Afraid

I think my husband is afraid to go to counseling with me.

Every time something comes up between us now I tell him I won't discuss this anymore. We have hit a dead end. As my therapist likes to tell me I keep going to that same well and it is dry. No matter how many times I try to explain to my husband what the problems are in our marriage he will not listen.

He refuses to see any of them and instead of talking about things he will do his usual behavior of yelling at me until I back down from it. This has been a pattern in our marriage for many years. He would make me feel that what I was saying never happened. That all these things were in my imagination.

People in my life keep asking me if therapy is helping me. One of the biggest things therapy has helped me with is to see this pattern of behavior from my husband. It has helped me to understand how after all these years of repeating this same behavior I became someone who just accepted things. I never put my foot down and demanded more.

In many ways I became a doormat for my husband. I did what he wanted and constantly jumped at the chance to please him and do things for him. I always wanted to solve his problems. I would never ask for that same treatment in return.

Therapy has helped me see my actions in all of this and it has also helped me to see that I do the same thing in all of my relationships.

One of the goals my therapist is trying get me to do is to be aware when I do things like this and put a stop to it. To not allow myself to be treated this way any longer by anyone in my life. That is not easy for me because my first instinct after all these years is to do this.

I have asked my husband repeatedly to go into couples therapy with me. I keep hoping that maybe with another person there we can finally communicate and he will at the very least try to understand our problems.

Every time I bring it up there is one excuse after another of why he hasn't agreed. What I find ironic is that all his excuses he gives me for his reasons are for my own good. He is protecting me.

Thanks to therapy I can see that is all bullshit. My husband is just afraid to go and face what will come out. He just wants his world to go back to how it was.

I don't know how to solve any of our problems without any communication and I can no longer worry about it. I have spent months trying without him cooperating. My only concern now is for myself and my children.

I can't solve his problems or anyones anymore.