I think that you angry, pain and feelings are not uncommon.
My wife also felt very angry toward me during the low point in our marriage. In fact her medical doctor/sex therapist that I got her to see pointed out to her that most older women who are not having medical problems and yet are not having sex with their husbands do so, because of anger. The lady doctor told her why would you want to have sex with someone with whom you are angry.
My wife felt that just because she wasn't meeting my needs and was distancing herself emotionally from me, and my focusing on work(to get some emotional praise and feel good about myself) was a further abandonment of her, rather than a logical response to what she was doing to me and our relationship.
Ultimately, after a lot of introspection, my wife realized that all the things she was angry about me doing to her, were exactly the same kinds of things that she had been doing to me and that as angry as she was, that she had caused the same kind of deep pain and scaring within me that she blamed me for doing to her. This came after I really changed the way I treated her for several months.
That realization helped her forgive me and helped her allow her to work on rebuilding our relationship.
I can understand your pain and your anger. I can also say that at least for me, forgiving my wife and trying to make her feel loved in the ways she needed, even when I wasn't feeling loved by her, was a pivital point in the rebuilding our our relationship. To me, forgiveness of others is a present you ultimately give to yourself.
Your situation may be different.
"Do you think there is a way that I could help him understand that I do love him ...."
In some ways yes, in some ways it will take a long time.
As to understanding that my wife loves me, that has and still is hard for me. The reason is that our Languages of Love (Chapman's Five Languages of Love) are so different.
I now know on a mental level that my wife loves me. It still is interesting when she wants to show me how much she loves me, because it usually involves her cooking a special dinner for me. That act of devotion is her way of screaming at the top of her lungs that she loves me. I need to realize it and thank you and comment on how special it is for her to do such things for me.
In point of fact, I would rather that she massaged my shoulders or spent five minutes rubbing her fingers through the hair on my head than have her cook me a dinner. Touch would make me feel far more loved than any cooked meal.
Even though my wife now understands that to make me feel loved that she needs to touch me and praise me, she still feels that on special occasions that she needs to create quality time and perform acts of devotion to show me how much she loves me.
Now at least I understand what is going on and try to sincerely thank her for her experession of love.
At least now we can recognize that love is different to each of us and try to respect each others need for love and expression of love in different ways.
Again, I would like to praise you for your working on your relationship and not giving up. You should feel good about that.
>43 years of marriage--My wife and I are now closer than we have been in decades. I believe that my SSM is over.
