Kitty -<p>I stumbled across some of your posts in another topic, and hope you haven't completely left the forum here.<p>Your story is very similar to my wife's story. She is very strong, very articulate and if she were working outside the home, she would be in a professional position; she chose to stay home to be with our children. She had suffered many emotional and physical abuses at the hands of her parents (once she accidentally broke a lamp, and scurried to pick up the pieces but her mother caught her and stepped on her hand in anger, jamming a piece of glass deep into her palm. This is one of hundreds of such events in her life) but has learned to rise above it all in many ways.<p>She isn't a whiny baby; she's very strong and independent, like I said. She has her head screwed on real tight and has successfully navigated her life just fine for 32 years. <p>But we're in a terrible state right now, because I _AM_ very much a passive-aggressive male who has his own set of problems, and she has "run out of steam".<p>She doesn't get any understanding from her friends, because from outside the relationship it looks like I'm the good husband (helpful, friendly, loving), and they can't understand why she'd want to leave me. This just makes her more angry, because she knows she's worked very hard to overcome her past and to grow to be an adult, so she feels that she should be the one to get the sympathy for being at the short end of the stick.<p>In my case, I fear my wife. I know intellectually I have no need to, but because she can be so overpowering, my natural inclination is to cower in her presence like a scare child, but then last out somehow in an underhanded way.<p>If your husband is experimenting with being openly aggressive, I'd take it as a sign of impending danger; both for you and for him. He may never have wanted to hurt you before, but might be changing his mind about that.<p>Keep yourself safe.<p>-Tom