Reply to I grieved end of marriage, now he wants to work on it

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP, I've been there.  To that place where after years and years of trying, to make our relationship work, of feeling like the only one in our marriage putting the effort into making it work, fighting, building up resentment, to finally getting to where I had given up.  And it was only after getting to that place that my husband finally took notice and realized it was serious and required a difficult change within him to give our marriage a chance.

Honestly I didn't trust him to be able to make the change necessary to make it work.  And I had so much resentment built up, from the hurt I've experienced over the years from him via neglect, ignoring everything about me, raging at me, being condescending toward me, mocking or criticizing my interests and beliefs, blaming me for his problems, refusing to engage in any kind of meaningful discussion beyond what he was interested in, and being generally unsupportive and discouraging of any endeavor I wanted to pursue.  Every time he hurt me like that - it just kind of fractured our relationship more and more, and it's really hard to come back from that.  I had put up a wall to protect myself - I stopped depending on him for any kind of emotional support or encouragement or participation in basic every day life stuff.  Luckily I have solid good supportive friends.  But it was extra hard during the pandemic not being able to see those friends in person.

Anyway we had a deep conversation - and he really reigned himself in from being defensive and he just listened, and I told him pretty much the above.  And that the only way we have a chance was if I figure out a way to let go of this resentment I have toward him from all the hurt. And for him to stop doing all those things that were hurting me, and to make a conscientious effort to actually encourage me every day.

I don't have an answer for you, but we are working on it.  I was skeptical but I can see that he's actually really trying and that for me, makes a world of a difference.  And he really took everything I said to heart - as in he made an effort to understand what I was saying and absorb it.  And he has not done that in all our years of marriage, so that was a big step. For him, for us.  Good luck.[/quote]
Thank you, and I'm sorry you had to go through this also. How long ago did you have that conversation with him? Do you find him reverting back to the "old ways"?

In the beginning of asking for therapy and everything I really wanted things to work out, now it is hard to see how I could feel love for him again without all this hurt clouding it. [/quote]

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