Airene

I am currently your husband in this exact scenario with my wife. So I will attempt to put out the possibilities of what is happening here in his head.

1. He is trying to placate you. He has done it before. He thinks he can do it again. I did it for years and years with my wife, but she is now saying that she wants to separate because she is afraid we will end up where you are now, in sort of this “I can barely stand to be in the same room as you” tolerance. This is a very real possibility, and you have to know this going in. But you have been with him for 30 years, so you know if he is committed to something like this.

2. He is really changing, but you just are too far gone. This is sort of a crappy position for you both. He might definitely be trying and have definite plans to change and STAY changed this time, but after being told that he is going to change and failing to do so, so many times, you have just sort of grown cold and calloused to it. It’s a bad position for your both because of the following:

• He is going to lose you, which he seems to not want
• You are going to possibly watch him become the man he should have been for you, with someone else

This is currently the situation my wife and I are in. She says she just doesn’t believe the patterns we have fallen into the past 15 years are going to be broken, even though she sees that I am indeed trying. And I can’t blame her. We stopped talking, stop trying for one another. And it probably cost us our marriage. It makes me feel really sad knowing that the likely outcome for me, since I am more than ever driven to change, is that she will see me become the man she originally fell in love with, but I will be that man for another woman. The big thing here is the intent to change and for who. If he is changing for you, then he might do it, he might not. It’s a toss up. It depends on how strongly he feels for you honestly, and he might change then revert right back after. But if he is doing it for himself, to make himself a better man no matter how it all plays out, you might want to perhaps at least give it a tentative chance.

3. He changes, you notice, you are stronger than ever and you live happily ever after or whatever fairytale nonsense people still believe. But the first part will likely be true until something new pops up, and in that case, you need to talk about it. If you talk to him about it, don’t be discouraged when he butts heads with you over it or perhaps takes it as a personal attack. When people hear things about themselves that they know are true but are hurtful to hear, the reaction is usually not acceptance and talking about it. It’s usually a bit of a tussle. But that is okay. Just tell him you aren’t meaning it as a jab at him, but rather are addressing an issue you would like him to work with you about. I wish I had this chance. It seems like I won’t get the chance.

Those are really your only three options unless he is some sort of sadist who loves drawing you back in to treat you poorly, but I would have to believe that after 30 years you would have picked up on that. It really is that simple about the motivation for his change, however. My motivation started for her. I fully admit that the catalyst for my change was her asking to be let free. But when I started actually making changes, I realized these were all things that were good for me AND her. And I suddenly was keenly aware that if she was indeed over this whole thing that I would need to learn to be a good man again, because the baggage I was towing along with me would have decimated any other relationship.

Overall, you know your husband. And I understand that you are tired of his nonsense and that you feel that he is never going t break the rut that you are both in. But if he is really changing, then leaving him now is going to cause more pain than sticking it out to see if they stick or not. And even if he is doing it JUST for you, there is a good chance he loves you so much that he will make those changes and sticks to them. But if he is making those changes for him (disclaimer: AND they are good changes, I have seen the opposite and it was not pretty), he is far more likely to stick with them.

No matter what, I wish you luck and hope for you the same thing I hope for my wife: to be happy and loved.

I will say this, however: while you always felt like an afterthought, did you ever ask him if that was the case? Same with the “keeping your mouth shut”. Did you ask him if he was annoyed with you? Perhaps he was annoyed that you didn’t speak to him and he felt like an afterthought. Point being, I am seeing a LOT of things in my marriage now that were basically the same problem from two different points of view and if we had just spoken about it, I feel like we would be deeply in love still and working on 20 years instead of 15 and done. But here we are.