Dear Hello,

I am sorry about your husband’s behavior… he does seem uncooperative, uninterested in improving the relationship with you, and even blaming you for wanting to change him. He doesn’t see any fault in his behavior and is sort of “unrepentant” and doesn’t care about your feelings.

This is quite indicative:

I told him he had to see a counselor at the beginning of the year. He did but he used the time to construct the narrative that I was the bad guy for “making him go” and came out on the other end angry and bitter at me.

Narcissists can be like that – they charm away the therapist and convince them that there’s nothing wrong with them, but that the problem is in you. Do you think he might have narcissistic tendencies?

We were married very quickly so I never got a chance to get to know him.

What was the reason for getting married so quickly, if I may ask? Was he love-bombing you in the beginning (something that narcissists typically do) and you fell for it?

His suspicious and unaccounted for spending of money – specially when you’re on a tight budget – is also unacceptable. Have you talked to him about it? Have you asked him why he has withdrawn 700 in cash? (you don’t need to tell him you went through his pockets)

I pretty much have given him a diplomatic ultimatum so to speak at least twice and he still hasn’t respected that.

A “diplomatic ultimatum” is kind of an oxymoron – an ultimatum cannot by diplomatic by definition 🙂 Ultimatum is more like “either you do this, or else… ” So I guess even if you told him he “must” delete the app, you never did anything when he didn’t – there were no consequences of his inaction. He kept being “defiant”.

In general, ultimatums are not the best way to communicate in a marriage. But it seems it has been very difficult to communicate with him, and even couple’s counseling didn’t help much (We’ve seen one together but we didn’t get far). What happened in couple’s counseling, if I may ask?

In any case, if he keeps being disrespectful and completely uninterested in changing his behavior, then there is no point in trying to make things work, but the only reasonable solution is to separate/divorce. It’s good that you seem to be mentally and emotionally prepared for this possibility (I pretty much don’t have anything left and am ready to move forward with my life in peace.)