could offer some advice on how to get the passion back in our relationship. I'm not even sure where to start or what to do. I feel we have lost the passion and the romance and i feel that is making a big impact on the way things are going

Distraught have your read the articles here on Basic concepts, lovebusters, plan A(even with no A, plan A is meeting your H's EN), etc.? These are the tools you need to start recovering respect, committment, love, etc.

Do you think you are really bi-polar or is it a matter of controlling your anger? If it's anger issues, have you looked inward as to WHAT causes anger/resentment to build in yourself?

IMO until YOU get a handle on your outburts it will be very hard to build passion back.

Wishing you the best!

I dont really think I'm bipolar. I think i just have some issues deep down inside that I am greatly working on. I havent had an outburst since thanksgiving. I have really been working on this. Last night was a rough night. We have been doing really good, or so i thought. I sat him down last night and CIVIALLY talked to him about everything and told him that i just believe we need to get the passion back and that will help a lot of things out. He just said he doesnt think the feeling are there anymore. I swear i know they are, they are just buried behind all the anger and hurt and i told him that we just need to get them back out. But i know they are there. I can feel it in the way he touches me and tooks at me. He just became very distant last night. It hurts me so much to see him like this and it just hurts me so deeply to think about all of this. I am so scared right now. I love him with all my heart and with everything i have and thats what makes it especially hard for me is that i still have all those feelings for him. I havent lost any of them, if anything i love him more now than ever. I just dont know what to do anymore. I couldnt stand losing him. I just couldnt handle it. I really couldnt. He is my life, he is everything.

Dis,

As you read Harley's work, you may come to believe, as I do, that feelings come back...we can fall in love again and again with our spouses. When I put that in my belief system...as my own belief...then I stopped trying to convince my DH of it...and began to live from it. Changed our marriage and my life.

And yes, MY feelings of love were buried, just as you said, under feelings of resentment, from hurt and fear...like a barrier. When you spoke to your H, did you use these "I" statements? Share what it is like for you, in you, about you? Or were you set on convincing him he's wrong in his beliefs, his perspective...because that's what is triggering your great fear and pain?

Would you say he made a lot of love deposits over the years BECAUSE you LB'd and he loved you, anyway? Before you knew about love busters...AO's and DJs...his forgiveness, his persistence in loving you anyway kept your love bank going?

Part of the resentment trap is that your partner is, as you said, everything to you. Meaning you dwell in him...and abandon yourself. That was my experience. My hyperfocus was all over DH...watching every touch, facial expression, gesture...hearing every word, tone, rhythm of his speech...feeling every touch and actually hearing words in it...all taken to be about me, as the cause, control and cure of his stuff.

That's not reality. Reality is you are two separate people in one union. Your fears are in you, from way back, before H, and because you're so focused on him, when they are triggered, when they jump up in you, they are attributed to him as the cause, control and cure.

He isn't. He's your partner...your equal. First step to take is to separate out what is yours from what is his...because God led me to Al-anon meetings, I had a clue how to do this...and to great books (like "Between Parent and Child" by Eincott; The Dance of Anger (and now, I've forgotton the author...just saw it in the book store, though)...John Bradshaw books. All of these at once, almost...because sorting out where I ended and he began...was really tough.

So in that first step for me was choosing to inject respect into my marriage...it wasn't there before. We kept doing the same dance because it was missing. I learned to respect my DH's thoughts, beliefs, perspective and perceptions, his feelings, SEPARATELY from my own...and it's like untangling wet shoe laces. Not easy. Takes a lot of practice...well worth it...to get to reality.

Because this new respect was what I was choosing my actions and words from, our dance changed almost immediately. DH didn't trust my change...heck, I was a chameleon at change...and changing back, seemingly. Took time, repetition (practice) and ownership.

Using "I" statements is an act of respect. Owns your stuff...and shares it. That IS intimacy...which passion, I believe, comes from. Begins as passion for you...for who you are...and sharing your stuff, your truth.

Then you stop wrestling each other's stuff...and begin to see the actions taken as the truth...which is where issues are. Cut out 90% of our disagreements, using "I" statements and respecting our own stuff...right away.

And eliminating my LBs, which CAME from so merged, so enmeshed, as another act of respect, happened at the same time. Like you, I remembered my last AO, charted how many days, into a month, and then longer...and like you are already doing, that helped me to stay committed to not LBing.

Which changed my life. When I DJ'd and caught myself (or DH caught me), I immediately owned it, said where it came from in me, and that I didn't want to do that because that's not who I am. We can LB for so long we come to believe that's who we are...we literally believe we are our own LBs...and we are not. God didn't make anyone an LB...he made us from love, to love, and be loved. Period.

Helped me a lot to say, "That's not who I really am. I won't do that again." Loving yourself fully, not dwelling in the future where you have no control, or the past except to own and amend it in the present, is living in your human power, isn't it?

Why not affirm to him your understanding...that you have drained his love bank over time with your LB's? That you're now aware of so much more, how costly it is, and goes directly against what you cherish most, your marriage? When you share what you're realizing, choosing new beliefs, and to act from them and not react to resulting feelings...that's NEWS!!!

He'll choose his way...his belief. In actually, every time he's chosen to stay married to you, even in great pain from your one-line nukes, that's about him, not you. He chooses. Respect he has and will...we all do. When you see clearly his choices, you'll see your own with clarity.

How it worked for me.

You can print out the Emotional Needs Questionnaire and fill it out for him, as best you can, if he chooses not to...you can do the same for the Love Busters one, too.

Then you can meet his ENs right now...make those deposits...and when you feel that urge to bash...you can permit yourself to say, instead, "I feel like saying something to hurt you right now" instead.

LBs aren't honest...they mask what we really are saying...and you're worth being honest, every moment.

I believe I know your fear and pain...I was in it a little over three years ago...with my DH saying the same things..."Why come back when there will only be more pain and suffering?" At the time, he had left because he was having an A...and this shut-down perspective isn't just fog...it comes from pre-A...and I felt desperate, hopeless, too. I found MarriageBuilders...and all that changed...took that first step, guided by JustLearning, Pepperband and others...I read threads for hours each evening...got the books suggested...kept going...for my marriage. WH agreed to marital counseling (MC) in less than a month after writing that statement in an email...and he told the MC in our first session that his goal was to make a decision...either to leave the marriage for the OW, leave the marriage for himself, or to stay and work on the marriage.

My goal for MC was to save my marriage.

You can have different goals, Dis...yours is yours. I had a lot of LBs to eliminate and do amends for...you are not alone. You can do this.

LA

Dis,
I dont really think I'm bipolar. I think i just have some issues deep down inside that I am greatly working on. I havent had an outburst since thanksgiving.

IC might be very good for you in working thru your anger/resentment issues.

Very good on no AO since Thanksgiving! However, just as LA stated to you, your H's LB can be so low he doesn't believe YOU can maintain the changes.

Prove him wrong...don't have AO, DJ's or LB. It takes time in this type of situation for your H to SEE you are committed to changing.

Keep strong!

All of a sudden he has become very cold to me, he wont look at me, hug me, talk to me, or even let me touch him in bed. This hurts me so bad. I asked him if he was trying to make me not love him ( i thought he was doing this so i wouldnt hurt so much) he says he isnt. I told him that no matter what happens i am gonna love him for the rest of my life, and if anything i love him now more than ever. He just seems to be closing himself up and putting a wall up to any feelings that might make their way back in. I tried to tell him that i know how bad i have hurt him in the past, but I promise i am never gonna hurt him like that again. I told him its ok to let me back in his heart because i promise i'm not gonna hurt him. All he says is well what do you want me to do. He just keeps asking me what i want him to do. I just keep trying to tell him that i just want him to keep an open mind to everything and not put a wall up. I dont think i am getting through to him and i dont understand it. I am hurting so bad, i dont know what to do. I love him so very much, even if this marriage doesnt work, 30 years down the road i will still love him just as much

Dis,

Thank you for your response. Couple of things...

Harley has a plan for falling in love again...the four rules of marriage...there are steps you can take.

When he asks what you want him to do...you can say, "join me in 15 hours a week of undivided attention...we can do the recreational inventory and come up with fun things to do together." Remember when you were first dating? Think on what you both enjoyed doing together...go from there.

Respect he hears you...he knows you don't want him putting up a wall...when you choose to think you aren't getting through to him, then you're assuming what isn't true...you don't know or not. If you believe you're only heard when he does what you want him to do, then you are sinking your own boat in your half of the communication, aren't you?

Do you think he's having an affair?

What books are you reading? Did you try to tell him you know what you've done to hurt him and apologize, or DID you tell him?

LA

I know he isnt having an affair. he definately isnt the type for that. I asked him that just in case when all this first started and he said he would never do that to me no matter what was going on. The counselor asked him too and he said no. I really dont think he would ever do that. I told him yesterday that i know i have hurt him a lot in the past and unfortunately theres nothing i can do to take it back and change it. All i can do is change the future. I have apologized so many times. I want him to know how truely sorry i am. Unfortunately i am not reading any books right now. I want to get the lovebusters book by harley, but my finances are very very tight right now, and i know it sounds very crazy, but i dont have the money to spend on the book. I would love to have it, but I am unable to purchase it. I have asked him many times to go out and do things together, go to dinner, the movies, go bowling just stuff where we can have fun together and he refuses. I dont understand what else I can do. I am so scared right now. I am just terrified of what is going to happen. I couldnt stand to be without him for one day

GO TO THE LIBRARY. You should be able to find the books there for free.

He's built up a wall to protect himself from you. Just as if you were an alcoholic that would only occasionally binge then become hateful, he feels he must protect himself from your angry outbursts. He's NOT going to take down his wall just because you "promise" not to do it again. These kinds of things take time...and the proof is in the actions (not the words).

Saying you will not hurt him anymore means nothing. Not hurting him anymore is the only thing you can do to prove to him that what you say is true....and that takes time. He will not believe you for a while (and no, I'm not talking about days...but months, years). You have to prove yourself.

Begging and pleading every day doesn't help your case either. Stop the relationship talk, go to the library and stock up on some good reading material (the books suggested on this website) and focus on what you need to do to permanently change your behavior. Then, whether he stays or goes, you are working to better yourself (with or without him).

Oh, and just so you know...nobody is the "type" to have an affair until they are in one. Trust me. He is certainly in a position to be vulnerable to one, especially with a wife that has a tendency to unleash her anger on him for apparently no good reason...

I just wanted to say that you are going through a very similar situation to my own, restore_happy in the emotional needs section. and I got some realy good advice from my pastor. Love is patient, love is kind, love holds no record of wrongs. I realized that I tainted my love for my wife by expecting things in return for my efforts, now I am just giving her what I want her to have, with no expectations. I don't know if this is helpfull to you, but it was to me, best of luck, we both have alot of work ahead.

cathy, thank you for your advice. I know it is going to take some time to repair the damage I have done. I have not had an angry outburst since Thanksgiving and i always try to do little thoughtful things for him to prove i have changed. I am just praying he sticks this out long enough to realize that i have changed and i am not going to act the way i have in the past. I really realized that i was taking his love for granted, i have really learned how much i cherish everything he does. Like I have told him also, i know words dont mean anything, i just want him to give me a chance to show him how i have changed.

I'm sorry but it sounds like an affair to me. You need to redirect how you're dealing with him. Start snooping; it's allowed and preferred.

I honestly dont think he is having an affair. There are no strange phone calls he gets, and I mean in all honesty, i dont know when he would have time. When he isnt at work, he is at home, there is no time that he is gone that i cannot account for. I really honestly dont think he is having an affair. I dont think thats an issue here.

That's certainly your choice, and I respect that. One poster made the exact same point about his teenage daughter regarding drugs - no time, just here and school, etc. - and she nearly died of an overdose. I only suggest it so you can rule it out. Just look at all your options. And remember, nearly every single person who comes here after finding out their partner had an affair could have quoted what you just said. I hope you're right, but to protect yourself - and to find a solution - you should keep your eyes and mind open.

I need some advice. I think that my husband is coming home with the attitude that it is going to be a bad night, or that he is going to be unhappy. I completely understand him being like this with everything that has happened, but I just need some advice on how I can help him to see that we both need to come home with a good and open attitude. I hate to see him so unhappy all night, but i just feel like he is coming home with the mindset that it is going to be bad. I mean i would like to come home and cry all night like i feel like doing, but i set that aside and just keep positive thinking that it is going to be a good night. I think he looks at it like if he trys this, he is going to be "faking it". How can i help him to see that we need to put some of our sad emotions aside, and welcome the thought of positive thinking. I try to be as happy around him as possible. I just dont want to see him acting unhappy. I just need help right now. It hurts sometimes to see how well he gets along with other people on the phone and his parents and stuff like that, then i feel like he barely talks to me. I am just very confused and need some advice. I love him so very much and I am willing to do anything it takes to make this work. I am committed to fixing our marriage 110%. I know this all can be fixed, it is just going to take time. I am just praying, praying that he gives this the time it needs and doesnt give up and leave. I am so scared of this. Please help me out here.