Dear Terri,

I agree with anita – your husband doesn’t care about you and he isn’t willing to change either. He told you he won’t stop going to bars (is this why the two of you separated?), and that you’re not his boss. Which means he’s not willing to change one iota. You say you would like your marriage to work. But it cannot work if he isn’t willing to compromise at least a bit. And he isn’t and won’t be for quite some time, as it seems…

You’re 50, you still have many years ahead of you, many years that you can enjoy, either alone or in a loving relationship. Or you can waste that time waiting for him to notice you, and in the meanwhile worry, be anxious and hurt, lose sleep, not be able to concentrate etc. So basically, have those remaining years, more likely decades, destroyed by your inability to let him go.

I know it’s easier said than done, and that it’s not easy for you to let him go. If you’d like to explore why it’s not easy and how you can still help yourself, you can start a new topic, as anita suggested, and we can talk about it some more.