Need support! Conflicted H

[Accuray]

Well I may step off the DB bandwagon here, so I invite anyone to disagree with me. I know that Michelle believes that divorce is never a good answer (unless there is abuse), and that relationships can be restored with effort and the right tools.

Most of the people here are 40-60 years old, married for over 10 years and have kids and significant shared assets. The cost of divorce in that scenario, both financially and emotionally is extremely high, which is why I do believe it's worth doing everything you can do to save the marriage instead of abandoning it.

That said, I do believe that people can be incompatible. Gottman talks about "soothers, avoiders, and attackers", and that if you have an avoider/attacker pairing, it's going to be hard forever. There are many dimensions upon which people may be incompatible -- religious, parenting, financial, values, etc. Often when you "fall in love" these incompatibilities are overshadowed, and if "the good" is strong enough, they can be accommodated longer term and "managed".

The effort it requires to manage incompatibility, however, will vary. If you are mildly incompatible or differ on issues neither of you care about that much, it may be an ongoing source of annoyance, but it's not that significant. If you fundamentally grind gears on issues that are near and dear to both of you, the effort required to manage the compatibility long term may be *very* high. This is exacerbated by poor communication habits, such as attacking or criticizing.

For instance, everyone like a different balance of intimacy and personal space. A person without much need or desire for intimacy may be perfectly happy seeing their spouse a few days a week, having a date night once per month and discussing only topical issues. A person with a high need for intimacy may enjoy spending all their free time with their spouse and engaging in frequent intimate conversations. Obviously if your "intimacy desire" is equally matched, you're going to have a more comfortable relationship than if you are at different ends of the spectrum.

For most people, your intimacy desire fluctuates. If 10 is "highly intimate" and 0 is "no intimacy", one person may vary between "4 - 6" and the other person between "5 - 7". When then are both at 5 or 6, they'll be happy but when one is at 4 or 7, there will be tension. Once again, high overlap = an easier overall relationship.

Looking at your situation, you've been married for 4 years, have no kids, no significant shared assets, a single income (yours), and not much shared debt since it's virtually all in your name already. If there was ever a marriage that was easy to walk away from with a clean break, it's yours.

So why is this worth saving? Those initial years of marriage before kids are usually a high point. If your dynamics are bad now, chances are things will become much much more challenging later, not easier. It doesn't sound like you've been getting your needs met for well over a year, and instead are treated rather poorly.

From my perspective you have two paths forward:

(1) You can DB the heck out of this marriage and try to save it. Unless your H wants you back *very badly* and perceives there will be some challenge involved to get you back, its very unlikely he will do any hard work on himself or addressing his issues, so "success" may look like going right back to what you had, with you doing all the accommodating and fixing, and really not getting your own needs met.

(2) You can end this marriage, and figure out why you chose a man who was emotionally inaccessible to you to begin with. People tend to seek a spouse who will abuse them in a manner they are accustomed to being abused. If you are ignored as a child and have to work to get your parent's attention, you learn to cope with that and how to operate within that context, it becomes "comfortable" for you. When you seek a spouse, someone who ignores you and makes you work for their attention will feel like comfortable abuse, but being someone's spouse is a much different dynamic than being someone's child. Figuring yourself out in this regard and being able to couple with someone who will be more compatible with you represents a great personal challenge.

When I read about the critical issues that angered your H, in each case it seems like your position was perfectly reasonable and his response was irrational / immature.

You're in for a lot of work on either path. If you achieve excellent emotional health, do you want to be married to someone who doesn't seem to value you very much and treats you poorly?

Why is this the one to save versus the one to learn from?

Acc