Your husband wants to control who you can communicate with?

Alorna, I agree with others that this looks like an abusive situation, and I'm concerned for you. You should be thinking about whether you need to get to a place where you are secure and outside his control.

That does not necessarily mean divorcing, it may be possible to separate and work on these issues. The Compassion Workshop developed by Dr. Steven Stosny has an 87 percent success rate for court-ordered batterers, according to the following article:

http://www.smartmarriages.org/violent.html

Here are some other resources on domestic violence:

http://www.smartmarriages.org/violence.resources.html

I should mention that most programs for domestic violence stress the Duluth Model, which is based on feminist theory. Study after study has shown that this approach does not work, and the people who developed it have basically said, "of course it doesn't work, these kinds of men don't want to change". A program for domestic violence is effective only if domestic violence stops, and the Duluth model simply is not effective.

Here's an article comparing these two approaches to domestic violence:

http://www.smartmarriages.org/esquire.stosny.html

Hope this is helpful.

Jonathan


HD Male, married 20 years, 3 daughters