Hi, Daniel! Thank you for your considerate comment! I’ll start by saying that I only referred to myself when I mentioned quitters. It is mearly a label I don’t want to associate with. To clarify, I am not judging people that have chosen otherwise and left.

Now regarding my choices. I know that my mindframe is strongly influenced by my childhood and the way I was raised. My attachment style, as my therapist helped my clarify, is ambivalent. This means that I basically had two extreme models around me: my mom who was unreliable and disconnected and my aunt who tended for my needs in a split of a second. The problem was, I only spent the holidays with my aunt while the rest of the year I was frustrated with my mom for not responding to my needs as my aunt did.

As an adult, I tend to get back to old schemas of childhood, especially when dealing with stressful situation. Hence, it happens that my reactions to my husband’s unresponsiveness towards my needs mimics the reaction of a hurt child, instead of acting as an adult.

Knowing this, helps me put things into perspective. Even if my attachment style does not excuse my husband’s inconsiderate behaviour, which admittedly, could be more affectionate and caring, I can’t in fact control that.

What I can control is to understand my triggers and learn new responses to stressors. So, as you can see I have a bit of work to do myself before I worry about the others.

Now, on the other hand, I could leave, and blame it all on him. But what lesson will that teach my son?

I was reading around here different stories regarding other husbands (seems like a hot topic in this community 🙃) and I realized my husband isn’t really that worse. He reacts to my reactions, in principle; he is not aggressive or being a jerk. So therefore, if I could be slightly smarter and try to improve myself first, then I might be able to react differently and stop the cycle.

I know it sounds difficult and unusual to want to do this kind of work, which is exactly why I say it’s not for everyone.

I hope this helps to shed more life of my perspective.

Best, Eir.