Not Counting Chickens Yet...

[hope2011]

WCW... earning respect. Right now I'm a pushover trying to DB. I'm not earning much respect.

Yesterday was better. I just steered clear of the boys most of the day to avoid any comments. Not a way to live in a house together though. I'm just trying to avoid conflict with them. H does not have my back so I'd be ganged up on, no matter if they are wrong or disrespectful. Right now, I can't handle it. Someone remind me why I want to stay? It will get better. It has to. H has to see the damage this is doing.

I can't talk to him about it right now. He's doing better but still fragile. Anything he can take as criticism would be very bad. He'd get defensive and not hear a word I say or care how I feel. It's all about H still. I know this is part of DB, but how long is all about the WAS?

WCW, I completely relate to what you said about respect. I married H because I respected him, more than I've respected any man. He was amazing. Then we got married and he turned into someone else. It's hard to respect someone who is negative, selfish, tries to cheat, criticizes me. When the chips were down, he didn't retain his integrity, he cracked. That's really hard for me to respect. But I'm trying. I do love him - the him he was. I'm trying to find out who is real - the H I married, or the H he turned into? But I'm learning to respect him for being a person, for being human. Looking for the good in him. Loving the good I find, trying to forgive the bad. Wishing he'd give me the same.

I think the hardest part is trying to forget all the stuff he said to those women on the dating site. How he called them beautiful and wonderful, how he respected what some of them did for a living. How he pursued them, so many of them and even made jokes about some of them being worth the chase. Thank God he never caught any of them. But it hurts so much. He hasn't called me beautiful or wonderful in so, so long. He hasn't pursued me in so long. Hasn't kissed me still. All those things he was willing to give away for free, to any woman willing to accept it. Literally, any woman willing to accept it. But here I am, his wife. The woman who loves him, who is fighting for him and our marriage and he won't give me any of those things. It really, really hurts.