Thank you for reading my first post here on the forums. My husband and I have been married for twelve years. We were separated once for about a year, but through counseling came back together three years ago. I can see patterns resurfacing, though. My husband has always been what I've viewed as verbally abusive, leading me to leave the last time. Counseling showed him, by his own admission, that what he was doing was wrong and he worked hard to correct it. But lately it's as though he doesn't care anymore.
We have two young children (9 & 6) and we both work full-time outside the home. He namecalls and can be quite bullying toward me. We also have a firewood business out of our house that the children and I help with. Lately, I have been ill and haven't been able to help as much as I had been, but I try to help anyway the best I can. Even though I visited a doctor and was on medication, he said I was trying anything to get out of doing this extra work, which is not at all the truth. If the house is not spotless, he explodes. He has literally run his fingers over furniture to see if there is dust on it. I have to dust daily. I can leave the house spotless and if he's off work that day, it will look like a bomb exploded while I was gone and he'll fuss that I am a sloppy housekeeper.
This weekend is my mother's 60th birthday and the family is having a special dinner for her. He said he isn't going because he has "too much to do around the house" this weekend. He used the same excuse two weeks ago for not going to our daughter's birthday party. When his family visits (and I get along very well with them), he drops everything to see them, which I can understand, but he also expects me to entertain his mom and sisters. I have no problem with this because we get along well and have fun. But when my family or friends visit, he stays outside or leaves. Since day 1 of our relationship, he's never made an effort to get to know these people in my life. We live about an hour and a half from my family, so it's not like they visit often, perhaps once every couple of months.
He no longer attends church with me. I've stepped down from several positions I had at the church because I didn't want him to feel excluded. But when I leave for church on Sundays and Wednesdays, he calls me to make sure I'm at church and what time I will be home. He got very angry when a couple from church came by (when I was not there) to tell him they've been missing him at church.
He's a very big hunter and fisherman and he coaches my son's soccer team (which I've been begging him not to since he puts entirely too much pressure on my son). He will drop everything to go hunting or fishing with his friend. If I want to do something, he questions me relentlessly.
I give him my entire paycheck every week to help pay our bills off. I don't even get an "allowance". I would like to have a little money in my account to buy an occasional coffee or haircut with, but I have nothing. Personally, I think it's control so that even if I ever wanted to leave him, I'd be financially unable to. He flipped out when I bought a $4 magazine last week at the grocery store because it was "frivilous", but he buys between 4 - 6 packs of chewing tobacco weekly. I am having a hard time seeing how he views things.
We went through counseling when we separated before and he would try to run things, but the counselor wouldn't let him do that. Once he realized that he couldn't control the counseling sessions, he stopped wanting to go. Now anytime we have an argument, I suggest counseling but he says it won't do any good. He won't let me go because we don't have the "extra money" to pay for a counselor.
Sorry to go on and on....I just spill over sometimes. Am I crazy or alone in this? Thank you for taking time to read my post.
