One minute he is telling me he loves me with all his heart and wants to make our marriage work but he is not ready to do anything to make it work. Then in the next breath he says he cannot get over what I did to him and that he doesn't see how we can work to make our marriage survive. And he adamantly stated that he was not taking ANY Blame for what happened. He had nothing to do with it. He never offered to stop seeing the girlfriend either. I have offered to do whatever it takes and am currently seeing the pastor that married us to help me work thru this whole situation. He wants me to move out of the house and back to my parents. I told him that I am staying in the house until we either resolve our situation or we file papers. This just adds to the roller coaster. Last night we had an okay night just hanging out at the house. We go to sleep and this morning he doesn't know what he wants to do. How do you sort thru the muddy waters to know where the bottom is? and how can you fix a broken marriage if both partner want to make it work but one partner doesn't want to do the work cause he doesn't want to have any blame assigned to him?

He claims he is 100% innocent in all this. When I tried to explain the emotional unmet need, he went off on me saying he did not do anything and he will not accept blame for any of this. I told him I am not blaming anyone. I am just saying I had an unmet emotional need to which he hears YOU DID NOT MEET MY NEED. therefore he takes it as me blaming him. How do I word this so he hears me and not hear the word blame.

"I would love it if my need of _____ were met", or "I would love it if you did _____ for me".

Intro--

I'm sort of in the same position as spa--

and if I said what you said above (which I agree is good suggestion in an ideal world...)

My H's reply would be something like "you don't deserve it" or "we'll see" (a way for him to not have to discuss it, but he also won't step up and do anything either) or "I told you what I needed a year ago and you didn't care so why should I care what you need now?" or something else along those lines.

Which, quite frankly, drains the love bank even more than if I never brought it up in the first place. Because then I KNOW he knows what I want/need (and that I said it in a respectful manner)... and he's INTENTIONALLY not doing it-- which is a huge blow.

So, I keep my mouth shut because telling him what I want/need just really drains the love bank MORE-- as he refuses to do it, tells me I'm not worthy, that he doesn't really care about me-- or the worst-- intentionally does the opposite when he's upset to "get back at me".

Then what? I agree, these are perfect world responses... but what if they just don't care enough? Then asking/mentioning (respectfully) makes the situation worse because then you feel like you aren't worthy at all.

Then do you keep your mouth shut? Do you keep saying it? Then what? I've resorted to keeping my mouth shut and just stewing on my own feelings-- easier that way. They don't matter to my H anyways, and anytime I bring up my own hurt feelings he just get defensive and attacks me (see my thread...).

I'm not trying to T/J here... just an observation, and something that I think Spa might run into too, from my own experience. Suggestions here?

E.

Hi SG,
From his side of the fence. I have been in his position, very recently, D-Day 3/15/08. To be honest he probably doesn't know which way is up right now. The hurt is still too fresh. I really didn't listen for about 3-5 weeks. Just let him vent. Try to understand where he is coming from. Listen, Understand, Validate. It is very hard to do, believe me. It does get better, just takes a lot of love and hard work.