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My wife and I have been married for five years. We have a beautiful and wonderful little girl. My daughter seems so much happier when my wife and I are together. However, our marriage seems to have reached the point in which I can't take it anymore. She says she loves me and wants to be with me. Yet, she will frequently criticize me over about almost anything. The topics of non-constructive criticism range from leaving something out of place, to having a few drops of water on the counter to her belief that I could work if I wanted to. On the latter point, no matter how hard I try to explain how much it hurts me that she doesn't believe me when I break down, I'm not just faking it. Maybe it's because dealing with depression, social phobia, generalized anxiety disorder, ADD, peripheral neuropathy, and severe acid reflux tend to vary wildly in intensity. Sometimes I feel "normal" most of the time on a major life functioning scale of 1 to 10, with my disabilities, with a "1" being lowest severity/intensity to a "10" being the highest. On average it is around a 5. It's just very inconsistent. In addition, my wife will think I'm mad at her or depressed when I am feeling very overwhelmed. My feelings seem so intense sometimes that I feel like I am going to explode. The main point is she thinks that I didn't go to work consistently because I just didn't want to and anything. No matter how much medical evidence there is to back it up, it doesn't make a difference. This is not to mention my wife and brother-in-law are both on disability for so-called "physical disabilities". This is just an example of the hypocrisy and double standards she holds.
The other major issue has been the fact that I didn't help my mother-in-law move from her house to an apartment. This is someone who is far from being someone who can't afford movers. My wife made it sound like "he (her step father) has guns and you never know when somebody is going to go "crazy". My mother-in-law was moving out whenever her husband was at work. She was deciding what stuff to take. This is similar to what my wife had done to me. Except she took everything out of the house when I was at work. My wife doesn't understand why I didn't want to get involved. This is after I offered and did help a lot of her family move just a week prior to this. I also said I feel worried about injuring my back (I'm 38) and/or getting an Inuinal [sp] (groin) hernia. Almost every male on my paternal side has had a hernia. Surgery scares the hell out of me.
When it comes down to it, she doesn't seem willing and/or capable of letting go of my mistakes. She seems like a very bitter, angry and resentful acting person. She doesn't believe she can count on me even though I hardly ever say no to her requests. Which, I admit I am far from perfect. Sometimes I may get a little irritated about something and she assumes I'm furious about it. I do want to work on being a more positive person. I want to be more optimistic. I complain too much about things going on in the world. I have trouble seeing good outcomes Yet, in this case I feel like I can't do this anymore. I believe she doesn't care about me or love me no matter what she says. I go out of my way to stop whatever I might be doing to help her. I'm a person who believes behavior says a lot more about how she feels about me than how she claims to feel about me. Other "warts" of mine include worrying too much, forgetting things, and having trouble being organized and extremely neat.
Anyway, we both have our own apartments. I proposed that we have an arrangement of staying at her house 3 or 4 days a week and then staying alone at my apartment, and her alone at hers (except our daughter gets about equal time between us when we are not together. The alternatives were to just "date" or just divorce. I figured this would be worth a try instead of just repeating the same mistakes of getting back together completely only to get "kicked out" by my wife. Wow, I was wrong. My wife said she would go to counseling, which I was open to going together or separately, but she refuses to. I feel so angry, despondent, disappointed, confused, etc. Unfortunately, spiritually speaking, I don't feel it would be right for me to divorce her unless she cheats on me. I feel as though I made a promise to her and God. I'm a person of my word and I will keep it. As far as my wife or anybody else, it is not my place to judge what they do. They must follow their heart or conscience. Yet, I wish she would just let me go for good. I feel so emotionally drained and damaged.
I apologize for this being so long. I haven't proof read it so some of it may be rather raw and disjointed. If you read this through my venting, I thank you.
David
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