My marriage with DH is so dysfunctional I barely know where to begin. We've been together for over 20 years as adults, but were childhood sweethearts way back in what was a defining relationship for both of us I think. We have two school age kids.
I am a bitch to him I know - I'm cold, snappy, critical and withholding. I am afraid I am the 'bad' one in this marriage. I haven't always been this way though. We don't really talk about anything important, although we can just about get on but it's superficial. There's no screaming and shouting though.
He's got a lot of issues from his childhood that he hasn't addressed despite repeated pleas over the decades to get therapy. This has manifested itself as a fear of being abandoned, low self esteem and shame. He is scared of conflict with me and is easily deeply hurt. He can't bare any kind of criticism (although I admit I am critical). When we got together we were young and I suppose I didn't think about what these issues might mean in the long term. I probably, in all honesty found them almost attractive and exciting as my family was boringly average. I grew up in a family where we didn't need to believe we or each other were perfect to be lovable. We might argue, but we got over it and still loved each other.
Over the years he's done some things to betray my trust. In the distant past I have confronted him and spoken to him about how the seemingly small betrayals/deceptions erode trust and make me doubt him on bigger issues. He smoked 'behind my back' for years, and continues to vape in 'secret' (god knows why, it feels like he needs the secrecy I think), in the past I've found he'd been accessing some quite extreme porn etc. The absolute worst was he secretly filmed us have sex, which I believe went on for over a year or so. For some reason that I still don't understand I didn't properly confront him about it. When I found out I just told him I never wanted it to happen again. Literally that was the entire conversation. I can still see the devastation and shame on his face. I buried this for a long time, partly because we had little kids and partly because of the shock of it I think - I don't know. I spoke about it with a therapist who said it was possibly illegal and abusive which I found quite shocking all over again..... But I think if a man behaved in the way I can be towards him that would also be abusive.
So am I bitch because he's a liar? Or is he a liar because I'm a bitch?
In truth I want this marriage to be over. It feels so broken. But I can't bring myself to devastate him (or our kids). The worst possible thing for him would be to have a failed marriage.