Dear Prudence,
I’m a 34-year-old woman who’s been with my husband for 15 years. We have two children together, and he has two daughters from a previous relationship. I want to leave our marriage, primarily because I’ve felt unsupported for too long. Suffice it to say, our family has had a ton of significant life events over the past couple of years, and the brunt of keeping up with everything fell to me. I’ve been considering divorce for over six months already. I’m not rushing into anything and have talked with a counselor about this. I’m seeing another counselor next week, just for a second opinion.
My husband’s ex-wife is my only friend. She has, as well as my boss, brought up the word abusive when talking about my husband. He is extremely jealous and at times controlling. He wants to know exactly where I am, what I’m doing, why I have to work late, who is going to be wherever I’m going, stuff like that. He’s never physically harmed me, or called me names, or put me down, or withheld money from me, or any of the other things that I’ve seen named as common abusive behaviors. I’m a reasonably smart woman, but this has really stopped me in my tracks. How do you know if the behaviors are at the abusive level? How many behaviors does one need to exhibit, and with what frequency, before it rises to abuse? He used to be much more jealous and controlling than he is now, but if he’s controlling once a month versus daily or weekly, is that “abusive”?