Why is my husband so unkind, selfish and horrible?

DEAR BEL

I HAVE been married for 31 years. I had been previously married with a son of three when I met my present husband.

He was great with my son until he got to around ten, when we had our own daughter. Then he began to change. Two years later, we had a very bad car accident. I stopped driving and became depressed. I felt like a prisoner. I wanted to move as my life was so limiting, but he didn’t want to as we’d just finished building our dream house.

I went on insisting we had to move or I’d go to live with my parents. My son was 13 when we had the accident and would often go back to our old area to see his dad and his friends. My husband and son began to clash as my son grew up. At last we moved back to our old area. Things were OK for a while, but then it started again.

These days my husband is jealous of most of my relationships. My son lives an hour away and occasionally comes to stay in our annexe with his family. But my husband always gives me a tough time and is really horrible to my son.

When my son told us he and his partner were having another baby, my husband got angry with me for ‘not giving him a second child’. He describes my son and his family as ‘trash’.

My husband has had arthritis in both hips for more than ten years, so I have to put on his socks and pants, cut his toenails, etc. He’s always had his tea on the table, clothes in the wardrobe and a clean house. When his father died, I helped him through depression. But when both my parents died, I had no support.

I’m now helping my sister, who has bad eyesight, and her partner, who has terminal cancer. I see them twice a week. One day last week, I cried and told my husband we should stop being horrible to each other and move forward.

All he said was, get a proper job, stop coddling your son, stop worrying about others and concentrate on me. We’ve hardly spoken since

Christmas. We sleep and watch TV in separate rooms. I still love him, but I know he doesn’t love me because you wouldn’t treat someone you love this way, would you?

BECKY

NO, I DON’T think you would. Your marriage sounds very unhappy and I’m sure it would be a waste of time to suggest couple counselling (because he simply wouldn’t agree).

So in truth, this presents a very sticky problem for me. or rather, for you.

You say you love him, but this is one of those cases where a little voice in my head is wondering what it is exactly that you are loving. the man you fell for? or the one who calls your son ‘trash’?

Even your longer letter jumped quickly from the time your son was a teenager to now, so I can’t help but wonder what went on in the time between, to bring your husband to this selfish, bitter present?

Was he the reason your first marriage ended? did you feel increasingly guilty as his relationship with your son deteriorated? Were you too timid to intervene? What role does your daughter play in the family these days, and can you talk to her?

So many questions. I’m also

wondering whether you have indulged your husband in his egotistical imperiousness over the years.

In your longer letter, you actually mention ‘my duties as a wife’ — which made me wince, I’m afraid.

Yes, a loving partner will take care of somebody who needs ministrations, but you make yourself sound like a robot wife from another time.

And when you say that you suspect your husband would like to stop your son’s visits, I worry that his possessiveness could tip over into coercive control. I do think it could help you to talk to a professional to try to work out your true feelings.

If you visit relate.org.uk, you will discover various ways that you can access counselling on your own. I hope it might give you the strength to talk to him and ask outright if he would like to end your marriage.

Surely it is obvious that you can’t go on with this unhappy existence? What’s ‘love’ got to do with it if it condemns you to a life of lonely distress?