That is a very good letter, until the very last two sentences.
I would leave those two out and send it.
You could add "Would it help us talking about these things if we went to counseling?"

I am in a similar situation so I understand.
We have been to two counselors of Dh's choosing, they both have indicated that my disengagement is a good choice. Finally,by the second counselor Dh got it.
And we have been in a very bad space regarding his children for years.

I also seem to be attracted to dysfunctional people and am very, very tired.

I am a dysfunction magnet. My BFF gave me this personality quiz the other day, turns out I'm ENFJ....which supposedly means it's a personality flaw of sorts.

I always say, I'm not a hot mess, we just live in a messy world.

It was brave of you to post your letter to him here. I think after reading it, what I get from it, is you want the type of connection that people have when they are dating-spending time together, doing things together. I don't think that's too much to ask. I would also look into the 5 love languages. Perhaps understanding your needs and they way you need to be loved, will also help you communicate with him what it is you need. Additionally, you might also be able to puzzle out what it is he's needing but not necessarily equipped to ask for. My SO is shutdown city when something is bothering him, it's a lot of work to crack him open-so I totally get where you're coming from-but I do know that with some emotional elbow grease it's possible.

Maybe you could ask him what he feels he needs you to do to improve the relationship and what he wants you two to do together? Taking a little bit of ownership over the current state of the relationship will go a long way towards making this into a conversation and not just a one sided list of demands. Maybe you could include some statements about what you love about him and your time with him or some memories of times that were particularly fun or romantic. Including some positive things will help remind him that there good things worth saving.

I agree with the poster above that the corpse comment and your analysis of his enjoyment of life is unhelpful and unlikely to lead anywhere constructive. You could say instead that you feel that you two have gotten into a rut and are letting life pass you by and that you would like the two of you to take more opportunities to bring fun and joy into your lives particularly by trying new and different things together.

Whatever you decide to write to him, I would run the letter past your therapist first to see if they can help you to phrase it in a way that has the best chance of being received well.

Oh Hon.... keep going, I also thought after the first one I don't need it SO does, but I kept going for a month, once a week... I needed 6 days to ponder about the sessions.

I also got write the letter, but just in another form.... get a journal and write in there, after a month of sessions, you decide if you are going to hand the journal to him or keep it and keep on writing, this helped me allot, I still write in it daily and it keeps me on track, not loosing my temper etc, staying calm, not saying much if there's a crisis, I first need to write it all out before I can act.... The more I'm relaxed the more SO relax lol... it's a evil wheel going round and round and round..

He already got bitchy with me walking into the office and I simply told him... take it out on whom ever pissed in your cornflakes this morning....
before counseling I would've been in tears and pondering what did I do wrong... now I know I did nothing wrong, so he can go and suck on his own bad mood

I really think before engaging your DH, you need to sort out whether you want to be married to him or not. I can not tell from what you wrote in this thread where you actually stand in your relationship.

You need to understand for you if you want your marriage. If you dont, you need to nurse your heart and get therapy support for walking away and getting a divorce. If you want to have your DH in your life and continue, you already know that his dysfunction is part of the problem and that DH has to be part of the solution to save your marriage. You need to learn from him if he is going to do the work to keep your marriage alive - if he is even capable of doing the work, changing and overcoming his "learned behaviour". This is not something you can do on your own.

From there you can set a course of action - laying out the route you need to take and what you need to say to him. At this stage, I am unsure if you actually do have the mental and emotional clarity to know what it is that you want. If you do want to stay and be married, you also need to examine the reasons for continuing in your marriage.

This may be a time for you to do some inner reflection of where you wish to be. I have often been told to "goal set through". not "set goals". It is not to set a goal: ie stay married, or get divorced. It is to set a goal and think of the ways you will get there and through that goal to the next stage. Often when we get somewhere when we have set the goal (decided to stay or get divorced) we dont know what to do afterwards when we get there. By 'goal setting through" (a phase or stage) you gain a lot more clarity and purpose because the goal is not your end game.

You are on a difficult journey and let me tell you, I see you handling it with much grace, dignity and intelligence. You deserve peace and happiness - and only you can decide how to get there.

I didn't read all the responses above, but here's what worked for me with someone who shuts down.

First, you can't have any constructive discussion in the midst of a knock down when you're both angry and defensive. So wait a day or two to cool off and you get back your will to make the marriage work.

Next, pick a time when no one has anything pressing, no one's headed to work, the phone isn't buzzing. Then say the most positive part of your letter: I love you, want to make this work, but some things aren't working now, you can't possibly be happy with this tension with your kids, etc. Let's work on it.

Then BLAM! Hit 'em with this point: but nothing will change if we don't find some agreement and to do that we must talk it out - no yelling, no accusations, no ugly words - just finding some ways to handle specific issues that we both try to abide.

He must be willing. Without that, you're sunk. To get his willingness, you might have to tell him what's in it for him: less fighting with you, more quality time with his kids AND you because there's less tension, agreed ways things will be handled so there's less resentment from you, maybe getting back to where you were when you married.

But you must emphasize that he has to be open and talk honestly about how he feels.

Then you hash it out: "I feel angry that you spend so much time with SD and with me, all you do is sleep." He might say, "Well, I'm tired when I get home." You might counter, "Well, how about we plan one night when you agree to be home by 5 p.m., we plan a relaxing night JUST FOR US, with no phone calls from SD or discussion about SD? Then, when you have your night out with SD, I won't feel she's getting the best of you."

I look at this like a therapy session without the therapist. What is a therapist but a referee? If you both agree to talk constructively and honestly, you might dial down the hostility and really get to what your issues are. When you know your issues, you can work on negotiating compromises. Maybe there will be issues you can't negotiate on your own - by the time you realize what those issues are, maybe you'll have heard from the therapist and you can address them in real therapy. But you two felt good enough about your communication at one point to marry - how do you get back to that point so you can work on these problems together and have happier daily lives?

When you talk, you must fight the urge to call him a "warm corpse," even if that's exactly what he is! You both have to really think before you speak to take out triggers that will put the other on the defensive. He must fight the urge to shut down because nothing will change without discussion.

For a while, my husband and I setup a schedule to talk once a week about our problems (i.e. SD) like it was a therapy appointment. By agreeing to it, it showed me he was fighting his urge to avoid conflict and shut down. In return, I had to not say anything that would make him revert to silence - nice, honest talk about how I saw things and what was hurting me. We both threw out some ideas for what we were willing to give: I wouldn't be angry about SD showing up when she's invited IF he stopped letting her show up uninvited or inviting her without discussing it first with me. This has worked.

Other things (SD insisting on seeing him without me on our anniversary) half worked: he still allowed her to dictate my presence at events, but he will never let her claim our anniversary for herself again.

Some things didn't work at all: SD still called all the shots when we got together (when, where, what we would eat, what we would do, whether I was invited or not, and her inevitably showing up three hours late). Eventually, I disengaged. So now her calling the shots when THEY get together isn't my problem. You've already disengaged, so the negotiating can be limited to what you and he actually can control - what he will do differently, what you will do differently, and the uncontrollable skid is out of that picture.

I can't say if this will work for you. My husband was really open to working on our problems, he just didn't know how and never could take any control of his daughter, so if it was an issue of managing her, no deal. But there are ways to work around an uncontrollable kid if he is willing to make change.

Don't send the letter unless you make it on point and take out the triggers. If you're asking for him to work with you to improve the marriage, you can't start with calling him a warm corpse, even if that's exactly what he is. Like...if you want the dog to stop peeing on the carpet because you hate beating the dog, you can't entice the dog to training with a raised hand.

Personally, my dog is my dream man, so maybe it's an unfair comparison. But you get the idea.

Keep us posted Fairy.

My own experience with marriage counseling was very positive. Though it did not save that marriage.

It did get me in touch with the man I like being rather than a man that I didn't care much for during nearly my entire marriage to my adulterous whore of an XW.

We went to counseling together for about 6-8mos and things did improve. Our marriage had experienced no intimacy for many, many months (I didn't know at that time that she was serving up the pooty to just about every swinging Johnson in sight for nearly our entire marriage).

My intent for counseling was to deal with the lack of intimacy in our marriage. The therapist had a different plan. So the three of us dissected her relationship with her family, my relationship with my family, countless hours of discussion, homework, etc.... XW and I actually re-bonded during that process. She became more affectionate ... no sex, but at least it was not frostily cold between us..... then we got to the session where the Doc said... "Okay, now we will start working on the intimacy issues.".. at which point my XW stood up and said "I don't have a problem with sex." and walked out of therapy never to return.

She moved out two months later, filed for divorce, and gave me the greatest gift I had ever received to that point... my life back.

I kept seeing the therapist for a few more months until she told me "You are fine. I never suspected when you walked into my office all those moths ago that there was an energetic man with a childlike zeal for life inside of you. You can of course keep coming to session but what you need is to get out there and live your life."

So I did. And I haven't looked back.

My XW certainly needed therapy. She moved on to spawn two oowl sons with the POS she was seeing during the end of our marriage, he finally married her after she whelped his second son, then he divorced her for getting pregnant with the boyfriend she was cheating on him with and she went on to a third oowl crotch dropping. That spermdonor married her after she whelped his spawn. The family legal issues also motivated her second husband to dump her adulterous whore ass.

The really funny part... she and her entire family were sued by her mother's former employer who my XMIL had embezzled $Millions from and my XW's portion of the award was to have to pay back $2Mil. }:) Gotta love karma. My XMIL pled guilty to federal felony charges and went to prison. Fortunately that happened 19years after I regained my life and freedom.

I on the other hand have gone on to a 23+ year marriage to an amazingly beautiful and scarily intelligent woman who gave me the honor of raising her son as my own. His mom and I met when SS was 15mos old. We married the week before he turned 2yo. He asked me to adopt him a few months before he turned 23.

So, take care of you and if necessary... move on. The one regret I have from my first marriage is that I didn't move on far sooner.

Good luck.