swedish

It sounds as though marriage counseling is a good path for you both right now. I'm sorry to hear he refused to go & I hope that is temporary due to you not speaking.

I married my husband 7 years ago & have 3 children from a previous marriage. He was never married and had no children. There is a part of me that would love to fall right into a traditional family but my reality is not that. A simple example is a family portrait or Christmas card. I will only have them done of the children because my husband is not comfortable in being part of that.

One of the biggest struggles for me has been that since I have had these kids from day one we have that unconditional love for one another. I can only imagine how difficult it is to walk into my situation. My husband felt more like an intruder than a welcome addition to our family & he's jumping in when they are at all different ages without any parenting experience & dealing with teenage attitudes/disrespect, etc.

We could have easily gone down the path of me feeling alone in raising the kids and feeling that he didn't agree with my parenting, etc. or him feeling unwanted and unneeded in our lives. We were as close as a couple could get to being at that point.

The key for us was (as said over and over on here) to talk to each other about how this or that made us feel. The more we talked, the better able we were to understand where the other was coming from. I hope you are able to continue counseling. If he can open up to why he is irritable you can begin to work on things together so you both feel supported by each other. It's worth a try if it means the guy you fell in love with resurfaces.