adrift,
Your husband sounds almost like mine, other than the "highly educated" part.
My husband and I now own a small restaurant in the Food Court of a mall. He is finally somewhat tolerant of me and we don't fight much, because he's too exhausted to, most of the time.
When we first got married, the first 5 years, it was AWFUL! He was physically abusive toward my 2 yr old daughter (not his child too). I was also abusive toward him, because I am Italian Catholic and we don't take crap from people for very long without snappin on em! It was a mess!
Then we moved in with his "supposedly mourning" mother, after her 3rd husband died, because I had a heart and wanted to be the "shoulder she could cry on" She would smack my daughter in the face, tell us "I'm having the ladies over for Bible study so you need to keep your daughter downstairs!" (my husband, daughter and I lived in the basement of her house...YES A LITERAL BASEMENT, damp, spiders, cold, wet, nasty!) I HATED IT AND I HATED HER AT THE TIME...I finally took my daughters (had a baby plus my eldest at the time) and went to stay at a shelter for almost 3 months. He took his mother's side against me and just didn't care where the heck we were. His comment as I left, "Don't let the door hit ya on the way out!"
Eventually, I came back to him, we went to a Lutheran minister for counseling, and began uncovering some issues. I was told to submit to him and he was told to love me and that was the end of counselling. Just a few weeks or so.
People began telling his mother that I was only living with her to steal her money and take her house, so things got much worse. She became cold and mean, but eventually I helped hook her up with a guy and she married him (I used to run a dating service). THANK GOD FOR THAT! END OF NIGHTMARE!
FInally, my husband and, now 3 daughters moved to another state where I live now. We fought a lot over discipline issues (he was wanting to still hit the children, etc, I wanted to raise them with minimal spanking) I finally told him an ultimatum, "I can't do this anymore! We are either goin to counseling or I AM OUT OF HERE!") He agreed to more counseling, so we went through some inner healing stuff and he began to admit to some inner issues he had buried, and finally admitted that his father ABUSED HIM and the other children (he had/has BAD STOCKHOLM SYNDROME!) We started communicating better.
He denied sleeping with his cute lil Vietnamese boss, however, sex all of a sudden changed totally to where he seemed to know what he was doing a lot more than ever before...and this was like OVERNIGHT! Soon after, I was diagnosed with an STD, called trichomoniasis. He REFUSED TO GO GET TESTED, saying "you are the one with the disease! how do I know YOU weren't sleeping around? You are more likely to, based on your past!" I knew he was dodging and I had a decision to make on it. I sought counsel. I decided to stay after much much prayer. I told him "If you EVER DO THIS AGAIN, I AM GONE AND I MEAN IT!" I think he believed me and saw how it hurt me or something, cause I'm pretty sure the behavior stopped. Well, the lady got real controlling of him too, right after that...calling my voice mail and demanding to know where he was and yelling about how she couldn't get ahold of him and if he didn't call her, she was firing him. I think his traditional beliefs took over and he decided to re-commit to me and his family (children)
From there, I went to college and now we both own this restaurant. Things are better.
As a person, my husband is non-emotional, other than anger (used to be RAGE). He is very cruel to animals! He scored VERY HIGH on the Narcissist test along with BPD and OCD. The man has deep issues. Thankfully he isn't home much with me anymore and work goes well, cause we BOTH OWN THE PLACE so he cannot control me! Do we have a marriage? In WORD only maybe, but I am totally OPPOSED TO DIVORCE personally, unless there is RAPE, SEVERE PHYSICAL ABUSE OR EVEN EMOTIONAL ABUSE THAT I CANNOT HANDLE. I am a strong person, and, when I first came to this list, I'm sure you saw that I can stand my ground rather firmly. That is what keeps me in this situation...plus, I am not one who chooses to make it on my own. I have it too good and I know it...I am choosing the familiar (my house, my church, security financially, our restaurant) vs, starting over with nothing, HAVING TO WORK, HAVING TO RAISE CHILDREN BY MYSELF. No thanks...been there, done that, admire those of you who are still doing that, but it's not for me. I like the comfort zone.
~ReallyME