Someone please help!! My marriage is in crisis and i've tried talking to my husband over and over about how I feel but I can't get him to hear me or share how he feels. I left him 4 yrs ago and I came back because of our son and if I can't find a way to get him to talk to me and discuss our problems and get help, i'm going to leave for good. The main problem is we are living like roommates. There's no affection, intimacy, passion. We just go day to day managing the daily cares. All of our kids are grown. What can I say to get him to open up without him feeling threatened or intimidated?

Have you tried counsiling? From the way you sound I am not really sure what you can do to get him to come around since he is so far away from what you need him to do. So I am thinking that the only thing that might get him to the promised land is professional counsiling.

I am guessing you have tried everything you know to try to get him to talk and have failed. For some reason he just either doesn't want to open up to you or maybe he has such a hard time with it he just can't bring himself to do it. One thing you can try is to sit him down and ask him what his intentions are for his future. Ask him if he wants to salvage your marriage and live happily ever after - or does he want to see his marriage fall apart, move out into an apartment and live alone and miserable for the rest of his days? Hopefully he answers that he wants to salvage his marriage - so if he does that then you need to get him to agree to an action plan that is necessary to get things on track. Of course many items on the action list will be painful for him to agree to do (i.e. counsiling, opening up to you, etc) so this is where you will really test his committment to his desire to salvage the marriage. Essentially don't let him off the hook with saying he wants to salvage the marriage but make no effort to do so.

oh and ps - many men do talk and do a good job of it. At least the ones that are in solid, happy marriages because they have learned this is the KEY to keeping things good.

Thanks and I appreciate what you had to say. We tried counseling once before, but he didn't take it serious. But I know if our marriage is going to last, we need to get help and i'm getting tired of pushing and trying and he's not. He just takes me for granted. I'm going to find a marriage counselor for us and if he doesn't agree to go and put his heart in it completely, i'm out.