How to Make Him Understand?

Based on what you've written here, I think you should divorce him. Start the ball rolling today....You can't change someone if they don't want to change.

Your husband is an abuser. I recommend counseling and an exit plan. Since laws differ in all states you will need the advice of an attorney or a counselor at a domestic violence shelter or hotline on exactly what you can do. If you work get your own bank account, if you don't work find a job and put all pay into your own account. If right now all moneis are in joint accounts you should be able to move half of all money to an account in your name only.
Also start packing up the items in your home you consider valuable. Not necessarilly worth a lot of money but pictures of your kids (all of them) any heirlooms from your family ect. If and when you move out he will probably destroy anything and everything you value.
Seriously sweetie get ready to leave him. This man is a monster.

Fireproof isn't going to help you. It will just feed the fire of an abuser. He believes he deserves for you to lick his boots. You don't deserve it and you shouldn't do it.

Reverend Ruby gives good advice here. Please get your ducks in a row.

Dawn

i'm trying to figure out what you love about him.
sigh. love is such an illogical emotion, though, isn't it?
counseling, hon. i know it's a predictable and ubiquitous answer, but what else is there? he doesn't hear you right now. you need new communication tools.
good luck!
khairete
S.

Hmmm...I wonder if he'd "understand" this:

"Pack your stuff and get out! I refuse to be treated like this any longer by the very person who took a vow to honor and love me."

Sometimes people change VERY quickly if they REALLY realize they've gone too far and are about to lose the best thing that ever happened to them.

I'm sorry you're being treated like this by your husband. What a giant betrayal.

Those in agreement with HisMomma obviously don't have any experience with abusive relationships. The Love Dare will not change an abuser. It won't! Been there. Done that.

You do deserve to be treated with respect, be called beautiful, be appreciated, and have your feelings validated.

Do you want your children growing up thinking that your husband's treatment of you is ok? Of course not!

Make a plan. Talk to an attorney. Get counseling. Get out. Be safe.

I wish you all the best.

What Reverend Ruby said.

And don't stay in it "for the kids". You are not just doing this "to yourself". By staying with this abusive man, you are doing it to THEM too. My sister did that with an emotionally abusive man - he hit her once "by accident", and the 2nd time she left -THANK GOD! BUT, the damage was done and her son was subjected to this "lesson" of how relationships "work" for 10 years - unnecessarily - because he hadn't physically abused her, she kept trying to "fix" it. But the whole couple has to want to fix it or it will not be fixed.

Dr. Wayne Dyer was talking about love/infatuation once, and he said in a dysfunctional relationship, that swooping thing we feel in the pit of our stomach isn't love, it's FEAR. It's our body saying RUN THE OTHER WAY. So if THAT's what you feel, RUN THE OTHER WAY now - for your sake AND the sake of your CHILDREN.

Oh - I listened to Dr. Dyer 17 years ago when I met my now husband. I had broken up with someone who made my stomach swoop and met a very nice guy who didn't. And instead of ignoring him and moving away from "nice", I stayed in 1 place. We've been married for 14 years.

dtmfa

eta
and for goodness sakes, don't listen to Hismomma's advice. We fought for the right to leave abusive spouses and WON in the 70s. Before that we were beholden to the type of attitude espoused by hismomma. Thank the goddess for evolution.

I'm so sorry that you are going through this. What you describe does sound abusive to me. I would see if he is willing to see a counselor with you, if so- great, give that a try. Consider counseling of your own as well, to make sure you are getting what you need and to help sort out your feelings. If he won't see one, it sounds like you need to consider leaving. Make a good plan (get advice from a women's shelter) and ask for a separation/divorce. Get counseling on your own no matter what he is willing to do.

I love the Love Dare, but not in your case, and certainly not right now. He is doing permanent damage to you right now, and the book will not be of any use to him right now. Good luck and God bless.

Without knowing your history, I can only say that it sounds like each of you is screaming about unmet needs. (If we were to hear from him, what basic things would he say that you aren't doing for him?) You need to figure out a way to COMMUNICATE EFFECTIVELY. He's sick of something, and so are you, and you are each responding to it very badly. You probably never discussed and agreed early on what language is acceptable between you and what is not. So many people take for granted that other people just know what is appropriate and what is not. Unless you were raised in the same house with the same rules and teachings and came out on the same side of agreeing or not agreeing with those rules and teachings, then you should not make that assumption. Neither of you is necessarily wrong right now. You've just got built-up annoyance with your circumstances, and you're each responding very badly.

Are you both willing to sit with a counselor? I think that a counselor can help you pick through the mess and determine where you are. You say that you have been fighting LATELY. What's been going on that you're fighting now? You say that he doesn't care for you and that you feel worthless. Well, that first one isn't necessarily a fact. It's how you're feeling based on your idea of what caring looks like, based on what you assumed your husband should do and be. Either your husband has different ideas about those things or he knows that he is acting out and feels that he has good reason to lash out at you. Somewhere along the way, you stopped listening to each other, so you've chosen other ways to communicate your unhappiness. It will take an unbiased third party professional to help you to listen to and hear each other again. Once you get that going, you'll need to establish some rules of engagement, maybe some absolutes for engaging each other. Everybody's got buttons, and the two of you will need to assure each other that you will deem those buttons off limits. You'll need to establish trust. If you can't, then maybe a divorce will be in order. Right now, if you were to leave, neither of you would really know why, and neither of you would have learned whatever you should be learning in being married to each other in the first place. And you would carry that into your future relationships.

There's a lot of work involved here, and it will not be pleasant because it's gone too far not to address the ugly stuff. The first thing you need to do is stop trying to "make him understand". You sound like a victim here who wants to make him see that he is wrong. Maybe he is, but so are you, and YOU are the only one whom you can change. Have you noticed that the more you try to force this "understanding" onto him, the more he fights you? Redirect your energy. Seek to understand what it is about you that has helped to create this sort of environment. What can you learn about yourself in this? How can you empower yourself to create the changes that you seek? If you divorce him without exploring that, you will likely not get it and open yourself to more of the same with someone else. Get your lesson from this, so you can truly move forward, whatever that will look like.

Watch the movie Fireproof. And pick up the book The Love Dare. It is referenced in the movie.

In the movie the couple is on the verge of divorce and the husband speaks to his father who then shares the struggle he and his wife went through and how they overcame it.

Best of luck to you and your family.

Here is chapter one of the book.

The Love Dare - Day 1

Love is patient
Be completely humble and gentle; be patient,
bearing with one another in love. —Ephesians 4:2 NIV

Love works. It is life’s most powerful motivator and has far greater depth and meaning than most people realize. It always does what is best for others and can empower us to face the greatest of problems. We are born with a lifelong thirst for love. Our hearts desperately need it like our lungs need oxygen. Love changes our motivation for living. Relationships become meaningful with it. No marriage is successful without it.
Love is built on two pillars that best define what it is. Those pillars are patience and kindness. All other characteristics of love are extensions of these two attributes. And that’s where your dare will begin. With patience.
Love will inspire you to become a patient person. When you choose to be patient, you respond in a positive way to a negative situation. You are slow to anger. You choose to have a long fuse instead of a quick temper. Rather than being restless and demanding, love helps you settle down and begin extending mercy to those around you. Patience brings an internal calm during an external storm.
No one likes to be around an impatient person. It causes you to overreact in angry, foolish, and regrettable ways. The irony of anger toward a wrongful action is that it spawns new wrongs of its own. Anger almost never makes things better. In fact, it usually generates additional problems. But patience stops problems in their tracks. More than biting your lip, more than clapping a hand over your mouth, patience is a deep breath. It clears the air. It stops foolishness from whipping its scorpion tail all over the room. It is a choice to control your emotions rather than allowing your emotions to control you, and shows discretion instead of returning evil for evil.
If your spouse offends you, do you quickly retaliate, or do you stay under control? Do you find that anger is your emotional default when treated unfairly? If so, you are spreading poison rather than medicine.
Anger is usually caused when the strong desire for something is mixed with disappointment or grief. You don’t get what you want and you start heating up inside. It is often an emotional reaction that flows out of our own selfishness, foolishness, or evil motives.
Patience, however, makes us wise. It doesn’t rush to judgment but listens to what the other person is saying. Patience stands in the doorway where anger is clawing to burst in, but waits to see the whole picture before passing judgment. The Bible says, “He who is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who is quick-tempered exalts folly” (Proverbs 14:29).
As sure as a lack of patience will turn your home into a war zone, the practice of patience will foster peace and quiet. “A hot-tempered man stirs up strife, but the slow to anger calms a dispute” (Proverbs 15:18). Statements like these from the Bible book of Proverbs are clear principles with timeless relevance. Patience is where love meets wisdom. And every marriage needs that combination to stay healthy.
Patience helps you give your spouse permission to be human. It understands that everyone fails. When a mistake is made, it chooses to give them more time than they deserve to correct it. It gives you the ability to hold on during the tough times in your relationship rather than bailing out under the pressure.
But can your spouse count on having a patient wife or husband to deal with? Can she know that locking her keys in the car will be met by your understanding rather than a demeaning lecture that makes her feel like a child? Can he know that cheering during the last seconds of a football game won’t invite a loud-mouthed laundry list of ways he should be spending his time? It turns out that few people are as hard to live with as an impatient person.
What would the tone and volume of your home be like if you tried this biblical approach: “See that no one repays another with evil for evil, but always seek after that which is good for one another” (1 Thessalonians 5:15).
Few of us do patience very well, and none of us do it naturally. But wise men and women will pursue it as an essential ingredient to their marriage relationships. That’s a good starting point to demonstrate true love.
This Love Dare journey is a process, and the first thing you must resolve to possess is patience. Think of it as a marathon, not a sprint. But it’s a race worth running.

Today's Dare

The first part of this dare is fairly
simple. Although love is communicated
in a number of ways, our words often
reflect the condition of our heart. For
the next day, resolve to demonstrate
patience and to say nothing negative
to your spouse at all. If the temptation
arises, choose not to say anything. It’s
better to hold your tongue than to say
something you’ll regret.

Men will always always always always make it your fault. It's his responsibility to love you regardless and if he can't or won't he needs to fix that. Counseling is a great idea. If he won't then a separation could help each of you think a little more clearly (if that's an option). My marriage counselor told me I had 3 choices: keep the status quo and deal with it the best I could, I could leave, or I could speak the truth in love. #1 was out of the question. #2 was undesirable. #3 didn't work! So we divorced. 2 years later we got back together - as boyfriend and girlfriend in separate houses - and we're doing great!

Talk to a women s shelter and make your escape plan.
Love has got to be mutual and he doesn't care about your feelings or opinions.
You need to get yourself and your kids out of this before they pick up his behavior and view it as normal.
He is incapable of understanding.
I think you are in love with the idea of what a husband should be - and the one you've got isn't it and not interested in changing or seeing your point of view.
You will be better off without him and feeling so much better when he's not putting you down.

I'm in agreement with HisMomma. There is something incredible about the power of love. Through the 40 day exercise that is Love Dare you will discover and uncover some wonderful things about yourself. I say it is worth the try.

You love is not in question but his is. When you change, he will either change or remain the same but you will have inside of you what it takes to make a safe, healthy, productive future for you and your chidlren with or without him. Don't be afraid of the journey because you are already longing for more right now. Why not take the journey to more love in your life by giving Love Dare an honest try? I know it works no matter what nay sayers may say or believe.