hello again, sorry for disappearing yesterday, DC's took over.
Anauntie, you are right, now that I am out of my depression I have the confidence and energy to tackle DH's behaviour towards me.
tmsb, hi and thank you for your post. You are so right in that the only way to deal with this is not to engage with him, and if and when he cuts me off, to see it as his problem instead of feeling hurt/humiliated as was no doubt his conscious/subconscious intention. It's almost a form of bullying, but very subtle, and i know exactly where he learnt it from, his mother.
tmsb, I don't expect DH or anyone to listen to every single thing i might say, but i do believe I am entitled to be treated with basic respect and courtesy and that means not interrupting me/cutting me off mid sentence etc. Without that our marriage is doomed.
However, since my last post, things have moved forward positively. I realised that DH was deliberately not listening to me as I have described. But I am no longer upset about it or annoyed with him about it. The reason being that the root cause of his behaviour towards me lies with my parents. That may sound unlikely, but it's true. It's a very very long story, but basically, because I was abused by my parents, I was a very damaged person when i met and married DH. I fully admit that when we first got married i often treated DH in a way that he didn't deserve because i, without realising it, had a lot of anger and bitterness stored up inside me because of my childhood. I would often take my feelings out on DH even though it should have been my parents who actually deserved my anger and resentment. So, because i was treating DH badly, he naturally built up bitterness and anger and resentment towards me. Although he still always tried to be good to me, my behaviour towards him over the years must have hurt and angered him deeply as he had done nothing to deserve it. So even though he would always try and be good to me, i could always sense in him the anger and resentment he had towards me, and that would make me feel hostile towards him. I was unable to see that it was my own behaviour which was causing his resentment towards me.
Over the past few years I have been dealing with my childhood issues. And it is only now that I have realised that DH was entitled to feel angry and hurt and upset at the way i was treating him, but my behaviour towards him was as a result of the damage done to me by my parents. And we have both realised now that rather than the two of us being antagonistic towards each other, we should both be united in feeling angry towards my parents. Since I realised all this and spoke to DH about it last night, i feel a huge burden has been lifted from me. I have treated DH badly, but i couldn't help it, my childhood experience meant i had no idea how to communicate, trust other people, believe I was worthy of being loved and respected and all my issues had a huge effect on DH and our marriage.
Sorry for the long ramble, but I hope it might help some of you in the same situation. ie The problem went a lot deeper than i first realised.