It takes two to tango. And sadly if one part don’t even try the chances of success are cut in half. You can draw a line and cross it back as much as you want but that doesn’t change the fact that your husband doesn’t even know there’s a line. I would love to tell you otherwise but you can’t make a person do what they don’t want to do.

You can decide to accept how things are in the marriage and in your family. And that means you stop trying to fix and change the other person. You work on you. What can you do to change or fix yourself. It seems like you feel when you make a suggestion, he automatically poo-poos it or says no. If short on his temper means he is an angry person and verbally dumps on others or verbally assaults others to put them down -- well that is not a good thing for you or the children.

Right now, you need to work on your depression and seeing what things you can accept and detach with love about. What kind of love or needs do you want him to fulfill for you? If you want him to show you love, is he capable of showing love? Sometimes we have expectations that other people simply can't meet. We want another human to fulfill our own needs that we can't do for ourselves and this is not realistic nor healthy. I am going to suggest individual counseling for you or trying a journal. Your depression probably affects you and him in ways that make him unhappy. It is not easy to be married to someone who is constantly depressed and unhappy about everything one does or the marriage. Not saying you are wrong, just pointing out it takes two and the first step has to be to help yourself get into a better head space. Maybe take medications and get therapy for you on this matter because you deserve to have blue sky's instead of gray.

Handwrite on paper every evening how you feel and then find 3 things to be grateful about in that day. Try to find 1 of those things to be grateful about in your husband. Try to say compliments to him or nice things. Figure out your role in the marriage dysfunction because if you don't heal. yourself first, the marriage can't be changed. No human is perfect but should you divorce and not fix your own issues, you'll just attract more men like him. I am not saying you are the bad guy here, I am saying do your work on you and then you can gain clarity on the marriage. It could be fixable if you accept and have no expectations of him -- or perhaps this marriage is at an end. You get to chose. Sometimes things have to end so we can seek higher and better. But often people end a relationship and don't do their internal work and then get right back into the same type of relationship, often worse the second time.

Both of your responses are very thoughtful and surprisingly intuitive given the limited information I provided. Thank you.

I struggle to label him because he isn't a bad person. He is loyal and faithful and smart and capable. But, he isn't compassionate or empathetic... to me. He is to outsiders. But for some reason, he fights me at every turn. As if he feels that I am the biggest opponent at the end of the video game, the ultimate battle. So, while not abusive, per se, he isn't my friend. He was raised by a narcissistic mother and sometimes I feel like he perceives me as the same battle he fought with her, or works out those issues on me. I was raised in a boy house, lots of love, but lots if chucks on the shoulder and voices telling me to "Brush it off" . For that reason, I went a long time without noticing that we enjoyed each other, but that I went to friends with real problems or intimate concerns. Somewhere along the way, the fun stopped, and now I feel like I am raking over the coals to see if there is anything still there.

I will take the sound advice to get help and work on myself. That is fair and true. Thanks for your insight.

My husband tends to fight me at every turn also and its usually stupid stuff like where I put the dishes in the dishwasher. He had neglectful and self absorbed parents and he was never important or valued by them. So this is a control aspect of how they learned to manage life growing up. Honestly, I had some of the same and also learned how to manage life in similar ways so we clash. I was listing to a psychologist on the radio a few months ago talking to a man who called in with this issue of arguing with his wife. The advice was stop being in constant competition with your wife. The psychologist said this was competition between them. I thought about this for a long time. I realized that my husband is very competitive to have to be right. I tend to also want to be right so I won't "give in".

So try to see all of your husband's fighting you at every turn as not about you but about something damaged or broken inside of him. Your role is to change how you react to it. To see it as competition and stop feeding into that. See our own role. Observe and listen and change how you react for a while. Gain more information in exactly what is going on. Both of you vying for control and winning. We have to observe and listen so we can change the dynamics and so we can give non-angry statements when we finally sit down to discuss with husband. We have to really really understand what is going on and how we feed into it, how we react, how he reacts, and how things could be improved.

If he has many narcissistic tendencies, or is narcissistic himself, he may or may not want to change. I am not labeling him with the personality disorder. This is another aspect to listening and observing him - and yourself.

I talked to my husband about this after I had thought about it good and long. I tried to stay calm and I said it feels like we are in competition to be right. I think this hurts our marriage, how can we both stop this. Now my husband is often willing to listen and change, but not always. He has reduced his competition behaviors about 3/4 while I have not reacted and needed to be in control or win either. It is not easy on me to change me. The other day, husband was doing something ridiculous to me, something about how I do the kitchen, and I said "lets not be in competition for who is right, okay" in a quiet loving manner and kind of held myself in love for him instead of holding myself in anger. I then was able to quietly just walk away. Am I irritated by his competing to always be right or having the last say or the only say. Heck, yes. Don't tell me I am loading the dishwasher wrong when I am skilled at being a house wife, is how I feel. Am I irritated by myself reacting in my need to be right and wining? Heck, yes. If he wasn't always wanting his way, I could always have my way. If I wasn't always wanting my way, he could always have his way. Which is right? Neither. Its bad for both of us to be this way and I personally don't like this trait within myself. And I hate it that he is this way as it creates a lot of conflict. But I could not see it as competition because I have never competed in sports or for a job or anything like that and didn't recognize what it is.