Dear Meg:

No, I don’t think your expectations are unrealistic. This is what I think having re-read your original and later posts on this thread: this marriage is unhealthy for you. It works against your well being, and so, it works against your daughters’ well being because they need a healthy mother. Being “a buffer when he loses his temper with the girls” is not a good reason to stay in the marriage because they still suffer from his expressions of anger. Buffering doesn’t protect them. The threat of his anger, the initial expressions of it are damaging enough.

Without his present, when he left for days/ weeks for work, you “just feel relieved” and “Things are so much more calm and joyful when he is not around.” This is strong evidence as to why it is a good idea to separate from him- at least when the girls are with you, in a separate household, they will be safe from his anger and they will have a calmer mother.

You wrongly believe that you are responsible for the failure of the marriage even though you are the one who suggested couple counseling as well as multiple suggestions to make the marriage work.

You also wrongly believe that the failure of the marriage will take place when you divorce while the truth is that the marriage is already a failure and has been a failure for years. Divorce will end a marriage that has failed- in spite of your best efforts- for years.

A wrong strategy on your part- which has kept you stuck in indecision for so long- is that you doubt your own thinking, feelings and experiences and give way more weight to his thinking than to your own. He begs- you retreat and reconsider. He promises- you retreat and wait, once again (maybe this time…) You keep having faith in him, keep believing him although he doesn’t deserve your faith.

I think he knows he has the power in the marriage and can easily cause you to change your decisions.

His position is that if you have a problem, you are the cause, not him. And you often enough believe him. In your effort to not have a failed marriage (which it is already), you sacrificed your trust in your own understanding, you believe him, doubting yourself.

You wrote: “the better I feel about my own mental state, the worse I feel about my marriage”- this is because the better your mental health, the better you see what is in front of you, the reality of your marriage- it already failed.

You wrote: “I have tried to be the best wife I can be, but it’s not worth it anymore”- accept that it wasn’t worth it for years, that you wasted time (as so many people do), and wasting more time is not going to undo time already wasted, it is just going to add to the waste.

You wrote that what gets you the most “is feeling dismissed and diminished about your feelings, opinions and dreams”- as long as you stay with him, you are cooperating with your own dismissal.

You wrote: “If I am going to be married, I want my husband to be a true partner, support me emotionally, and to make me feel like I matter.”-  I don’t think this is going to happen with THIS husband, no matter how many more years you try (and waste). If this is the kind of husband you need and want- a future husband, maybe, not this one.

This husband is too busy pointing the finger of responsibility at you, keeping you powerless and confused in the marriage.

anita