WAH - It's getting ugly

[Navyguy]

Ellay,

Just read your thread here. A few things stand out to me:

1) You are a strong, intelligent, and caring woman. You will be fine no matter what the outcome of this is.

2) Your thought processes are very clear and rational. That alone will take you far in DB'ing. You are also correct that it is wrong for your H to be hurting your kids like he is.

3) You will have many ups and downs throughout this process. Possibly look into getting some AD medications...they will help take the edge off the lows and help temper your reactions to the highs.

4) Your sitch is similar to mine in a few ways: you are a military couple, you are SAHM that has put your life on hold to raise take care of your kids, and you and your H have had some major communication issues for a long time. The obvious difference is that in your sitch, your H is "done", whereas my W was the one that was "done". In that sense, I'm not exactly sure that my sitch directly correlates to yours, but it seems both our M's have a lot of the same underlying issues that created the distance in our M's.

So, that being said, here's what I'd suggest at this point:

Other than DR, I think the most helpful book for me was "Men are From Mars, Women are from Venus". It really helped me see how things got to where they were, and the things I could do differently to be a better and more supportive husband.

Continue to stand up for your kids and make sure your H knows they need him and that they love him. Someday, he will realize you were right and were doing him a huge favor by doing this.

It sounds like your H has some major issues that need to be dealt with. Do not try to force or even encourage him to do so. Having his sister talk to him is a perfect example of how this will blow up in your face. He has to figure that out for himself....and you need to prepare yourself for the possibility that will take awhile. I'm sure you've seen on here and in DR the "one month per year of marriage" timeline. Well, it was almost dead on for me. Based on that, you've got a solid 9-10 months of DB'ing ahead of you if you want this to work out.

Good luck. I wish you all the best, and I'll try to check back from time to time.