Dear JournoGirl:

Since I am correct in my understanding, then there is no victim and no villain in this relationship with your husband. You are both engaged in a destructive relationship, destructive to the two of you.

It is a possibility that he is with you not because he loves you, but because he feels guilty to leave you and stay away from you, because you beg him so much each time he leaves, because you express such great need for him. So he is with you, trying to make it work so not to feel guilty.

It is possible that you are pushing him each time to leave you so to re-create the abandonment situation, to re-create the situation when your father left your mother. And then you rush to “fix it” by getting him to come back. Then you feel some relief followed by anxiety, disquiet, and you push his buttons again, until he explodes and leaves and so the pattern repeats.

This might be the source of your attachment to your husband. If so, this relationship better end, and the sooner the better.

Whether I am correct here or not, this relationship is destructive to the two of you and each one of you is making it so. If I am correct, my advice to you is to set him free, let him go and stay gone from your life.

anita