Something big happened last night, I think.

[eyesopened]

You sound a lot like my husband. My husband didn't actually hit me; however, he pushed and shoved, grabbed, and threw things at me. He was also verbally abusive, including name-calling. He has terrific self-control at work and in other situations (he's a former military officer who's now working in the private sector). I don't know why he became abusive toward me after we married, but one of his counselors suspects it has to do with his mother being controlling and abusive toward him. Also, his father was an alcoholic (for that reason, my husband won't drink except perhaps a glass of wine or a beer once or twice a year) and was abusive toward his wife and kids. Yet, his parents were pillars of the community, and nobody outside the immediate family knew about the abuse within that family except for one aunt and me.

The first time my husband was verbally and physically abusive, he apologized and wanted to make love to make up. His counselor later said that he was desperate to reconnect with me as I withdrew from him and expected sex to accomplish that. Making love with him was the last thing I wanted to do then.

The second time, I left him and took our first son who was only a few months old. He immediately went into counseling to control his anger. In all honesty, I would not have returned to my husband if his father hadn't passed away while we were separated. My husband was devastated, and we reconnected and grew close again. Also, I'd talked to his counselor, who worked solely with abusive men, who said my husband was one of the few men he'd worked with who he believed was able to change his abusive behavior. So, against the wishes of my family, I returned to my husband after being separated for several months.

Another child and one year later, he became physically abusive again; and I left again. Again, my husband went into counseling. Approximately one year later, I returned.

My husband is in many ways a wonderful man, but he has a problem with his anger when directed at me. He seems to let irritation and anger toward me build up until he explodes (used to be approximately once a year). I've noticed, too, that he has a hard time directly disagreeing with me and is more likely to resort to passive aggressive behavior with me.

The fourth time he was abusive, I filed for divorce; and again he immediately went back into counseling. Unfortunately, his counselor this time (we'd moved) was not only ineffective but made things worse. After finding another counselor and undergoing individual plus marriage counseling, we decided to stay together. A factor for me, unfortunately, was that we had 3 children; and there was no way a court wouldn't give him shared custody. He'd blown up at our kids a couple of times so I thought it was best for them to never be left alone with him for any extended period of time, so I chose to stay married to protect my kids. Also, my oldest child was in school, and I couldn't keep taking my kids and moving away without disrupting their education.

While in a counseling session with the ineffective and harmful counselor, my husband went into a rage, and the counselor (what a weasel) told me that I should go to a motel but shouldn't tell him, the counselor, where I was (IMHO, this counselor, a very short, slightly built, man was intimidated by my husband and spent much of the time, from what I saw, trying to one-up my military officer husband). I left him again and went to a women's shelter rather than to a motel or out of state to my parents' home as before. That seemed to be a wake-up call for him, and for the first time, he accepted that he was abusive (on the advice of my counselor, he also stopped seeing his therapist and found another, who was much better). I stayed at the shelter for a few days and wrote them a large check when we left (my husband could well afford it). The physical, and most of the verbal, abuse stopped until an incident last year (almost 14 years later) where he lost his temper and smashed some furniture and punched holes in the wall with his fists inches from my face.

My kids are in college and high school now, and I no longer feel the need to stay married to protect them. I'm a probable walkaway wife now even though divorce goes against my values and I still love my husband. Ironically, my husband is making drastic changes to try and save our marriage. But, after 20 years, I don't trust him anymore now. He also has a pattern of working hard to win me back when I leave or am on the verge of leaving; but when we're back together he pushes me away emotionally.

I guess I'm writing this to you for a couple of reasons. You sound as though you've made great strides in controlling your anger. But, if your wife allows herself to open up to you again, and you later resort to physical or verbal abuse, it'll be even more devastating to her than before and will destroy all trust you've rebuilt. I've watched my husband struggle with this problem and know that he truly hates his anger outbursts. I highly recommend a book, Anger Busting 101, written by a male psychologist who's struggled and overcome this problem himself. Rather than treat this problem by talking endlessly about childhood problems, he's found it most effective to treat anger problems like alcoholism and other addictions. He has a website, www.angerbusters.com .

The second thing is that your comments about wanting to make love to your wife even though she's withdrawn from you sound very much like my husband. Sex was one of the better parts of our marriage, and my husband seemed to feel that if we could reconnect sexually, everything would be okay. I, on the other hand, didn't feel loved by him (after all, if he loved me, why did he hurt me) and saw sex at that point as satisfying his needs more than mine. Men and women generally view sex very differently, and that's very important to remember. Another good book is Willard Harley's His Needs, Her Needs, in which he explains that while sex is most men's number 1 need and that a man usually needs sex to be loved that isn't the case for women. Most women need to receive affection and be able to trust their husbands in order to want to have sex with them. Dr. Harley has a website, www.marriagebuilders.com , that has a lot of information from his books.

In time, I came to see sex as a way to appease my husband. In other words, if I could keep him satisfied that way, he'd be less likely to explode in anger or to become irritated with me. Needless to say, this took its toll on our marriage; and I even got to the point where I was faking orgasms. Because I no longer trusted my husband or felt loved by him as before, sex wasn't pleasurable anymore and became strictly a physical thing to me.

I don't know if any of this will help, but I thought it might help to hear from a woman who's been through this. As much as I love my husband, I wouldn't have married him if I'd known about the anger problem. And, if we didn't have children, I wouldn't have stayed with him. My husband hated what he did to me and has struggled with his anger (much like an alcoholic struggles not to drink), but I think he wouldn't or couldn't accept how devastating his abuse was to me and how unloved and unsafe I felt.