I am starting to realise that my husband is afraid of me.
We’ve had a strained marriage for quite a few years and separation is very much on the table but I think both of us are struggling to face up to it or be brave enough to take the leap.
I have been trying to put my fingers on the issues for myself so I can make peace with it, write it all down etc. I have realised recently that he is afraid of me (and would rather make our marriage work). I am not a monster or scary person at all that’s the thing, my friends would say I’m kind and sensitive. He’s the sort of guy that would nod in agreement, jump if I say anything and almost ask me to initiate sex (in the past). I said to him yesterday, how could a marriage possibly work if one is scared of the other from both perspectives. I cannot and do not want to be married to someone who afraid of me, but I also don’t know how I could change to be any other way. I visualise a dutiful, polite yes dear wife if the only thing that would suffice. Image doesn’t have an opinion on much as I think he’s afraid what I’ll think, that said he’d be the same around a table of adults. He is a gentleman to everyone but on a day to day is a gentle man who lacks assertion and a bit of phroar. Am I awful to this that?
I think this has really messed with my head. I’ve waithdrawn as I do not know how to communicate without him looking wounded in some way. How can you respect that? And then at the the same time I’ve often asked him, does he think i am some sort of bully because that’s how it feels sometimes.
Anyone have experience of this? And as a side had anyone read the book ‘3 Women’? My husband is how Lina describes hers and I don’t wanna become Lina!