I was thinking about my own FOO yesterday and I had a sudden flash of insight into your sitch. Your H is recruiting the kids onto "his team". This is something my mum always did. And it was when I noticed this that I had the insight. He is like a porcupine, rolled up in a ball with the spikes out because he is so afraid of the pain you have inflicted on him, afraid of you inflicting more pain on him. He attacks your mothering skills because he is afraid you could leave him and take the kids (if not physically then psychologically). Once you realise that all his behaviour is out of sheer fear I think you can understand him better.
Someone on this thread said you were the man and he is the woman - and I can see what they meant (it's a bit like that in my R too). It takes a certain level of masculine type energy to be the actor rather than the acted upon. I hope the porcupine image helps, cause maybe if you think of him that way you can think better about ways to coax him out of the spiky state he is in.
Others have already suggested you should quit threatening to leave if he doesn't shape up and I agree. I understand your feeling a need to lay down some kind of boundary, but maybe he is not the type to cope well with these ultimatums (My D4 cannot be coerced by ultimatums at all, she just escalates if I try it - or pretends she doesn't care). Maybe what he needs is time and reassurance. I know you feel you have given him time, but I think unfortunately every time you lose patience it is just like you have pressed rewind and the time he would have taken to calm down about it just starts over. I don't often disagree with Corri, but on this one I don't think you should ask for a date when you can get back in bed, I think that will just faze him completely. He hasn't thought about it and he can't think about it, he just knows what he feels and he is in a fog. If someone says "when's this fog gonna lift" how the heck is he supposed to know? All you can do is give him space and time and take care of yourself in the meantime. Keep reassuring him that you're not going anywhere and be encouraging whenever he does something that makes you feel better about the R, doesn't matter how minor, if he does or says something good then just say something like "you know that's the kind of thing that keeps me right here!". Give him directions out of the fog.
take care
Fran
if we can be sufficient to ourselves, we need fear no entangling webs Erica Jong
