I am new to this so please excuse me. I have been seperated for 7 months and do not know what to do. I do not want a divorce however, I do not love him and he does not love me. We do have a 9 month old son. We seperated when our son was 2 months old (I do not understand how he could do that) H though of it as a cooling off period. But, for me, it just made things worse. Unlike a lot of the other posts I have read, there was no other m/w. Just NO emotional needs being met. Since the split, I have been mean to him. I want him to hurt as much as he hurt me. There is soooooo much anger. We can not go on like this. I do not want my son to have to do the back-and-forth visitation (H will be moving closer in the next 6 months) and step family crap (sorry) for his entire childhood. At the same time, I do not want him to live in a house where there is constant fighting and for myself I want a loving relationship. I have read the MB website but, H will not even look at it. He is completely hopeless. H doesn't think we can ever be happy together ( I have my doubts as well, we have very different personalities.) Can our marriage be saved? Can we be happy together? Can we love and RESPECT each other again? If so, how do I convince H? Or, am I putting my effort into the wrong thing? Please help!

According to Harley, if you put the principles into practice, anyone can have a great marriage.<p>However, since it sounds like you don't have a very good track record suring the separation, you may have to Plan A your husband for a while to show him your sincerity about wanting to change and work on the marriage.<p>He is probably wondering what ther eis to come back to if he hasn't been treated very kindly by you. <p>Plan A works even without an A because it is all about stopping all Love Busters(LBs) and fulfilling your spouse's ENs(Emotional Needs). If H won't fill out the questionaires then just print them off of this site and fill them out as if you were your H and then start Plan A. Now it may take weeks and maybe even months for your husband to believe that you have really made consistent changes.<p>Even if your marriage does not get back on track, you will find that you will be a better person for the effort and hopefully have a better relationship with your husband, who will always be the father of your child.<p>Please read His Needs/Her Needs and the info. on this site and if you want to get jump started, you could even have a counseling session with someone at MB.<p>There are lots of sucess stories, and if you need help with fulfilling his EN's just post quesitons on the EN board. <p>GOod Luck. K

Thank you for the great advice K. I forgot to mention that H is 6000 miles from my son and myself. Phone calls and emails are our only means of communication. Going back there to live has been discussed just because he feels guity, not out of sincerity. Also, I can not get over all the hurt that he has caused me in the past so it makes it hard for me to even think about fulfilling his EN. The anger will not subside and continues to build because my son is without a father and I have been raising him alone his entire life.

I am in the same boat but I put up with neglect with H not meeting any Emotional needs and thinking I was making decisions in the best interest of my children. I'm only 2 months into separation, but have quickly moved from the active anger stage to sadness, which is far harder to address. I now wish I had taken the kids out of the situation when they were younger. Though he lived in the same house, he wasn't there for me or the kids.
Be the parent you need to be for your child. I had no assistance with my infants, but now he want 50% custody and visitation.
TAKE CARE of YOURSELF. I ignored that thinking I was doing what was best for my family. It wasn't.
Best of luck. I went to a divorce support group last night and feel much better today.