I feel the exact same way about my husband...............we have two beautiful girls and he loves them dearly and that sometimes is the only string holding my marriage together! I am so sorry your sad and I can understand the pain and loneliness you are in. I relate so much to needing affection and craving it. The sarcasm and critizing are hurtful and mean and I just walk away and not react. We all get down and just know that you are not alone.

Dear Ilovedogs.  Correct me if I am wrong, but, I get the impression that you have a lot of hurt that has been piling up on you for some time now.  The reason that I say that is because I know the feeling of feeling irritation and discust for every little thing another person does.  When stuffed hurt and resentment piles up to the limit, anger (a natural reaction to hurt and fear) just starts to ooze out everywhere.

I have a girlfriend who was very angry with her husband, and she told me she resented the way he cleared his throat in the shower---she said she had a compulsive thought of tearing back the shower curtain and choking him!! The way my ex-husband held his fork when eating made me crazy---I had never even noticed that before.

It has been my experience that if a person has NEVER been very affectionate, it is very hard for them to change in that regard.  I'm not saying it can never be done but it takes turning heaven and earth for it to happen. I think they have to first recognize it as a problem, and then commit to a lot of internal work to change.

Please don't beat up on yourself so much for being angry.

Good that you are ventilating about this, though.  Keep coming here and, I know that alanon is a good place to take it.  I think you are doing better than you think you are.

In support, Otie  

ilovedogs,

I know what that feels like, because my BF often gets depressed because of his problems. He is on medication for heart disease, etc., and that makes him feel depressed and tired. When the person you love is depressed, it is depressing, because they don't seem loving at all. All of our needs are neglected, because their problems are overwhelming to them.

It sounds like your H has serious troubles at work -- I think career and financial problems are bad for everyone, but even worse for men because their ego suffers.

You now have negative feelings about your H which are making things worse between you. I do that myself, but I try not to. When things start going wrong in a relationship, it can spiral downhill quickly unless one person steps back and lets go of the anger and frustration.

When my BF is unhappy he often takes it out on me, and I feel barraged by his nasty sarcastic comments. Everything I do or say is wrong. If I say nothing, that is wrong too: "What's wrong with you, how come you aren't talking?" Well because no matter what I say, it's wrong!

Anyway, what you have here is the perfect situation for detaching. If you love dogs, then spend time with them and get the affection you need from them. Get all your needs met elsewhere and detach from your H.

Chances are he will solve his problems and start to act like a human being again.

What I try to remember is that no matter how awful my BF is being, I don't want to make it even worse. Of course it's much easier said than done, because we have problems and bad moods also.

Hi,
Please don't blame yourself because you feel depressed or angry or anything else. You are simply reacting to an impossible situation. We all would love the "white picket fence home", but that is only a fantasy perpetuated by society. None of us has a perfect situation or sometimes even a good situation. That said, you can be happy with whatever you have. It is all in your attitude. That is what recovery is all about. The Al-Anon welcoming says we can be happy no matter what the alcoholic is doing. We can detach from their crappy attitude toward us and we can focus on ourselves.

I think you are actually doing a good job. You are in the 3-A's... Awareness, Acceptance, Action. You are becoming more aware of the stuff going on around you and are starting to accept that "it is what it is." And yes, anger comes from this too. Next comes the action. What are you going to do? Remember to protect yourself from any more hurt. I like what ifa says, "Get all your needs met elsewhere and detach from your H."

((( Ilove )))

This is just my take on marriage in general so you can take what you like and leave the rest
I have been married to my husband 28 yrs now, together for 30. I can honestly say I love him more than the day we were married. He is my best friend and protector, neither of us A's.
That being said here is what I have learned in the last 30 yrs. Marriage is work, see i was lead to believe it was all happiness and roses after you say the "I Do's". I feel whom ever lead me to believe that owes me a huge amends lol.
In the best of marriages it is work, work and more work in order to make it work. And there are times just looking at my husband irriated me, or a question he would ask irriatated me and I wanted my own space for petes sake. And pretty sure if I was to ask him he would probably say the same things about me.
Marraige is so much easier and fun when all is going well obviously. Throw in some problems we start to show our true colors and maybe we don't agree on a solution, hmmm what to do then? Throw in addiction and it can be all out war.
From my experience addiction is the one disease that will tear a family apart rather than bring them closer. If someone has cancer, or a heart attack or something seems like everyone jumps in to help and support each other...they listen to the health expert and follow direction etc. But addiction every one has a different idea on how best to handle it and ideas clash, personalities clash and everyone wants to be the "right one".
Also kinda borderline diseases that may tear people apart are depression or a mental issue. I worked as a mental health nurse for many years and watched what it did to familys.
In our family our son is our A. My husband and I for the first time could not get ourselves on the same page as how to handle the situation. It put a tremndous amount of pressure on our relationship. At the same time I had been diagnosed with PTSD I went into the most severe depression and anxiety attacks that left me wishing for death to be honest. It came to the point I couldnt and didn't leave my home for over a year. My husband is on disability, I was the major bread winner for our family and obviously lost my job cause i could not leave my home. We lost absolutly everything of value we owned. I watched all the things we worked so hard for walk out of our house either sold or repossesed. We kept our home by the skin of our teeth. I am just not sure what else could have possibly gone wrong in our lives. I had totally checked out of reality, our son was sinking into addiction my husband trying to hold it all together, never once ever said anything to put the blame on me for my obvious mental issues. He just cared for me the best he could and as much as I would allow. My life couldn't have been more unmanagable.
Then by the grace of god i swear was lead here to alanon. And kind of fought it at first because everything I was hearing kinda conincided with my husbands point of view. So basically while not in the program he was working a better program than me. So I gave up trying to fight the program and really started working it. Started working on me.
And miracle of miracles I slowly but surely was getting my life back. The program was doing for me was no medication or therapy had been able to do as I applied it to all aspects of my life. My husband started to see the changes for which he was grateful as could be but as he saw me getting better he put any decisions on the back burner until he could see that I was ready to deal with the issue ( and that was a long time ) he did not want to hinder my recovery with arguing etc. And when I was ready, thats when we sat down and came up with our boundaries etc and got on the same page.
My husband could have easily ( and I am sure it crossed his mind ) left, moved out and moved on. And I wouldn't have blamed him one little bit. He didn't deserve to have to shoulder all the respondsibility that he did. But he did it anyway, just as I shouldered a majority amount of the respondsibilites when he became disabled. Was I going to be mad at him because through no fault of his own he couldn't work or do the things he would normally be respondsible for? No
Ideally in a perfect world a marraige or partnership is 50/50 all the time, in the real world one person or the other is going to carry more of the burden than the other thats just how relationships are.
If I go by watching my husband deal with my depression and anxiety, the fact that I essentially bankrupted our family I totally feel for you and admire your strenght because you wouldn't be able to do it if you weren't strong. And my heart goes out to you for the circumstance you find yourself in because my heart breaks when I think about what I put my husband through and know i have many amends to make on that.
I can tell you my husbands coping skills in dealing with my depression etc was first to throw himself into our church and church functions, what alanon does for me church does for him, he has a lot of interests and projects and he busied himself with his hobbies, he would go to CA to visit his mother. He did not sit around waiting for me or our son to get better. He did things that brought him joy and satisfaction. Like I said he was working a better program than me and not even in the program. As he should have. He is physically sick, it is important that he take care of himself and he did. I learned alot from him actually.
But just as my husband couldn't help me you can't help your husband. You have got to put the focus on you, get yourself into what makes you happy. He may seems like he doesn't like it or approve but I think along with this program I drew on my husbands strenght to carry on so your husband may draw on your strenght also.
Please know he is sick, he doesn't mean to intentionaly hurt you even though it seems personal it isn't. He is in the midst of an internal struggle that has nothing to do with you and I hope knowing that helps you just a little. I know it helped my husband to know that he was not the cause of my depression or anxiety nor was there anything he could do to fix me. Your husband maybe can't verbalize that to you yet but I can say it from personal experience.
Wow this turned into a huge ramble... I didn't mean it to be lol
All I really wanted you to know was that, your feelings are perfectly normal. No marragie is perfect and it is work to make it work if thats what you want. And for you to give yourself permission to do what makes you happy
Blessings to you during this time

Thanks everyone for your support and thank you to xeno for her response, too, it meant a lot! It's just so hard to go about living my life in peace when he's stomping around mad all the time. We were enjoying a perfectly normal evening and then my neighbor had to start blowing and doing yard work at 7 PM. Dh had a freakout and started cursing about it and there went my evening. I had already had a talk with him about his language since our son has a friend over and I want him to watch his language, but obviously it didn't sink in. I'm just tired of it all and losing patience daily. So, I really appreciate all of you here because it gives me hope that I can go on and take it day by day.