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get counselling for yourself and everything else will fall into place - whether your marriage ends or is saved you need to get your head in a better place.

I was in a long term relationship with an emotional abuser 20 years ago. eventually I left the relationship and in the aftermath of the breakup all I felt was an overwhelming feeling of relief. but the abuse still killed my self esteem and it took years to heal. I heard on the grapevine he repeated the pattern of abuse in many subsequent relationships. I'm sure there's a reason he is the way he is but the only person who can fix that is himself.

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What jumps out at me is that he has a ‘back up plan’ with this girl if his marriage doesn’t work out.
If he wants to try and fix things with you, he shouldn’t have her as the safety net. That’s not being fair to either of you.

Willowing wrote:The immediate thing that jumps out is would counselling help at all. You realise you were doing it which is s huge thing and with counselling you may very well be able to find out why you do it and learn how to change that behaviour. I don't know if you can save what you have but if he is willing to go to counselling too then there may be a chance.

Couples counselling is not recommended for people in abusive relationships so it would have to be individual.

Well done for putting this out there and admitting it to yourself. I've read your post a few times and some questions have come to mind:

What do you think has made you realise this about yourself? Was hearing about his co-worker the wake-up call for you?
I would imagine that this pattern of behaviour didn't come out of thin air for you - it possibly has roots in your past. Would you look at counselling to help you with this? If you don't tackle the roots of the issue, it is possible that you might slip into old patterns of behaviour again. Your dh should also get counselling, either for himself or as part of couples counselling.
What does your dh want to see from you in a few weeks? I'd imagine it'll take longer than that to address the issue?
You might at a later stage want to look at family counselling. If things are as bad as your post suggests, your kids may have witnessed behaviour that could also create patterns in their lives if not addressed. Sorry, don't mean to add any more pressure.

Best of luck.

The immediate thing that jumps out is would counselling help at all. You realise you were doing it which is s huge thing and with counselling you may very well be able to find out why you do it and learn how to change that behaviour. I don't know if you can save what you have but if he is willing to go to counselling too then there may be a chance.

To my shame I emotionally abused my dh for years. We had a blowout argument a week ago where I yelled in anger for him to just leave if he was so unhappy. It wasn't the first time I said this to him. After reading up up on this I am definitely a classic case. I am so sad that I did this to my dh. I feel disgusted by my behaviour and am unable to sleep or eat properly since. This is compounded now by his revelation that he has "connected emotionally" with a Co worker for about a month now.

He is telling me that he shut down after this last argument and has talked/thought about moving out. He is going to stay at home and we will try and work on our relationship. Meanwhile he works very closely with this girl and will do so until next year. He is telling me that he needs to be careful with her as she is very sensitive and doesn't want to "f*** up" her career by having to reject her if he decides to stay with me. He is telling me that he just shut down his love for me to protect himself as emotional abusers very rarely change. I know only time will tell but I'm so remorseful for what I've done. I tell him but don't want to overload him. He wants to move out in a few weeks if the love doesn't return and see if he misses me. I'm a wreck. Any advice would be much appreciated on this. I want so much to be with this man but cannot force him or put any pressure on him. We have two very happy kids whos lives will be turned upside down if their dad leaves.