Husband and I decided on a trial separation with a view to repairing our marriage whilst having time apart to assess and reflect back in January. We were also hoping to reignite our feelings for each other. We have 2 children. We were not spending any time together, separate rooms, I felt that he turned everything into an argument as he didn't want to try to understand my POV about anything at all. I got fed up of being told that I'm "ridiculous" "unreasonable" "irrational" and "mental."
Our feelings have reignited quite a lot in our time apart and we were on our second relationship counsellor since he left hoping to work things out. He has softened in many ways and become more loving (away from the childrenof course). We recently had a family holiday and in the evenings had a very full on intimate and loving relationship whilst the children were in bed. However, the trial separation has in some ways, made everything worse and he has since returned to his parents house following the holiday as we don't want to rush into things and confuse the children should it not work out.
He has been living with his parents temporarily since leaving. His mother has never liked me (very bitter woman in general) and has not been in touch at all since he went to live there. His sisters all felt sorry for him that he'd had to move out and seemingly turned on me, deleting me from social media and the family whatsapp group. Again, zero contact with them since he left.
Under his family's and friends influence, he has received validation that he has been "doing nothing wrong" as he repeats to me so often now. However, we have just left our second relationship counsellor who has described him as "rigid" "has a fixed mindset" "isn't open to change." And she has said he needs independent therapy, exactly what the previous relationship counsellor said!!
I am receiving individual therapy and have been for some time but it doesn't appear to be working, they seem to be empathising with me a lot but that's it. They don't think I'm irrational like he does. I am still waiting for him to actually take some accountability but he won't whilst he has all these people around him telling him how perfect he is.
What's more, we live in a small village where he grew up and everyone says what a lovely helpful guy he is. He is not lovely to me! A person we know asked how I was doing a few days ago and I.told her how I'm struggling and how he doesn't seem to take any responsibility for what's happened and she said "oh he's just a big teddy bear."
He was not a teddy bear at home. He was cold, distant, neglectful, contemptuous and controlling.
I feel self conscious as everyone seemingly thinks that I must be the problem and yet the professionals seem to be supporting me in these sessions and basically saying he is at fault for what I think is a lack of empathy. One described him as having a "disconnection" between what really happens and what he thinks is happening. Both said he needs therapy. He laughs and reels off lists of people who think he's perfect. People have no idea what he's really like and how he can be, yet the professionals are seeing it!! Yet how can so many people have him wrong?
I feel like I'm going mad.
It's like he's one person to the outside world and a different person towards me. Everyone feels sorry for him and yet I'm the one holding the children and running our family home whilst his family are supporting him in a responsibility-free single life. This trial was only supposed to be a few months. They even pay for him to continue his expensive hobby whilst living there for free which he can now do more of. I feel like I have no chance of us ever reconciling whilst he's surrounded by this big fan club who have absolutely no idea. This is a nightmare.
I'm guessing I should just give up on him? I can't believe it's come to this. I expected us to reconcile.