Here's a snippet...My abuse came in the form of complete silence. When we were dating, it was different (dated five years)but about 6 years into the marriage , he lost his voice. Something. He would never speak to me unless I addressed him. He never asked me anything about my job, my family, nothing. When we road in the car together to go somewhere, whether it was vacation or to the grocery store, he never spoke. He would turn on the radio, and then turn it down so slow you would have to hold your ear next to the radio to hear it AT ALL. Some sort of punishment, I suppose.

We built a rather big house. When we did, we built him a workshop that was 1700 sq ft. He would come in from work, go to the workshop, and stay out there until bedtime. Every single day. Then he would come in, say good-night and go to bed. If I tried to start a conversation he would give me "yes" or "no" as an answer. Now he was always polite, never raised his voice, but he just didn't have anything to say.

I lost a bunch of weight one time and his comment was, "I liked you better fat."

I would try and make the effort. I would go out to the workshop and hang around trying to make conversation. Again, yes, or no. No other comments. If I asked him to take me out to eat the answer was, "not tonight." The weekend, same thing.

Finally, after 10 years of it, I asked him one night to go out and eat and he said, "Don't you have any friends? Can't you get one of your friends to go with you? I don't want to go. Period." That was the straw that broke the camels back. I turned around, left, and the next week, got a lawyer.

He married our neighbor when the waiting time was up. Gee...I wonder....

JJ