Candice, you didn't grow up thinking about this. You fell in love. None of us read a book ahead of time on what we would be in for.

But I can assure you from time to time my BF talks to me poorly. He recently said to me, when I called him on it, that he doesn't mean it toward me. It's stuff he wished he could have said to her.

I hope this helped. Jo

"May the forces of evil get confused on the way to your house." George Carlin

Your DH probably does not realize why he is acting the way he is. DH and I have the same problem, only thing is the people are switched. It is me that has put him through hell because I cannot trust him. I am the one that carries so much anger towards my ex husband and my ex boyfrined before him. Both cheated on me, lied to me and pretty much tore me apart. So, DH had to be the one to take my rage. And I thought at the time that I really was mad at him, that I was justified in being mad him and not trusting him. Then I went to therapy and began to discover that I had never resolved these emotions that I had. I read a book called "From Anger to Forgiveness" that helped alot. I have realized that I really am grateful for him, that I need to make sure that I stop comparing him to the ex. I have a long way to go. What I do now is tell him,"I am feeling very angry with you right now. I don't know why, I don't know if it at you" I apologize and he understands that it is just displaced anger and resentment. I love him endlessly ad hate that I have been like this with him. But now I have admitted my problems and am working on rectifying it. Your DH is going to have to see that he is putting his anger on the wrong person. I promise that you can get past this, but he must help himself release the anger before any progress in your marriage can be made. I commend you for standing by your husband. I know first hand that he has put you through hell. Angry people with trust issues have a way of doing this.

I've been down this path, too, and have the skinned knees to prove it. My DH's ex cheated on him while he was in the Gulf during the first Gulf War, got pregnant, tried to pass the baby off at his, then when the truth came out, guilted him into staying, trying to "make it work" for this "innocent child" and all that. She IMMEDIATELY got pregnant again, this time by him, although she told him she was on the pill, so that she could trap him more firmly with his OWN child. They separated a million times, she got pregnant a third time, again claiming she was on the pill, to try to keep him. All the while, he kept taking her back "for the kids." All the while, she was continuing to cheat unbeknownst to him. When he finally figured it out, they split for good. My DH doesn't trust me on an emotional level, either. Intellectually, he knows that even when things are BAD between us, I've always got his back. He knows he can believe in that. I mean, he trusts me with the money, with the kids, with everything else, but not emotionally, even after almost six years of marriage. Between her and the PTSD, he's got nothing left.

But I learned something really important recently and I think it might apply to your DH, as well as to mine. It isn't that they don't trust US, Candice, they don't trust THEMSELVES. And because of that, there's never going to be anything we can do to change this. We can bang our heads against the wall repeatedly, trying to make ourselves more trustworthy, but WE aren't the problem. WE aren't the ones they don't trust. They lost the ability to trust themselves. They no longer have any faith in their own judgment.

One of the things my husband's cornflake PTSD counselor has him doing is identifying how the bad things that happen can change his thought process and mess with his judgment. For instance, you start out with a belief... I'm participating in a humanitarian relief effort to help the starving people of Somalia. Then you identify the bad thing that's tripping you up... the bad guys slaughtered the good village people and took all the rice you delivered to make themselves stronger, and left you a visually graphic message to show you what happens to the people you try to help. Last thing, you identify how that bad thing shaped and changed your previous belief... how can I believe I am there to help, when all I am doing is getting innocent people killed and giving the bad guys food; how can our government say that we are there to help the Somalis when they keep waving us off, not wanting us to land and deliver rice to them, because they know that our "help" will get them killed? You can see how your perception of yourself gets skewed, how your judgment can be altered and how your belief system can be shaken when something bad happens.

I wish I had an answer for you on how to get him to trust himself again. If I had the answer, I'd use it on my DH, believe me. His PTSD counseling is helping a little in this area, because it is showing him WHY he acts the way he does and that's probably an important first step. But until his faith in himself is restored, I don't know. It'll be a bumpy ride.

~ Anne ~

"Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after the other." -Walter Elliot