I'm feeling incredibly low today. Our marriage has been in a poor state for a couple of years, we are really bad at communicating. He is argumentative & confrontational, I avoid confrontation and get overwhelmed so shut off. I try not to give silent treatment but I get so upset I just don't want to see/interest with him after an argument. Other times I'll try to keep calm but eventually lose my temper and get shouty & sweaty then told I'm abusive. He can be pretty critical of me, never appearance based, but he says I don't appreciate him (I ALWAYS thank him and tell him how much I appreciate him, it's bizarre he says that), and complains that I don't do enough around the house (I agree that I'm messy and could improve there, but I do all the cooking and childcare so I'm not totally useless!). I just feel he's not a very happy person in general. I feel like there's very little joy or laughter in my life these days, not much that comes from him at least.
We've been together since 21and have beautiful children together and I guess that's what's keeping me from leaving him. He's recently behaved pretty horrendously to my family over New Year (shouting at one of my siblings and generally treating them how he treats me), and my mother threw him out of her house and I stayed there with my kids for a few days thinking about divorce. He's not physically abusive, I should stress.
He says he loves me, he'd do anything for me, he wants to change and fight for us but I can't help thinking I would be happier without him. Even as I'm writing this out I'm wondering why I'm still with him. He sounds terrible. He does have lots of good points, he can be very funny, supportive and loving. He's a great dad. He's just been turning into this man that I don't really like very much.
We're going to marriage counselling but I feel like I'm falling out of love with him. I don't even know what the point of writing this was 😢