Dear Anni: I’ve been married for 15 years and have three children (one adult, two teenagers). I cheated on my husband and apologized 10 years ago and I thought we worked it through.
My husband is not perfect. He has problems with alcoholism and has had multiple DUIs in the past and even spent time in jail.
I’m at a breaking point. He still throws deception in my face every day. He’s upset because his adult children have many memories of him yelling at them. He says he yells at her because he’s mad at me. My husband doesn’t trust me and I have no friends and I never go out or do anything alone. However, he can go out whenever he wants.
He says he only does the movements to get through the day. I said if he’s still so angry and clinging to the past, we should get a divorce because that’s not how you can live. He says if we get divorced, nobody wins and the children will be affected. I’m not sure how much more of the abuse and verbal abuse I can take. I feel like a prisoner in my own home with nowhere to turn and everything I do is wrong. Please help.
Dear Stuck: It sounds like your husband has some deep-seated problems with anger and alcoholism. It’s a bit of a chicken-or-egg scenario – an argument about which came first – but one certainly adds fuel to the other’s fire.
Yes, you broke a marriage vows. But it sounds like you’re ready to work hard to fix the relationship, to look ahead instead of dwelling in the past.
Your husband, on the other hand, keeps you both trapped in an arrangement in which nothing is addressed, nothing is overcome and nothing is resolved. He clearly cares about his family – but he has never processed the betrayal he felt from your betrayal, nor is he able to deal with it in a healthy way.
Find a couples therapist you both like to help address the root of the problem.
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