Keep breathing...

[greatwhitenorth]

I'm glad to see you say that emotional absence is a deal breaker for you. And I'm glad you recognize your H's treatment of you as abusive. My father continues to be emotionally abusive and as a result he is all bout extinguished from my and my sister's lives. My mother will never travel with him to visit either of her four kids again. So I totally get that side of things, for him and for you.

My question now is, if your H is getting everything he needs from you, why would he change? I think that's your question too in some way.

I did not know the extent of my H's childhood issues until almost a year after he moved out. He hid it from me because he's absolutely terrified to face it, and I cannot make him. It's all in my thread on the MLC forum so I won't get into it here. Suffice it to say that I get the extent to which childhood trauma can worm its way into the very soul of a person. Thing is, until traumatised people deal with this stuff head on, until they stop hiding and stuffing, they will continue to repeat their behaviors and be incapable of having healthy, productive relationships. It was only when I understood this that I could really, truly let go. I found out just recently that he's acting out again, so deja vu and que sera sera.

You can be kind and loving and still change things up. If it were me, I would include him in the family meals and activities, but would not do anything that involves physical intimacy, like the back rubs and most definitely sex if that's going on.

Try it, see if it works. If he asks you to engage physically, just say you're sorry but you're not able to at this time. I'm sure the good folks here will have suggestions for kind, confident ways to decline his request for action or explanation. You could simply ask him if he feels he's treated you as a wife or as someone with whom he has that sort of relationship. You can explicitly tell him that you need to be treated with respect and kindness and give him specific examples of each. Don't tell him how he's not doing it, but instead tell him how he can do it. These are all suggestions of course. You mention that you've never been great at boundaries. Have you thought about assertiveness training, or a CODA group? Even a group or website for adult children of alcoholics would have tips about this. It's an unbelievably important skill for you to have so that you can teach it to your children.

It sounds like your H is not very evolved emotionally. This is common for childhood trauma. And these people find change very difficult. You and only you know what life you want and what you can live with.