So my husband attempted to cheat on me twice. I found out the first time and believed his explanation about him only talking to her and he never let it go to far. The second time he just kissed the girl and since we know each other, she told me. His excuses went from he's not happy, to he wasn't thinking, to he was drinking.

I love my husband and I too made mistakes (never cheated) but, I know I'm not perfect. We have been having some issues with communication and intimacy due to having a baby, me being in school and him working out of town. We just weren't spending enough time together, so I understand him not being completely happy with our relationship.

Now, I'm not giving him a pass because we have problems like every relationship, I'm just saying I'm keeping an open mind here. He's an amazing father, met me with 3 kids and a ton of baggage. He accepted my 3 children as his own and helped me through school and custody battles with my ex, financial hangups and so many other things.

Even with all his great qualities, I'm still hurting and I've lost all trust in him. I told him we needed to start over, maybe rebuilding our friendship first, before trying on the marriage. However, that's proving really difficult because he's still kinda shifty and he seems to think being friends means that he can insult me or be a jerk. I honestly wouldn't be friends with him if I met him today as a stranger. He's standoffish and arrogant af. He wasn't always like this and I don't know how much more of this "friendship " I can stand.

During this period of rebuilding we're supposed to communicate, speak our minds and work through it, but I'm not sure how to communicate to him that he's being an ass. For instance, he hugged me the other day and it was the worse hug I've ever gotten. He roughly pulled me to him and grabbed my hair so tight, I literally got an instant headache. Like, wtf was that? The other day we're in the store and he's making stupid jokes, I kinda nudged him away with my shoulder and he hauled off and punched the shit out of my arm, I had to fight back tears. He said when I "pushed" him I hurt his biceps, which were sore from working out, smh

We're supposed to be trying but nothing's changed for better, instead he's becoming a monster and I'm afraid this won't work. When I tried talking to him about the biggest issue in our relationship, the fact that he never takes responsibility for his actions, it's like he listens to defend and not to actually understand what I'm saying. His response was, "you aren't easy to talk to and you've been really short with me, so I feel like I have to have my guard up". This is typical of him, always justifying his behaviors, by pointing the finger at me.

Part of rebuilding is abstaining from sex. I believe we've just became fuvk buddies at some point and that's part of the problem. We never resolved any issues and just went right back to sex. So now, we're not doing that as a way to see what it is that we get from each other and why we should be together.

Again, he's a great father but he's not doing such a bang up job at being a husband or even a friend in this case. How should I proceed? This is really messing with me, I'm miserable and spend most of my time alone because I can't hide my feelings.