Huband is having an emotional affair

[ALJ]

Now that you mention it Allen, I do remember MIL mentioning to me last year when we first separated that she used legal aid to serve separation papers to H's dad when H was just a little kid. She said she just got so fed up with H's dad attitude and treating her like she was doing something wrong when she was not. She told me how he would have these dark periods where he would not talk to her and would look at her like he hated her. For example, If my H, BIL, and SIL got up too early in the morning on a Saturday, FIL would go into one of his moods. Little things like that would trigger it. This went on for 10 years and then MIL got tired of walking on eggshells and dealing with his emotional turmoil and went to legal aid to file for a separation. FIL went to live with his parents but after 2 months, he begged to come back, saying that he could not live without his family and he did not know why he acted the way he did for so long. I guess they worked things out because MIL said that the next 6 years were the best years of their marriage before he died.

I can say that H did inherit those dark periods from his father where he acts like something is wrong with him and just goes into this shell and if I asked him "whats wrong or are you happy", he would just reply "nothing" or "If something is wrong then I would tell you". I was looking for reassurance from him about myself. Maybe that's why MIL said that the apple does not fall far from the tree. Well, I took these "dark periods" that H was experiencing, personal. I made sure to take the kids with me when I left the house and really did not bother him. I was not worried about him hurting the kids physically, he would never do that, I just didn't want to give him reason to be mad at me because I was leaving to do things for my grandmother and other family members and he always felt that he was put on the back burner(somewhat true). Unlike my MIL, I don't want to initiate a legal separation.

When I was speaking to H last night, I made the mistake of saying "you really don't care do you" to him. This was after I said that there were some things going on around here and he was just silent. He then said "what do you want me to say?" and "I already know about the bills and how things are bad financially." He then said something about me always mentioning about how there is not enough money to take care of the bills and things everytime he calls. Maybe I do but I don't recall doing that and I wasn't even referring to bills, I was going to mention how the kids are missing him. I try to keep the conversation on the kids and I guess I might mention bills to keep the conversation going and to not talk about me and us. I will admit, I miss him and when he calls I just want a sign from him that he somewhat still cares about me so I try to think of things to say or there will be silence and sighing from his side.

I understand what you mean about the adding the financial part to my e-mail to my H but he would probably say that the money coming out of our joint account for his bills is money that would have to be used to paid those bills regardless to if he lived here or not. That would be true because he only pays his car note, car insurance, and cell phone bill, things that would be paid out of our account regardless.

You know, I have never really thought about how to deal with H if he did come back. We have some serious communication issues that have to be dealt with regardless to what happens between us. Is there a step by step way that you deal with someone like my H? I just don't want things to turn into a debate with us. He is going to hold fast to his side and I will hold fast to mine and nothing will get accomplished or resolved between us because things will get swept under the rug.

H has always had bully qualities, even before we got married. The affair had nothing to do with it. The word "bully" had never crossed my mind when it came to H's behavior toward me and perhaps others. I just figured that that was the way H was and I can deal with it because I loved him and he had other qualities I liked about him.