Dear Lisa,

You use some interesting words like “how to handle my husband”. Your job is to handle yourself and your actions and communicate clearly what you feel and what you need. If something hurts you, it is your job to clearly state that you are hurting. How other people respond to that is outside of your control. You can hold onto your boundaries and refuse to be bullied with sarcastic comments. If you don’t respect yourself enough to stand up for yourself, then it is usually an invitation for other people to walk all over you.

I’m neither married, nor am I a parent, so I can’t personally know all the things that go into such dynamics. There’s just something about your writing that sounds like you go into your shell and you become passive and bitter. That’s not going to make you happy nor will it solve the situation. That said, it’s not just your job to make the marriage work and if your husband is giving you silent treatment, then he’s being passive-aggressive as well. He has to step up as well, but you can’t force him to, nor manipulate him. Can you talk with him without any shaming or guilting? Just express what you feel and what you need and ask what he needs and how he feels. If you felt loved and cared for, would the flirting feel as bad as it does right now? My point is that the flirting is a thing that you focus on right now, but is it really the root of all problems or something that has become a problem, because you don’t feel safe or acknowledged?

On top of that, you can also work on tending to yourself in ways that makes you feel safe, loved, acknowledged and cared for. Those things can come from yourself to yourself as well, and not only from other people.