[twistedmoon]

Hi to everyone and thank you ahead of time to anyone who may be able to offer some advice for my situation.this is difficult to get organized in my mind, so please bear with me.

My husband and I have been together for 18 years, married for nearly 16 of them. Our relationship is not perfect, but who's is? It has been a real challenge also at times, but for the most part we get along well enough. The main thing that has allowed our relationship to last is how much freedom I give him, and he me.

However lately things have been getting especially hard to deal with. He's been getting into many more legal problems than usual, WAY, WAY more severe problems, and these have in turn been making him feel a lot of pressure and restricted freedom as well as a great deal of aggression. He has started being rough with me and totally disregarding me as a person physically and emotionally. also he's pulled almost completely away and no longer tries anymore to contribute to our relationship as a couple in any way.

Ive tried getting him to start taking therapy of some kind, but he hasn't shown any interest in that.If anything he's shown disdain, as the only experience he's had with a therapist was a bad one. I threatened to go and stay with a friend if he didn't find one and got out of the house for a week. I've tried stopping him and making him talk to me about something, anything, but when I won't move out of his way he literally walks right into me.

Most of the time we get along well and while he can be horrible when it suits him he's never been like this to me, and for so long on top of it! I'm not in need of suggestions to leave him.. Any insights that might be given about what could be going on in his head to be prompting this kind of behavior would be highly appreciated. I want to resolve whatever this is, so please try to keep that in mind. Thanks so much and I love you all

[Direction]

I'm not familar with antisocial behavior...I had to look it up. I would start by trying to learn more about this personality disorder and setting healthy boundaries. You may benefit by talking with a professional. A side note blocking someones path is a type of aggressive behavior...I would caution use of this since he has already been rough with you. I'm particularly concerned that being rough with you doesn't suggest moving quickly to a safer home environment or leaving him. I have trouble supporting staying with someone like this.

How'd I miss this? I must be slipping in my old age...

Anyway... The Beatles, unfortunately, are not all-knowing, and love is not all you need. My wife, in order to maintain her sanity and safety, regularly has visits with her friends and family, could easily support herself should she ever choose to leave, and has a few escape plans which she and her friend organized via email that I'm not supposed to know about. A great deal of patience, understanding, and a good therapist would also come in handy. The therapist being for you, mind you, not him.

I can't say for certain what he's thinking, as even antisocials are unique individuals with their own thoughts, feelings, fears, desires, and so forth. But, if I were in his position (regarding the restrictions, not the legal problems. Those are for my lawyers to worry about and me to brag about [after the trial and double jeopardy applies, of course]), I would be feeling a good deal of stress, anger, and injustice, which I'm inclined to relieve through hostile behaviour. Furthermore, whatever veneer of empathy and compassion I have leaves me whenever I'm feeling especially stressed or agitated. There's no good direct method to handle such episodes. Well, my wife and I haven't found any. If you find one, let us know. I'm not really sure how she handles it emotionally. I'll have her elaborate on that. I do know that she lets me be my ol' belligerent self for awhile by somewhat enthusiastically engaging in argument, and that she doesn't expect a great deal of affection from me. Although, once, she chased me out of the kitchen with a knife because I threw a tire iron through a cabinet. Thanks to my bum leg, she even caught me. That was an... interesting night... Actually, during that particular incident, I wasn't especially stressed or agitated. I just wanted to throw something. Usually, I try to control some of my worst violent impulses by directing them on something that can't feel pain. A punching bag seems to work for me. Just to clarify, my wife and I have never gotten into physical fights (except couch-cushion ring-match brawls [almost entirely consensual (she usually wins [I have a bum leg. And she fights dirty. Don't judge me])]). And I don't condone tolerating such relationships.

Basically... Try to get him to find a safe outlet for his aggression. Safe for you, not for him. And then just ride it out, I guess. I'm not much help today, it seems... I'll get my wife in on this, hold on...

[insightunseen]

whew, twistedmoon this is very difficult! my heart truly goes out to you. you have made it work somehow for years, yet now you seem to be feeling a gradual heating of the water, and like the frogs, you wouldn't want to get boiled! past approaches aren't working, no boundaries are being respected, and you really can't control another person who is wound up and aimed at everyone.

how do we help you? michael shed some light for you, whether he thinks so or not. "feeling injustice which he's inclined to relieve with hostile behavior." that is spot on. there may in fact be no real injustice against your husband, more he is projecting his own anger at life onto others. still he rants.

notice that michael as well as all of us want you to be SAFE. that is a basic human right. remember maslow's hierarchy of needs? none of us are exempt from these. so it can't do any good for one partner if the other partner is forfeiting his or her human rights.

start there, with the absolute bottom lines for yourself as you define them. what is truly a deal breaker for you? what lines will you simply not allow repeatedly crossed? then articulate those to yourself, your partner, and some trusted and wise friend or professional. then strategize how to keep the limits you set without engendering unnecessary conflict. it's a start.

[nikki87]

Twistedmoon, just be safe. That's most important. I'm sure you already know how it feels, but it can be soo very hard trying to cope with antisocials in a bad mood. Take my husband, for example. I just want to strangle him sometimes. Other times I do. What's really helped me is getting him to open up and talk to me about his decisions before he does something stupid and illegal which would get him into trouble later, and then try to enourage him to do something else. If he does get into a bad mood, I just let him vent, like he said.But I help him do it in a way that won't get him into more trouble or hurt himself. And I make sure to take time to myself too. If he starts stressing me out, I'll take it out on him, then there's just a vicious cycle of us driving each other nuts.

P.S. I did not have a knife, Michael!

[twistedmoon]

Thanks so much for taking some of your time to respond to my mess, I appreciate it so much, and I apologize for such a delay in mine. I am afraid it got to the point(this has happened several times in the last few years) soon after I posted where I had to just leave for a while and stay with my mother. things were just not working and I had to get out or lose my mind. I have issues of my own and he knows the ropes of those problems and was leaving me out to twist in the wind. Michael, you talked about an outlet, well he made me his outlet.and then went on about his day.

As i said I went to stay with my mother and help her. I felt it would be good for both of us. I also tried to severly limit the amount of time I spent talking to him. He had installed a GPS tracking program on our phones earlier so I could see where he is......I've always had this fear of him getting killed or winding up dead somehow and he's horrible at answering his phone and can be hours late after he says he's on his way home, so it made me feel better to be able to check on him, if that makes any sense.

But after a couple months I went by the house to pick up more of my clothes and things, I found a "For Sale" real estate sign out front. He has played weird jokes on me before, so I was in no rush to take something like that seriously. My key still worked, and so I went in and found that all our personal stuff was gone! I called him, he didn't answer like usual, I left a voicemail message and went back to my mother's. To make a long story short, when he finally called back, it was no joke. He insisted it was HIS house and he could do what he wanted with it. Sometimes it just takes my breath away how someone can be so "well together" in so many ways and is so, so lacking in others, those that seem the simplest.

I'm really not sure what to do!! About anything, because its just madness. There must be some way of fixing these problems without giving up. I ended my first marriage to be with him, and I've lived a very different life with him and now I'm realizing I don't have nearly as much of my own life as I would like. I started talking to a counselor last month but she wasn't very familiar with Antisocial PD and couldn't help me much, so I'm set up with another this coming month. Sometimes I wonder why I'm the one getting the help and not him.Since I'm having trouble putting th rest of my thoughts into words this is all I will write now. Thanks for any advice anyone may have, and thank you all for your support

[CedarS]

There must be some way of fixing these problems without giving up.

Choosing your own safety and well being is not an act of "giving up". Your safety comes first.

Please choose safety.

You deserve a good, safe, stable, healthy life.