H4L I did read a bit of your sitch and goodness--it did bring me back to our "worst times".
I tell you, the thing that helped me the most was losing my resentment and loving my H for the hurting person he was. And admitting ALL my mistakes to myself.
I feel a book I read back then, and have referred to MANY times over the years, helped me lose my resentment faster than anything else--it's Dr. Laura's Care and Feeding of Husbands.
It helped me see my role pretty darn clearly. I was a HORRIBLE wife to my H. Yeah, he clearly has issues. But I made them worse by nagging, demanding, belittling, spending as little time in his presence as possible, I NEVER spoke his love language and in fact if he asked me to do something I was DEAD against it usually. I would tell him "I'm so busy with S, you have all day off--YOU do it". Bad bad bad.
Once I started speaking his LL, things got SO much better there.
Now, I had NO idea what he was going through--just heard a few others mention what it was like for them to be "in the fog". But later I found out how scared he was. His anger was very much fear related. He would go out with a friend I detest (or so I thought) but really he would go down to a local lake by himself and just sit for hours wondering what he should do.
He was desparate for me to change, but didn't think I could. Had no reason to think I could. Then when I did start changing, he was angry about that too. (why couldn't you have done this before?).
I was fortunate, in a way, that my parents divorced very badly--he blamed my selfish behavior on that, and the fact I didn't know what a good relationship looked like. Really, I was just a selfish brat but him giving me that excuse--yeah, I took it.lol.
You need to figure out your H's LL and speak it NOW. And DON'T let him out of the house if you can--keep him around to see your changes. Be positive. I used to think I could dump my every bad mood on my H--yikes!! That is WRONG. We need to be positive!! Build him up! He still wants to hear he is a good dad! Any little thing that he does right--say something! (I need to do more of this myself!)
Do what it takes every day to make yourself happy--oh! Music!! I forgot about that--certain Christian songs about hope were SO mood altering. My husband would say "why are you so happy all the time now! (thinking I was happy we were divorcing.lol.)
I *wasn't* happy--but I knew I was on some really important life journey. And I had "joy". God doesn't promise you "happiness" but he does promise he will be with you and there will be joy on the journey. His presence was palpable to me. I tell you, the grass was GREENER and the sky was BLUER. I had people/angels come out of NOWHERE to encourage me. It was a horrible and yet? magical time for me. That part made me happy.
I'll get to your sitch and see what's up, but you have lots of "life" left in your sitch in my opinion.
