Hi SadQT,<BR>Wow, you have a heavy load, I think. Since he doesn't believe any counselling will work, but in the past he begged you not to leave...can you take some time to read the Give and Take book? I'm not trying to sell the book, but I just read it and it opened my eyes- I'm not sure i could do justice to it if I tried to explain it to you. Can he realize that there is something in it for him if your marriage improves? He wants you to be his wife, right?So what are his priorities? It's in his better interests all the way around to be married to you. The thing I like about the loveBusters approach is that it gets past all the bad experiences you have had- and I have had plenty (I also have thought your thoughts: am I nuts? I'm loosing it, where is the justice or fairness here, etc)- and just starts to "deposit notes" in the bank account as he says. You can't change the past, but you can change behavior. That approach is helping me get past all the recriminations-I believe my H is wrong and has really hurt me and I am resentful, but I can't change what he did. However, I can see if he can make deposits, it will be easy(ier) to get over the resentments.There is a chapter in the book I mentioned on getting a person to see what you are saying with out getting their defenses up. My H is suspicious, too, of "therapy" and I wasn't sure of how to get him to read these books.The part on honesty spoke to me- so I had an honest talk with himthe day after our last "discussion" that left me an emotioal puddle on the floor (he threatened to leave me, told me to get out of his face, called me looney, etc. by the time he was done I was a wreck). Anyway, i didn't do it in a threateningw way, but I said truthfully, that these discussions were leaving me devastated and that I could see me loosing it mentally in the future if it happened again--->personal armagedon. I wasn't trying to be manipulative and he saw that. so he listened So I told him I thought we should take a look at some books I'd found. Yesterday he read a bit on anger and then, by the grace of God he saw something that I had been trying to tell him for years- Then this a.m. I read him some parts that were especially in his interest--->more and better sex. But!not just that- that I had understood something about it that I had never understood before. That I had a way to go to understanding and I was willing to go there with him . What a carrot, hm?I am hopeful now for the first time in years. I still am in withdrawal for the most part, but maybe, just maybe...<BR>SadQT, I hope for you and he. I thought my H was jerk, too. From his point of view, though, it looked different and I had never been able to see it. I thought he must be a lunatic. : )<BR>MaryC
