How can I improve a toxic relationship?

[Dannya]

Morning

I was hoping for some advice as I am getting down about the state of my relationship and am sure some of you wise women could offer some good advice.

To give you some background info, me and DH have been married for 20 years and are now in our mid 40s. We met at Uni and got married quite young (24/25). Within three years of marriage, he'd slept with two other people - one a one night stand and the second (more worryingly) more emotionally intimate. He used to go away on boats for 6 weeks at a time, with no possible contact with me so I guess this contributed to his infidelities. I understand he got drunk when onshore and slept with his colleagues on the boat, who knew he was newly married. He hardly ever drinks now and has not been drunk since.

We managed to patch things up, though I have never forgotten this initial hurt.

Fast forward 20 years and we now have two lovely children -12 and 16 and we live in a lovely house, and are financially secure. He is self employed and works very hard (12-14 hr days), with workaholic tendencies, often traveling to Europe for a few days at a time (thankfully onshore though). I work for him doing admin and do voluntary work, so keep myself reasonable busy with that and the kids.

Over the past few years our relationship has turned progressively toxic. I have bad PMT every month, which makes me say things I regret and I feel very down. For the rest of the month, I am a much more reasonable person. However he has recently taken to swearing and being verbally aggressive towards me for no particular reason, also he avoids spending time with me, and is reluctant to communicate at all.

He does seem to want sex most nights, which I normally reject, but I feel so hurt and resentful and I am not in the mood, especially as my breasts are still sore and look pretty horrendous after surgery (both sides)

I have had a bad time of it the past few months going through two surgeries for breast cancer and also researching and arranging to treat my son privately for Lyme disease where the NHS failed us. I am now hopefully recovered from BC, but I still have emotional issues, which he doesn't seem to understand.

I just want us to be nicer to one another, but it's so hard to start when I feel resentment and hurt. We do still love each other (at least on my part)

How do I go about changing the toxic cycle?

TIA

Oh Dannya. It sounds like you’re having a really tough time. You don’t deserve to be sworn at or subjected to verbal abuse. You’ve said you want to be nicer to each other but it sounds like the poor treatment is all coming from his side? Unfortunately you can’t force another person to change their behaviour, only your reaction to it. I worry that you may be trying to stop ‘provoking’ him but that actually whatever you do, he could still be abusive. You need to be cared for and nurtured after what you’ve been through and it doesn’t sound like he’s doing that. Do you feel like the relationship is worth trying to save?

A place to start would be to stop using your period as an excuse to abuse him.
then sit down and see if he wants to work at the marriage. If so he needs to stop being abusive as his first step also.

You can get through it if you are both willing to work at it.
Congratulations on beating breast cancer x

Does he accept there are problems? Would he try counselling?

If you can't rely on your partner after surgery for cancer is it likely he'll step up any other time?

Can you be sure there were only two infidelities?

Thank you for your replies.

I'm pretty sure there were only 2 infidelities as he immediately confessed to both, without me even having a clue, so at least he's honest. He won't go to counselling as he won't even have a deep conversation with me. I have asked for counselling in the past. He denies we have a problem.

Yes, I hope our relationship is worth saving.

Gosh, I'm so vulnerable after BC. I can't imagine living with someone who is verbally abusive. I simply wouldn't be able to take it.