How is it that I spend a day telling my dh that I no longer want to be with him and he comes home the next night and asks me if I 'fancy a f**k'

[toothicky]

We've been together 16 years and I have had enough, we have two dcs and he is like my third child, albeit a gangly teenage one. He is a fantastic dad and the children have made it clear to me that they don't want us to split up but quite frankly I don't know how much more I can take. There isn't one big thing it is all little things that have added up over the time. When I sat down and said that my feelings for him have been eroded he said that he understood how I felt then went to work and came home (at midnight, he works shifts) and carried on as if I hadn't said anything, chatted away and then asked if I fancied a f**k. Why do men just not get it.

I didn't realise you could go to marriage counselling on your own. I agree that this would probably put the fear of god into him. I just don't know how many times I can tell him what the problem is just for him to ignore it. I have told him on several occasions what is wrong but he seems incapable of changing.

I think you are skirting around the issue tbh. Tell him that's the last thing you want to do.

Do you mean the sex issue. I absolutely did tell him no way. I don't think he was too pleased, maybe he thinks that this is the last thing that can hold us together.

"He has already told me that if we did split up he wouldn't do any overtime and therefore would have very little money to contribute."

That's nice. So he knows what's on your mind and is threatening to punish the children by withholding money if you go ahead.

You'd think if he knew there was a risk of you leaving he'd buck up his act rather than make threats. To me this sounds like a form of passive aggression. He does something that he knows will cause you discomfort and embarrassment but hides it behind a dopey personality. Does he behave like this to other people like his parents or colleagues?

I think it was more of a threat to stop me going any further with splitting up. He doesn't act dopey to anybody else. He does quite a stressful job successfully and deals with very difficult people on a daily basis which is why I can't understand that he doesn't get what I am saying. How can he be successful at work and so on the ball yet not take on board what I am saying to him. I must be honest and say that he doesn't have an aggressive bone in his body as far as I am concerned but has done some ridiculously stupid things in the past. i.e writing off the car that we couldn't really afford to replace (a stupid accident when he just wasn't looking and pulled out in front of a van), but when I was upset because my mum was going into hospital for an op and I wanted to go and see her he worked overtime so that we could hire a car and I could go. I just really don't get him anymore, which is probably the problem. But like I have said, it is the constant little things that get to me rather than any hostility or nastiness.

toothicky - you can tell until you are blue in the face, you can scream the house down, have is tattooed on his dick and have wallpaper with the print "Will you please stop dicking about" - he's not going to listen to you because it sounds like you run the show. He has already decided life is easier when you are in charge, and listening to you means taking charge of his own behavior.

Go to marriage councelling, then insist that the counceller wants to see him.

One this the counceller will not allow is either of you to duck out of acknowledgement of your responsibilites to each other.

Colditz you have hit the nail on the head. I do run the show and I he likes it like that as it has always been easier for him. But I can't, and don't want to, do it on my own anymore. I am definitely going to counselling, if he won't listen then their really is no hope. Thanks everybody for your support. I can't believe that you have brought a smile to my face at a time when I don't really feel like smiling much.