The thing is, no matter the damage you received during childhood, your husband will have his own stuff to look at too. Us distancers are not very good at taking responsibility for our own feelings and behaviours. It's easy as a distancer to point a finger and say 'look at that pursuer, what an emotional mess' because we're so cool and calm (we're withdrawn and don't realise it). And I agree that he ought to be looking at it and not just blaming you for your role in things. But it does take one person to start changing for the other person to shift, and you've already started making those changes.
And I have to be honest here Alison: you need to forgive your husband for the past. I can see lots of 'I understand how he was like this because I was like that' but I don't see any forgiveness yet. Maybe it's too early for you. I feel like until you can forgive him at least a bit (emotionally, not just intellectually) and let go of some of your resentments you will find it hard to trust that he can change, and your behaviour will make it harder for him to change, because you'll constantly be judging and waiting for him to slip up and go back to old habits. I can see that he did a few things during family therapy which seemed like old habits, but it sounds like outside that he also did some positive things which show willingness to change. Maybe try to focus more on the positive stuff than the negative, it takes time to change habits and if you believe the worst of him then he'll live down to those expectations. None of his terrible behaviour was acceptable, just like my husband's behaviour was unacceptable, but they both had their reasons for behaving that way and they had no malicious intent, they were responding in a really terrible way to stuff they felt and to the way we acted and reacted. But forgiveness is a process and a very long and difficult and cyclical one too, I'm finding. Anyway, I'm playing devil's advocate to some of the stuff you're saying, I know you've had a bad day or two and I hope you manage to find your hope again.
Tiring day but a pretty good one, texted dh a bunch of times about different stuff like some critical feedback I got and he responded quickly even though he has had a very long and busy day. I told him how glad I am he's coming to the run on Saturday, especially when he's so manic at work this week. Had a quick chat with him this evening about some good news for ds2. Actually looking forward to our date tomorrow, though I need to plan for our goodbye because last time we went to this place I ended up getting really upset at him leaving me on the tube. So maybe I'll discuss that with him in advance of us saying goodbye.
