My ex also verbally abused me for the 16 years of our marriage. HE doesn't have a problem though. He refused counseling because HE doesn't have a problem. Last year I finally got our daughter out of parenting time with her dad, costing me thousands of dollars. He asked her how SHE could do that to him. The child support went up, he filed an appeal, and she ended up having to go again. Counseling was required, but the counselor (male) sided 100% with my ex and kept trying to fix our daughter (her fault she was verbally abused, I guess). My daughter hated the counselor.
This time (July), I settled for around $80 a month less to get her back out. I demanded a female counselor; my daughter also has veto power if she doesn't like the counselor.
He's a lot nicer, as much as he's capable of being, to our 13 year old son. However, he did use his recent bout with skin cancer to scare both kids by telling them that he's dying. He finally admitted to our son that he was not dying but tried to give our daughter the message that this was all happening because she talked to the judge and got visits stopped.
As far as my H and I, the sex thing isn't our only issue either. He is self-employed (remodeling) and hasn't been contributing much to the household over the last couple of years. Like the sex stuff, he wouldn't probably do anything unless I insisted. He finally got a job in sales for another company, which was good for the first couple of months but has now fallen off. He's really great about giving the kids money but doesn't give me any to help with bills. Funny thing, my (now-ex) SIL says that my H's brother was exactly the same way. My in-laws have supported my H's sister (now 36) her entire adult life. Getting very little sex AND paying all the bills is stressful.
