Dear Husband,

This is a letter one of my clients wrote to her husband recently.

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These are the reasons I married you

• Because I loved God (and thought you did too)
• Because I loved you and was delighted in who you were
• Honesty: Because I was completely transparent with you, and I thought you were too
• Faithfulness: Because I had no thought of ever going outside the boundaries of my marriage
• Compassion and forgiveness: Because it appeared to me that you knew my shortfalls and failings, and that they were not of paramount importance to you
• Holiness: because I saw you interested in prayer, and reading.

Who I was before I married you: Not perfect, but happy and active. Being creative with my writing, singing, and friendships.

Now I don’t write, I don’t sing, and I don’t get together with friends.

I am not who I was, because I have tried to be a teammate with you.

I think you have a great deal of passive aggression toward me because you are directing your anger at your mother’s manipulation toward me, in indirect ways.

What things are like for us now...

I know that you blame me for not wanting to go to church—but you treat me like a child at church. You order me around, reprimand me if I don’t stand, sit, or move the way you think I should. I am not allowed to meet or interact with anyone. You stand up and head straight for the door without glancing left or right, you go straight to the car.

Day in and day out, you criticize me. You have criticized all of my relationships—wife mother, daughter, niece, grandma, sister, aunt. You have criticized me in all of them, saying I don’t relate to them in the way you think I should. But if I dare to mention your family, you blow a fuse. And when you do that, I start to disappear.

If I spend money, you are enraged. Yet you won’t sit down and do a budget with me, so I don’t have a clue about what is going on. Then you criticize and demean me unfairly by giving me information after the fact, ie, “I had to get $500 out of savings to pay the house payment.”

I have been pretty much cut out of domestics. You don’t like the way I do laundry, clean a bathroom, vacuum, the way I decorate the walls, and anyone number of other things. You don’t like my pile of magazines, yet you pile up your dressers, the living room end table, the coffee table, and it is your doing and OK.

You never reach for me and indicate any interest in touching me, holding me, or loving me. YET you lie back and expect me to speak to you in your love language, touch. Days go by without touch and affection unless I initiate. This is not acceptable to me.

I am uncertain of your promise that you would not abandon me or leave me homeless ever again. I am uncertain that you will maintain that commitment.

the bottom line

As a result of my belief that compromise and acceptance of each other is necessary in order to come together as one....

Financial control stops now. I will have my paycheck changed to my account. If you need money, you will have to come to me and we can discuss it.

Criticism stops now. If you cannot live with me in a home of love and kindness, I won’t be here. I will not tolerate the day-in, day-out of you picking at me and letting me know that I do not measure up or am less than I should be. The day-to-day comments that leave me feeling cut. I don’t care what it looks like to anyone else, I will go stay somewhere else, and the car will go with me.

Comments on my relationships, behavior, ways of thinking, activities, opinions, stop at this moment. Either you speak with love and a positive attitude or you don’t speak to me at all.

You need to take a stand for your marriage with your family. Either they treat me as they treat you, with respect and caring, or you will not be involved or open to phone calls or emails, or any other communication with them,. I AM YOUR FAMILY. You either declare it to them and enforce it, or I can’t live in your house anymore. You have to take a stand with them and let the chips fall where they may. They will get over it.

If you want me, you will change. If you don’t want me, tell me now so I can plan accordingly. I am capable, intelligent, loving, warm, and caring. If you cannot begin to accept who I am and encourage me to be a better me, then I am not sure why I should stay.

Frankly, I don’t believe that there is anything in this marriage that matters enough to you to make you want to change. I am here. I am willing to grow and change.

What about you?