On the brink

My husband and I have been married almost 5 years. I'm in my late twenties and he is in his early thirties. At the time we got married we were having many issues and almost did not get married because of them. (The issues are: I had something of an inferiority complex and because my husband is an incredibly attractive, talented, and charismatic person who is also very self-contained and difficult to get close to, I felt rather "left out in the cold" in terms of how I could contribute to our relationship and how I could get close to him. I felt a lot of jealousy and some resentment toward him, and according to my therapist this was probably because he did not connect with me as a husband should with his wife.) Hopefully that makes sense. Anyway, we both had doubts about getting married and broke up right before the wedding day. We got back together the next day and in that conversation I said "I don't think I will be able to love you like I should because of the way I feel." and he said "That's okay, I'll deal with it." I married him because I was very attached to him and hoped that I would be able to work through these feelings (they seemed a stupid reason to not get married. Why would I not want someone who has everything going for them?) I'll add here that I appear to have something of a chemical imbalance that has taken me a very long time to figure out. I have mood swings very easily and if I am not on medication I tend to function in a near constant angry and frustrated malaise. It's gotten worse as I've gotten older. NOTE: I am not bipolar, It appears to be just common craziness. :) My husband was aware of my instability before we got married, but we had never lived together so neither of us were sure how things would work out once we moved in together. Not surprisingly, within a few months of being married my husband became very distant. What I had hoped would be a promising sex life fizzled very quickly and he became completely unaffectionate. I knew why this was happening - my moods, coupled with the stresses of trying to sort out our new life together, put a tremendous strain on the relationship. Things felt very tense, I cried a lot, and he saw it. I would try to come up with things for us to do together and made efforts to try to calm myself down. I always felt like he could try harder to be affectionate with me and I would bring it up all the time, and he would respond with "you're right, I will have to try harder. And you need to try harder to be normal, consistent, and just generally happy." But I did not see him trying, at least not with affection. I think he thought the fact that he was nice to me (even when I was mean to him) and that he came home every night was a tremendous effort (and given my disposition, it was). I was quite immature when we got married, I was 22 and had never been in another relationship. Not that this is an excuse, but I had never had to work through these things before and it was extremely stressful. Long story short, our marriage has been a cycle of me asking for more affection/attention/time together and him saying "I will give it to you if you calm down. Just give me some time." So I would try to do that but would only make it a matter of days before it began to bother me again and we would start to argue. I would give him specifics on what I would like for him to do - i.e. hold my hand, sit next to me on the couch, put his arm around me, etc. He never did these things without me asking for them first. In our arguments I would say just about everything that was on my mind, and I realize this is severely damaging to any relationship. I was violent toward him on some occasions. I did make many efforts to try to overcome my issues - I read books, I got on antidepressants several times, I apologized profusely for my actions. I am a Christian (even if it doesn't sound like it) and I prayed for God to help me straighten things out, become a better person/wife. At some point, I don't remember when, I started throwing up divorce. I felt like I had done all I could do (which I now realize I could have done more, but I was immature and a bit spoiled) and my husband was more concerned with his career/hobbies than he was with fixing our relationship. And because we rarely had sex, I constantly feared he was cheating. I filed for divorce last July and felt relieved that we would finally be able to go our separate ways. When I told him I had filed, he told me he would not give me a divorce and that I would have to get a lawyer to make him leave. We fought half the night and after he realized I would not budge because of his anger he started begging. I didn't understand why he wanted to stay in the marriage so badly when he didn't seem to mind the distance between us. I ignored him but when I woke up in the morning I realized I would not be able to go through with the divorce. Despite the traumatic, emotional roller coaster that has been our marriage, and despite how disconnected I felt from him, I was still attached and knew that if I gave up on this marriage I may very well find similar issues in the next. Also, I have never been in another relationship before and that seems to make it more difficult to leave. If he was willing to try, I was willing to stick around. I do not think that he has ever cheated on me. He is a person who tries to live by a moral code. Things did not get much better, though. He made efforts that he had not made previously, and I appreciated them. But I was still angry, confused, and just generally incapable of making a/this relationship work. A few weeks ago he told me he would not beg me anymore, that if I wanted out then he would encourage me to do that and that he would actually like to be with another person. That seemed to jolt me out of some of my behavior. I was finally able to let go of a lot of the things I held against him. Since he is complacent in the relationship and is not going to be the one to initiate a divorce, he has not left and we still sleep in the same bed, go out to eat a couple times a week, etc. When I became nicer we were able to grow together a little bit. We started having sex again (but I am the one to initiate each time). I would be the first to tell anyone that this marriage has been unhealthy and it seemingly would have been best if we had never gotten married, but I do not regret it because I have learned much about myself and about marriage. I am also willing to take the brunt of the blame, because most of our problems are mine. However, my husband does not apologize and does not really take responsibility for the problems that are his and that makes things much more difficult for me. We have had some good times, but much of it has been very taxing. Our most recent argument was last night, and each argument confirms for me that we would probably both be better off with a divorce. However, this is a difficult decision for me to make given my chaotic history and my still present attachment for my husband. He has many qualities that I admire greatly and I realize that I do still feel love for him. I want him to be happy, with or without me. I would also like to be happy myself, but fear it may be a long road for me since I am what my husband refers to as "an impatient, depressed, and angry person." Any general comments would be appreciated, regarding how to go about finalizing my decision (one way or the other) and about what to do after a divorce (provided that a divorce does happen). Also, I am quite aware of the mistakes I've made and I've done what I feel, at this point, is my absolute best to make them right. I can't undo the past, so I would prefer not to receive any judgmental comments (not that anyone would, but I figured I would just throw that out there. :) Thank you to anyone who responds!

Put the internet to work for you. via Personal Recipe 2629979