Husband Threatened to Leave, Don't know what to do

[TrentC]

I was rereading your previous thread and I definitely see the same issues cropping up again.

The fear of abandonment pushes you to examine EVERYTHING that he says and does, and it never got you anywhere. He has a good day and you feel optimistic, then he has a bad day and you are crushed. As bad as his behavior has been recently, it's nothing compared to the torture you are putting yourself through. You continue to decide what his comments, actions, and even GESTURES "really" mean; it's horribly codependent and manipulative.

Look back at what has happened in the past three years; you hit this rough patch last time for many of the same reasons, behaved the same way as now, and it wasn't until you stopped that things eventually got better. But it sounds like that things ended up backsliding and now he surprises you with another bomb drop. And it shouldn't really be a surprise, because you said that you kept ignoring his complaints about lack of physical affection. So you deny him something that you acknowledge you know is important to him, then you're surprised when he considers leaving again?

So, consider the past three years a trial run.

You now know that not only do you have to make real 180s (and I'm not talking about the physical intimacy, I'm also talking about the fear of abandonment and codependency issues) but you have to make them stick. It's not fair to anyone—not him, not you, and not your kids—to have to go through this. And it's going to take more work this time, because you've shown him that the changes last time were only to get him to stay; that may not have been your intent, but that was the result.