You Don't Want to Leave or Hurt Yourself

You say you love your husband and I wonder why. You describe an awful existence with him and I wonder what keeps you hanging on. I am sure that the answer to my question 'what keeps you attached to someone who is so emotionally abandoning' can be found in your childhood. You must have been raised by a parent or parents who neglected you. This experience would have primed to choose an abandoning husband, since being deprived is all you know.

We all gravitate to familiar emotional terrain. We also gravitate to the familiar in order to recreate the wounds of childhood in an effort to 'get it right, ' meaning that you are hoping that being good, giving, and selfless will one day be rewarded with appreciation and love. Lots of luck. You will run yourself into the grave before you see an ounce of appreciation. If you reread what you said to me and you will see that you keep giving and doing for him hoping to be recognized one day. Your efforts aren't working for the simple fact that you have married someone who is a carbon copy of the parents who let you down.

He's damaged goods, just like they were, which means that he can't give you any better treatment than your parents did. Plus, the more you reward someone who neglects you the more you insure your continued neglect. You see, as you reward his crummy treatment of you, he receives the message that he can keep on doing what he's doing to you and that you will continue to be giving to him. He will never change until you stop rewarding his neglectful behavior.

As a first step, you need to take a look at what you are doing to encourage his walking on you. Look at all the ways in which you reward him even when he does diddly for you. In the future, before you do another kind deed for him, ask yourself, am I about to do this act of kindness out of pure charity, meaning that you expect nothing in return. If you can say that you expect nothing in return, then by all means go forward and do the deed. If, however, you admit that you are expecting something in return, then stop dead in your tracks and don't do the deed. The message he needs to get from you from here on in is, 'What's in it for me?' This message can be communicated in many ways. You stop doing for him all together until he starts doing for you. Or the next time he wants something from you, you ask him, 'If I do this for you, I expect X, Y, or Z in return. Do you agree?'

Sounds mercenary, right? That's exactly how you must learn to be. Taking care of yourself will retrain him, if he's trainable. Let me know how your situation unfolds.