I need help. My husband and I have been married for 23 years now. It has been a marriage of ups and downs. We both have made many mistakes.

Recently an event sparked a coming out if you will. My husband has been a very jealous man from the start of our marriage. He is also very verbal. As time passed I learned the bad habit of just not sharing with him the things that I thought he may get angry with to avoid his words.

I wouldn’t tell him when I bought things like cd’s, makeup, things like that. We have a long history. The first thing I did to him was to not tell him that I had been with his best friend before we were together. I also kissed a guy a year after we were married. I was going through some stupid times then and I told him about it shortly after it happened.

I apologized and felt horrible about it. He said he forgave me and we moved on with our marriage. Although I never cheated on him again, other things in our marriage continued. We were always having blow outs. I didn’t hold a job then but I did take care of the house and our child. We fought several times about this.

He also was very unhappy that I went over to my mom’s too much. Even though I would go when he was at work.

About 12 years ago after having a very rocky relationship we decided to move to another state to try and start fresh. Things seemed to get worse.

I feel like my husband does not accept things until they are his idea. If I don’t agree with his thought then I am told that I am not supporting him. It was as if I didn’t go along with his plan I would have to feel his anger. I know I have a way of making him angry but it seems lately anything I say is against him.

I shut down a little more each year but I held out hope that we would be ok. It seemed like we had good times and bad, I just enjoyed the good times and weathered out the bad. But after moving there were a few times that I left. My husband would talk to me and convince me that if I just listened to him we would be ok.

He always made me feel so guilty for things and that was all we worked on. Yet nothing seemed to change on his part. He is very opinionated and likes to give advice, he also gets upset when his advice is not taken.

He frequently had a complaint about our life, whether it was the finance, the kids, the house. Things never seem to be the way he wanted them to be. I must say that we are from different cultural backgrounds and have given up a lot to be with each other. But I never felt that he was satisfied with what I would do for him and No matter how hard I tried, I ended up hiding things from him. I was always on eggshells trying to prevent him getting angry.

As I said before he is a very jealous man. He would get angry if I laugh with other males, even if it is innocent. I grew to fear his reaction to me on many issues. I have never been with another man for over 20 years and never looked to be.

I am friendly and I do laugh and joke with other males, as well as females at work but not in a sexual or intimate way.

As I said, two years ago I made a mistake. I pulled a prank on a male administrator at work along with a coworker. It was just in fun at work but I did not tell my husband that I joked with him.

We had a blow out and during the makeup process I told my husband what I had done. He felt hurt and betrayed, rightfully so. I apologized and was really trying to work on our marriage.

We went over every detail of my history. I sat for hours on end going over every mistake I could think of throughout our life and even before him.

My husband continues to disbelieve me and says it is because I have not gone the extra mile to help him. I feel I have and although this may sound selfish, I feel I have been made more guilty for a prank than he was for sleeping with prostitutes.

I wanted to work out my marriage but it seemed that I was only working on his problems with me, as with every other fight we have had. It is always about what I could have done better.

I believe my husband was verbally abusive towards me on many occasions, calling me names, telling me I was stupid, maybe I was sick, things like that. When I try to tell him this he gets angry and says that is hurtful and I just don’t want to take responsibility for what I did in our marriage.

Well How much responsibility am I suppose to take? I have sat with him over the past 2 years and talked with him for hours at a time to try and ease his suspicions. He is always making up scenarios like “isn’t it possible that ….”

I tell him over and over again that I didn’t think it was a big deal at the time and he would just be jealous, but I understand that it was wrong, he doesn’t accept this and continues to question me on different things.

During these conversations, my husband would get angry and again start belittling me and when I decided that I didn’t want to do it anymore I just went downstairs and stayed there.

My husband has since left and I have told him over and over again that I don’t think we will be able to work things out.

My husband has made up stories and then took them back. During our conversations he also would say that he was 98 percent more believing but then within a couple of days he was back to his old suspicions, bringing up the same old “ what ifs”. This has gone on for a couple of years and I feel we have gotten nowhere.

My husband calls and says he loves me and doesn’t want to lose me. He has said that he doesn’t want to give up on me, but I just don’t believe that we can make it. I feel I have tried everything I could to make a good marriage but there are two of us in this marriage and it seems that if I try and work on the things that bother me it is turned around to either be his problem also or that I am just dismissed.

On several occasions I told my husband the things that I have a hard time with and yet till today he continues to say I never open up to him.

I admit that I am not the conversation initiator but I have tried to improve that. I am also very afraid of going back to what I went through the past 2 years. It was very exhausting and unhealthy both emotionally and physically.

He continues to tell me if we just show each other love we will be able to work things out, but I know I tried to show him and it ended up the same old way. He would come back and say things like ‘If you would just say it this way, or just act that way…’ He says that if I was really showing him love I would come back after a blow out and tell him I love him.

As I said he was very verbal and it hit me in a spot that just wouldn’t allow me to do that. He is always saying that is what a woman should do, that is her feminine side and he never sees that. I do not feel that just because I am a woman, I should look past these hurts.

I know I love my husband but I feel we just don’t see eye to eye on things and we can’t seem to communicate well. It is always him sitting for hours trying to get me to see things his way, until I just get exhausted.

I am on the verge of divorce and my husband keeps telling me what if you are wrong? He is always making me second guess myself. I try to tell him its not that I don’t love him but I feel our love has taken a wrong turn and I think too much has happened to heal the hurt.

We have tried to work on our communication, tried the date night thing, tried to talk about our issues, and it still feels like we go nowhere. Now he says we didn’t try hard enough. I feel like I am going crazy. Do you have any advice on my situation?

Your husband has abusive tendencies. That means that he gets what he wants by guilting you. It will always be your fault. So he is doing you a favor by letting you stay married to him. Such people will always find fault with you, never be satisfied, and if you do somehow do exactly what he says is wrong, he'll just change the rules so that you never meet his goals. That keeps you on your toes, trying to please him and to avoid making him mad.

Go to the library and read some books by Patricia Evans on abuse. And also read Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men by Bancroft. You need to read these so you will have the knowledge to deal with him.

Bottom line, I have a chore for you. Tell yourself that, for the next week, you will:

• not apologize
  
• say what you feel without worrying if he'll be mad; you have the right to say how YOU feel
  
• really think about whether what he is saying is the truth or his spin to keep you feeling bad

More later, but think on it.

thank you for your reply. I will look into those books. I know he is very strong willed but I just cant seem to get across what I want to say to him. He says he hears me but then comes back with a what if or again tells me his feelings. He asked me to email him if I thought it was over or what I thought it would take to save our marriage. I unfortunately can not think of anything we have not already tried without success.

So I emailed him and told him and he responded with a I love you TOO; and he knows I have given up on our love. I chose not to respond to this as I feel it is just his usual way of getting to me. I never know what he is really up to.

I know that some of the things he says is true, I have lied to him alot during our marriage but I was working on changing that. I don't believe him when he says we didn't truly try. I think I did do as much as I could. Never good enough, yeah maybe for a few days or weeks but then the same old same old.

Thanks again

confused, did your H actually sleep with prostitutes?

yes, it was when we were fighting that I know of, but yes. He did confess it to me and I forgave him but it seems he doesn't think of it the same. He says that its different because what I did ( joking at work) went on for a year and that I was living a seperate life from him. I don't think of it that way, although I know that not sharing with him is wrong.

Wait - a joke for a year? What kind of joke carries on for a year?

No the joke didn’t go on for a year. I didn’t tell my husband until almost a year after it happened. Yes I would joke at work but it was just casual joking like “ don’t you have work to do?” things like that.. work related comedy, nothing personal. I wasn’t going to tell my husband about the prank but I knew in order to truly work things out I needed to come clean about anything he didn’t know about. The thing is that for 2 years now, since I have told him, things seem to have gotten worse. I understand that it was a mistake and as I said I have done all I could to amend the error and help him to trust me again. But I also have my issues with mistrust in him and I don’t feel that we have done anything to address this. During this process of helping him he created more mistrust in me. He would confess things then take them back and then put them back out there again. He would also become very verbal during his down times and then blame it on his being betrayed. While I understand the betrayal, I too was betrayed, I don’t think its right to behave any old way and chalk it up to my experience, especially during a make up process.

You are only wrong in thinking you can fix a verbally abusive man. You can't. He needs to get professional help in the form of anger management. This is HIS problem, not yours. You have to throw him out and insist that he can't come back until he gets help because this level of anger can turn into physical abuse if it's not taken care of. If he refuses to get help, then you need to move on. He has to decide for himself that he wants to change.

On the other hand, if he does agree to get anger management counseling he should also read "Love Busters."

Gotcha. I was like wow - what the heck kind of joke can you pull off for a year?!