Thank you both so much for these replies.
Bruce, thank you for that explanation about the ED medication. Looking at it as the 'price' he had to pay to keep that dopamine hit and validation coming makes a tragic kind of sense. It explains why he put in so much bizarre effort for someone whose looks or personality certainly weren't the prize.
b3199, your words hit deep. You are completely right—right now, I am trying so hard to make this work while leaving myself entirely vulnerable to ongoing trauma. What you said about my husband's definition of 'reconciliation' being a simple return to the status quo, no matter how much I am suffering, is the hard truth I’ve been wrestling with. He wants the emergency to be over so he doesn't have to face it, while I am left holding the burns.
The hardest part of this daily reality is that whenever I react to his coldness and indifference, I suddenly become the problem. For the last couple of weeks, he has been completely cold and distant; when I ask him why, he just turns it around and says I am always the angry one, completely ignoring that my reaction is a direct response to his emotional absence.
The idea of divorce does terrify me, but the thought of living in this endless anxiety and emotional limbo forever is even scarier. Shifting my mindset away from fearing the end of the marriage, and toward refusing to stay in a marriage where he refuses to do the work, is the exact strength I need to find. And I will definitely take your advice to ask The1stWife what her game changer was.
Thank you both for your kindness, your wisdom, and for keeping me grounded. It means the world.
