Hello all, coming back to respond in more detail to some of your messages (now I’ve managed to get a bit of work done!)
I think a happy single parented home is ALWAYS preferable to an angst ridden house with two deeply unhappy people or an abusive dynamic
I absolutely agree with this and have no qualms at all about being a single parent in those circumstances (now I’ve actually managed to unpick what that abusive dynamic was in my case). I think I am struggling with this because we do have a lovely time as a family, and as far as our daughter is concerned we are a happy couple at the moment. She has witnessed some cross words in the past, but things are so much calmer now. I’ve always been good at putting on a ‘show’ in front of our daughter to protect her from any unpleasantness, and now that the unpleasantness is gone (hopefully for good), I think I would be good at putting on a good show of being a happy mummy in a happy relationship. So I’m really sad to think of those happy family times disappearing for her, purely because of my own feelings.
However, I’m not completely naïve in that I know I couldn’t maintain that show for my husband in terms of giving him what he wants and needs (i.e. love and affection) – and I suppose that is where it would all unravel as he would naturally begin to feel resentment. And outside of everything else, he deserves to have someone who loves and appreciates him for him, which I don’t feel able to do. I guess that ties in with what you have said @peridito in that for ‘love’ we mean all those other issues like trust, respect, tolerating human failures because we appreciate the whole person, knowing that our love is reciprocated. I really do want him to have that, as well as me.
@Mix56, yes, you’re right that he doesn’t respect my boundaries in certain areas (for reasons previously mentioned). It’s irritating me a bit at the moment actually because due to this heat I’m wearing quite short shorts today, and he keeps doing a silly pervy neck tilt to try and look up them (it’s embarrassing even trying to explain that). I’ve told him not to a few times and snapped at him earlier saying that it was creepy. He later came to speak to me to say he understands that I’m not in that ‘zone’ but he feels incredibly rejected by me (whilst also being very attracted to me), so while he was trying to not make comments, some will ‘slip’ out and I needed to be kind to him about that. But I just think come on, it’s not that hard not to leer at me!
@wallywobbles – yes, I think you’re right that I have been agonising over how this will all be painted. I feel a lot calmer about that at the moment because my husband has stopped going on about how terrible I’ve been and how everyone is going to hate me (and probably also due to the support you have all being giving me in that respect)! I think I’ve got to a place where I accept I can’t control what people will think about me, but I know those that matter to me will not judge me. My only remaining concern in that area is if my husband chooses to spread unpleasant rumours about me at work (as he used to work with me so has friends there still). I’m not sure what to do with that but I’ll have to just suck it up if it comes to it!
Aligning our outer world with our inner world can be excruciatingly difficult, and yet living without doing so is no life at all - this sounds like it’s come straight out of an extremely wise book, @Alcemeg That is exactly what I need to do, but I have no idea if I have the strength to achieve it.
Do you think you might actually bring yourself one day to say to him something like “I’m sorry, I really appreciate how hard you’re trying, but even if you made twice the effort I have no faith in a future together?” It’s funny you should say that actually, because he’s asked me several times whether there is anything at all he can do. I’ve basically said no, and that my working assumption is that he is going to eradicate all of his past abusive behaviour and be a kind person, but that in that best case scenario I still needed to work out if I could ‘unfreeze’ and develop any feelings for him. So he does know that, and he says he feels incredibly hopeless and helpless (he actually used those words eek!).
Might it be now you have recognised some of his major issues, you find him offputting as a whole, including some less important niggles, simple as it is part of the same package?
Yes! That’s exactly it, you’ve summarised my feelings really well actually. This is why I genuinely think there is nothing he can do, and its all down to me working out my feelings (or maybe rather working up the courage to actually place value in my feelings).
@19bears – I also had a moment at school when I attempted to rebel – I took some chewing gum in to chew brazenly in class…Never built up the courage to get it out of my bag Also lost cool points in the process by asking my mum to buy it for me and letting her in on my plan to become one of the ‘cool kids’ via chewing this gum. And my husband has also picked on my twitter feed!! (rather tellingly he took issue with me engaging in tweets around sexism and racism, which riles him up).