I'm new here but I really need unbiased advice.

History: I've been married to my husband for four years. We have a five year old son. We lived together for two years before our son was born. We moved in with each other only about three months after we met, things went pretty quickly in the beginning. We moved across the country about six years ago, so we have no family anywhere within thousands of miles. We both work full time, my job is steady but fairly stressful.

Our relationship became very strained when our son was born. He did not help out at all with taking care of our son or the housework. Things got worse when he started working on night shift, which was about four years ago. It continued to decline until he had an emotional affair two years ago. The OW's husband found out and told me. At that point we decided to stay together and try to work it out. I went to counselling, he never did. Things were ok for a while, but gradually started to decline again.

Part of my issues are me feeling like I'm just complaining. I feel stressed out all the time, I do everything to take care of our son, I do all the housework, literally all of it, and I work full time. He's very condescending towards me about the house being clean, it's never clean enough and it's always my fault. I never get to go out with friends without taking our son, because of his work schedule. I cannot even remember the last time I spent time with friends while he watched our son, it's happended maybe two or three times since he's been born. I guess I just feel very unappreciated.

I think I could deal with that, but I can't deal with the way he treats me and my son. He's always tired and cranky, and I know it's because of his work schedule but it doesn't make it easier to deal with. He screams and yells at us on regular basis. It's often for things related to the house being clean.

On New Years Eve, we stayed home and my son and I were playing video games while he was on his computer. He went to play too and sat on the carpet and there were some crumbs on the carpet. He screamed at my son and me about how we don't care about the house, we don't care about him, just went on and on screaming. Completely ruined the evening. This happens a lot, almost every day that we see him.

There are a lot of days during the week that we dont' see him at all, when we get home he's usually asleep and often doesn't wake up until after we go to bed. Honestly, I prefer this because we don't have to worry about his blow-ups.

I have read "His Needs Her Needs" and really tried to meet his needs, but I really think he has unrealistic expectations of what I can do. He wants me to be June Cleaver while working full time. He will not read any books, will not go to counselling, when I suggest it he says I'm the one with the problems.

I just really hate how me makes me feel when he yells, screams and swears at me in front of our son. I don't want our son to grow up thinking that this is how we treat people.

If I'm honest with myself, I realize that I feel absolutely no affection towards him. My love bank has such a negative balance I don't know if it will ever recover.

I just don't know how much longer I can keep hoping things will change. I don't really think they will change since he refuses to seek help and doesn't even recognize that he needs help.

Sorry this was so long but I would be extremely grateful for any advice anyone has to offer.

alright, I'll weigh in.

1. You have some legitimate and urgent issues in your M.
2. Find a way to address those.
3. Divorce should be the absolute LAST resort.

...that's what I think.

I think it's time when you know you've done absolutely everything you can on your part, and it's not going to change.

Have you talked to him about working a different shift so you can spend more time together? Have you told him, without threatening, that the way your life is right now makes you think it would be easier without him, and that you'd like to talk about ways to make it work?

I have talked to him about getting another shift and he says it's not possible because he's so low on the seniority scale.

This summer things got pretty bad, he started to get more physical. He's always spanked our son which I don't agree with but he started to get worse than spanking and physically threatened me when I tried to get between them. The next day I started making plans to leave. We talked about how unhappy I was and he agreed to go to counseling and said he would try harder to sleep more during the day so he'd be awake more at night. Neither of those things have happened. He hasn't been physical towards me since then though.

I haven't threatened to leave again, because I don't take that lightly but I just don't seem to be able to get through to him that things need to change. He thinks things are fine except that I don't show enough love to him. He acts like there's a switch I can just flip and suddenly be in love with him again without him having to change anything and it just doesn't work like that.

I think we're going to talk tonight, if anyone has more advice to share on what to tell him, I'd really appreciate it.

You say that your husband is doing much worse than just spanking your son? You didn't clarify what that might be but if your son is in danger you need to remove him from the situation. Good luck to you.

She sounds a little too emotional to make a good decision about whether the child is in real danger. Spacegirl tells a scary story, and if it is completely true, then she does have a problem and needs to leave.

However, I have heard this tune many times before, even falsely against me. Usually when all the facts come out there is shared blame, not as one-sided as this sounds. Arguments are mostly two sided, and it seems exaggerated that it has been going on so long, yet she has chosen to do nothing about it. People these days don't just "sit there and take it" for that long.

I could be wrong, just something smells fishy here. Maybe Spacegirl could honestly tell us what her actions are in the confrontations. Before anyone gets all bent out of shape here, if one is honest with themselves they can see my point. And, why would we give advice with just half the story at best? Let's give Spacegirl a chance to tell the whole story first.

set_u_free.

You need help.

Nina, because I ask for all the facts before jumping to a conclusion, you say I need help?

OK, let's say we are on top of a three story building and there is smoke coming out of a pipe on the roof. I tell you the building is on fire and the only way to save ourselves is to jump. I do so, what would you do?

I would hope you would check for more facts.

Ok, you two.......take it somewhere else and let's focus on helping spacegirl.

Sure, she's probably pretty emotional about this, but that doesn't mean just walking out.......it took me 12 years to leave a similar situation, mostly because I have such a strong sense of "sticking it out" no matter what and the fear of being on my own with kids, etc. etc.

Spacegirl, is there someone in your life you can share with and ask for advice from? Church? Or call a local domestic violence hotline and talk to them. Just because you aren't being beaten up doesn't mean they can't help you sort things out and figure out some ideas. Obviously, they way things are isn't working. You can't change your husband, he has to want to change. So, you need to find ways to change the situation so it works......it's a lot easier with someone to talk to. Hang in there!