Stalemate

I feel so frustrated still. It is as if he is unable to hear me say I don't love him. I told him I don't think I ever loved him - at least not since way before we were married. I told him that our relationship had a kind of momentum that I didn't know how to escape. I told him that if he had lived here we would have split up. And it doesn't get through. He is not giving up. I guess I wouldn't really expect him to, I just really wish he would. I wish that he would finally have a little respect for my feelings, for the first time in our relationship.

I realised that I am so angry with him for repressing me all these years. For telling me how to behave, what to say. For punishing me by sulking. And it doesn't matter that he has "changed" - the lid is off the box and it is not going back on. There are two issues - the anger is totally separate from the fact that I don't love him. Two good reasons not to be together. One of which is non-negotiable.

He wants to try. He thinks we should give it a chance, with him being "better" and me telling him how I feel. He didn't realise that he was quite such a control freak because I let him get away with it. I admit my fault in this - if I had been stronger, if I had told him it was unacceptable then he could have changed years ago. To be honest, I am not sure that would have been enough. There is still the unmoveable element - the utter lack of love.

He wanted a definition of love. Wanted to know what it means to me to love someone. I told him that it means wanting to spend time with them, missing them when they are not there, not fantasising about them dying in a car crash. Not being panicked by the idea of a future together.

This has to get through. I don't know what to do if it doesn't

Frustration

In counselling. As far as I am concerned it is divorce counselling, but he thinks it is marriage guidance. This is a bit of a problem, to say the least. He doesn't think it matters that I don't love him anymore - he loves me enough for both of us, or so he believes.

And if I don't want to chat, if I don't want to make nice, he accuses me of having no respect. I am caught between a rock and a hard place.

I don't want to share my life with him anymore, and yet I can't get away.