Guy111, did you read about body dysphoric disorder? That’s a challenging disorder for a person to struggle with. It has mood challenges and anxiety and some ocd issues and a need for constant reassurance that a persons appearance is ok.

I find myself wishing you had shared that at the beginning as it explains a lot of the behaviors you are experiencing in your wife.

So many keep focusing on behaviors and often say the why doesn’t matter. Well, I disagree with that opinion as often the why actually is important.

This explains why your opinion of how she looks is not enough for her also why she constantly struggles with self esteem issues as well.

When all one focuses on is the behaviors it can actually lead down a path of blaming a person for something they can’t help. That’s something I most definitely witnessed someone face a lot of abuse from instead of being helped to work around their condition and even manage it better.

I had to learn how to understand individuals whose brains are wired differently than mine. My entire life has been constantly dealing with someone close to me that has adhd and dyslexia. There are behavior patterns in these challenges that can trigger me because of traumas I experienced that are connected to these challenges in others that were not understood.

It’s hard when other people’s behaviors were a source of such a threat to one’s sense of safety has resulted in suffering from ptsd. The desire to have your hurt feelings heard is very strong. Ptsd is a brain disorder where an individual a can suffer from intrusive overwhelming emotions where that individuals frontal executive frontal lobe does get overwhelmed. Often the damage created that results in someone suffering can be caused by a dysfunctional disordered individual or even from more than one individual.

When someone says “you can’t control the behaviors in others only your own behaviors”? Well that’s something most pretty much figure out when growing up with dysfunctional parents. It’s also something a person learns when they have a challenge and instead of being helped, they find ways to manage it themselves.

It’s very possible even probable that your wife developed this habit that bothers you as a way to help her manage the anxieties and depression and social inadequacies she constantly struggles with due to this disorder that most develop in their early teens.

This disorder is something inherited so you will need to pay attention to that possibly showing up in your children. This is experienced in both males and females. For that possibility alone learning about it is important.

As I mentioned I suffer from ptsd myself. I understand that need to have your feelings heard and the desire to have respect. I am 63 and learning about how disordered individuals affected me in ways I did not realize. I have learned my biggest weakness tends to stem from witnessing a lot of abuse and seeing the hurt it caused and not understanding why people choose to do things to hurt others. For myself I can get triggered when I see another person get hurt and no one is helping them. I had tried to figure out ways to help someone being hurt since I was very young. I wanted to help them feel better somehow. I wanted to help them not feel so hurt. I witnessed too much hurting in my home and I hated it.

Personally I feel that if all you focus on are behaviors and your own feelings than you may decide that the behaviors of others is more about you than you should determine and that if your not getting heard means you are not valued or worthy of respect. Well I watched a little boy endure both physical and psychological and emotional abuse because his adhd and dyslexic behaviors were considered he was just choosing to not listen and be bad.

Personally, I think all this need to be the star and superior and top person is all BS. IMHO even though human beings are so intelligent they can also be very stupid too. I sat across from individuals that are supposed to understand how to help someone struggling and confused decide importance and value when they have no experience what so ever in what another person achieved and lost. So this individual thinking they are superior believes some thing they know nothing about has no value simply because it has no value to them personally. It’s no wonder there is such a strong desire to want others to understand us better. It’s no wonder relationships are such a challenge.

Your wife needs to understand her disorder and how her ways of managing it can affect others. You also need to learn about her disorder so you don’t get so triggered by how she is managing it. It may trigger hurts in you that caused you hurt in the past yet your wife is not these toxic individuals. Your wife has a disorder and so do you.

I think you both need more than just a marriage counselor. Instead you both need a therapist that understands each of your disorders and can guide each of you towards better understanding each other.

What you have right now is not working.