Is this a sign of emotional abuse?

You are absolutely correct. Naturally there is going to be some sort of 'clashing' if something is not done to a persons standards by the other person. But, that being said, she should have just done it in the first place herself instead of asking me to do it 'knowing' that it would probably not be done the way she wanted it.

Agreed, it's basically her way or no way. She has said I am 'not a real man' because I'm not the greatest cook, which I found hurtful.

That is a very good point and one I shall mention. What is the point to a partnership when it seems to be a one sided relationship. What ate either of us getting out of this?

Unfortunately, love just isn't enough. Love does not conquer all. If someone mistreats you, then your quality of life is going to be in the toilet, regardless of what love may reside deep in the heart.

Do you think you could cope with being alone? Fear of being alone often motivates people to stay in unhappy relationships.

Going through with a wedding, IMHO, would be granting her license to treat you as she does. Why should she change, if she can get away with staying just the way she is?

A deeper problem you have is a tendency to be tolerant of someone you see as more domineering than you. If her being dominant means you don't have the means to resist her, then you are pretty much at her mercy. Her tendency to be overbearing is probably not something she can change, or would have the least desire to change. You are doomed to victimhood, if you believe that you can't possibly prevail against someone who is more assertive than you are. Either you have to assert yourself (which could mean a lot of friction in the home,) or you have to leave or you have to be mistreated. I don't see a fourth option.

I think it's a phantasy to hope that your fiancee could be counseled into becoming nicer to you. Not when she is satisfied with being how she is. She sees you as the one who needs to change. In a way, she's right. The dynamics between the two of you won't change, until you change something. You're the one who is dissatisfied with the status quo.

Although I am and have been used to living with her for a while, yes I could cope living alone again if I had to.

I know what you mean. She is set in stone the way she is and if she sees that she is perfectly fine the way she is then yes why would she change?

Yes, she believes that she is perfectly normal the way she is and doesn't think she has any issues.

I am the one who apparently is the 'bad guy' and the one who needs to change. She says I am difficult to live with.

Being fussy or particular or demanding is different from being abusive. This woman is abusive.

She could benefit from individual counseling, not couples counseling. But I expect that she would never consider individual counseling.

Do not expect her to change in any way. If you marry her, life will be no better and in fact can be expected to get considerably worse.

Thanks Bill.

With all of your helpful replies, you are helping me see that she really is abusive and that I should take the steps to now leave the relationship.

Sorry I added a bit more to my last post.

She is far too 'perfect' (in her eyes) to benefit or even consider going for some counselling never mind individual counselling.

According to her - I'm the one who is difficult to live with, I'm the one who is 'problemed', I'm the one who 'won't change' and so on...............

You are all helping to convince me that marriage and her for that matter are just not for me. She is abusive and I can't allow myself to feel any more manipulated and unloved as I already do.

Getting other people's perspectives is fine. However, you need to realize that you have got the right and the ability to decide whether she is someone you would do well to marry. Your conclusions can't be based on "These people convinced me of this, or that." This is your life. Your opinion counts more than a million people saying what they would do, in your shoes. Affirmation and validation can bolster us up, but they can't do our thinking for us.

You do have a point Rose.

She does have some good qualities but at the moment it seems like the bad outweighs the good.

Rose76,

I am sorry, but I really need to ask you - have you ever been in an abusive relationship or do you have any true knowledge related to the dynamics of it? Your advice is coming from a good place in your heart, I can tell, but in some instances it is bordering on "victim blaming".

I have been in abusive relationships - several I just took the blame for being in, and as such ended up bouncing around from one to the next because my self worth went lower and lower. I was already in counseling when one occurred though, and my counselor figured it out. She had me seek a shelter - and counseled me on both the dynamics of how abusers manage to control my thinking before the actual "explosive abuse" begins, and why it is not my fault.

Most people who have not been through it or educated on it do not understand how that pre-abuse control cripples a person. That's why I am asking you as politely as I know how.

Depressed-Fiance,

I've read through this thread and I have to say: your fiance is totally emotionally and psychologically abusing you to meet her own dysfunctional emotional and psychological needs.

The rational approach that you've taken to address the relationship concerns with your fiance, such as couples counseling and face-to-face communication that is loving and supportive...have been rejected by her. That would be enough of a red flag for me to say, "well, that was 2 years of my life, but I deserve better. Time to end this toxic relationship now." But that's me. This is your life.

I would never marry someone who treated me the way that your fiance has treated you. She loved bombed you for the first year of your 2 year relationship, because that's what narcissists will do to their victims. Love bombing is a manipulation technique by the dominant personality in the relationship, who wants 100% control over the other person they deem to be more vulnerable, weaker, and not as important as far as having their needs met.

The Love Bombing will always be in the beginning of a relationship, and will cease immediately once the person doing the love bombing, has their partner exactly where they want them; beaten down, second-guessing their own choices with themselves and with the other person in the relationship, someone who is now the codependent person, whose needs are an option and no longer a priority to their partner.

It's the classic narcissist and codependent pattern.

Narcissists are NEVER wrong (in their mind). They always blame their partner, for their own mistakes. You will never get the narcissist to see your point of view, because your point of view isn't important to them.

The narcissist's version of empathy is self-motivated; they always have an ulterior motive with any empathy they show their partner. It's because they are preoccupied with their own needs, fears, concerns, that they can't show true empathy to their partner.

Their needs always take precedence over their partner's. Doesn't matter what their partner's needs are; the narcissist's needs will always be the priority for them. Forget about negotiating your needs with a narcissist, they'll just deflect and gaslight you for daring to ask for
them to compromise with you, to meet your needs too.

Conversations with narcissists are always one sided. They will feign interest in your life's hobbies, etc. in the beginning of the relationship with you (aka Love Bombing), but then you will quickly discover a pattern, where they always hijack the conversation back to themselves, when you are trying to discuss your life and your interests with them. They will barely acknowledge your side, and juxtapose the conversation to themselves, to put them back in the spotlight. Does your fiance do that?

Finally, when you express your needs to the narcissist, they will be threatened by this, because "how dare you ask for your needs to be equal to or as important as." Does your fiance blow off your needs to her own? You wrote that she is kind and loving, yet what else you wrote, makes her out to be someone who emotionally and psychologically abuses you. And, your intuition is telling you to cancel the wedding.

My advice to you: listen to your intuition. and cancel the wedding, and break up with this woman. Don't let anyone influence you, against what your intuition's telling you. We have intuition to guide us. When we ignore our intuition, bad things happen to us.

My cousin didn't listen to his intuition about his first wife, when he was in your shoes, and went ahead with his marriage anyway, with his first wife, that was a total disaster and forced him to lose everything dear to him (his job, his apartment, his friends), and move back in with his parents, while his ex-wife continued to stalk him and show up wherever he went. It took him years to get over that, until he met his second wife who was the total opposite; she wasn't a narcissist or someone with other psychological problems. They are happy together and have a child together. Had my cousin listened to his intuition, and not married his first wife, he would not have had to endure the misery that came with his first marriage and divorce.

Thank you for taking the time to write such an informative post. Wonderful advice.

1. Is a totally veiled threat. If you break up with her, you cut off her narcissist resource (which is you). So, of course she wants to threaten you to stay with her, so that she can continue to emotionally and verbally abuse you, which meets some dysfunctional need of hers that she refuses to address and fix about herself. So, she seeks out people like you, who will defer to her overbearing nature, and at the same time, sacrifice yourself and your self worth in the process.

2. Someone who loves you doesn't do that.

3. That right there, would have been the straw that broke the camel's back for me. Financial abuse is not ok. She's left you with literally NOTHING to support yourself with financially; again so she can have her needs met (in this case, her bills), whilst you drown in debt and ruin your finances and credit in the meantime.

Sorry for my previously long winded post. But your fiance could be a carbon copy of my cousin's first ex-wife. She ruined him financially after she married him. She quit her job, and refused to work although she had no children. So, my cousin took on multiple jobs, to pay her bills, his bills, their rent, and top out all of his credit cards to the point where he had to file bankruptcy after he divorced her.

She was also nasty to his family at family events, and refused to be nice to anyone. She emotionally manipulated my cousin to the point where she transformed him from a happy person to a completely miserable person over the course of the time they were together. She refused to go to counseling with him, refused to stay on her medications for mental illness, refused to go to individual therapy, and threatened suicide on my cousin anytime he said he was going to divorce her.

When he finally did divorce her, he had to be covert about it. He broke their lease, made arrangements to move back in with his parents, and moved out while she was out of town (on his dime, too, on vacation). When she came back from her paid-for vacation, all hell broke loose. She called up my cousin's multiple places of work making threats to him, showed up un-announced at his work or social events she wasn't invited to, and even to his parent's house. He had to take out a restraining order against his ex-wife. She refused to sign the divorce papers for 1.5 years. He had to get legal help to force her to sign the papers. In the end, she became an inpatient, signed the divorce papers, and finally left my cousin alone. Now obviously, this is just his story. But I shared it here, to help you with perspective.

You need to ask yourself, if you really want to commit yourself to someone like your fiance for the rest of your life. Or, cut strings now, spend some time recovering financially, emotionally, and socially, and then try to find someone who is truly your equal, who won't pigeon hole you, emotionally abuse you, or verbally abuse you the way you describe your fiance.

Life is too short, to spend it making others happy when you deserve to be happy.

I am not 100% sure your fiance is Narcissist, but either way, being an abuse survivor myself, I do know this fits the classic cyclic pattern of abuse in general.

Honeymoon Stage - everything seems normal, even extra special at times. You start to believe it can always be this way and consider yourself lucky.

Escalation Stage - little things start upsetting the abuser, and it is always made to be your fault. "If you would just do this then I wouldn't do that" etc.. only no matter how much you follow requests, it's never good enough, there are always more, and the anger coming from the abuser gets worse and worse each time

Explosive Stage - The temper is most violent, and you don't even necessarily have to do anything to trigger it but nonetheless, blame is always yours to bear according to the abuser.

After a time, the abuser becomes apologetic, and then the cycle begins again.

These stages are done over a long enough period of time the shift between them is not obvious, but the pattern, after being used on a person for a long enough period of time - becomes a form of brainwashing. It has been shown to be similar to the same kind of thing POWs were put through. It is not your fault it happened. It is not your fault you stayed as long as you have - but now that you have broken out of the brainwashing enough to realize it for what it is, it is time to start plans to leave.

Hmm... I see that her focus is centered on herself and her own needs. She sees you as an object to make herself happy and when you fail to do that, she insults you to condition you to feel bad for her so that you'll try harder to please her. This will eventually turn you into a shell of your former self if you don't remove yourself from her life.

Everyone has been very thoughtful and analytical, carefully examining your relationship on this thread.

I am pretty simple in my thoughts on it.

In the beginning, people are the best they are ever going to be. Especially, during an engagement and upcoming marriage.

If there are already all these issues, don't get married. It will only get worse.

Of course, it's all your decision.

Again, thank you to all who have taken the time to offer some great advice here regarding my toxic relationship with my fiancé.

Not that it would male much difference anymore, but a few other parts of her controlling ways:

1. If I don't fold my clothes up neatly every night then she will say in a negative tone "Why aren't your clothes tidy? You are so messy".
   
2. If I miss a bit when washing the dishes, she will say that the whole dish needs rewashing.
   
3. She will comment on my clothing and if it doesn't look 'trendy enough' for her then she'll say I am dressed like a little boy and know nothing about fashion.
   
4. She will brainwash me into not using chemicals to wash my car just because she is 'environmentally friendly'.
   
5. If I do housework then it is never good enough for her because in her mind I 'miss bits'.
   
6. If I am on a day off from work and she is working that day, she will phone me from her work and in a disapproving tone she'll ask why I'm still in bed and not up!

I really think you should come to the "Survivors of Abuse" forum here. You may find lots of information and support there

i would get away soon, it sounds like you need your space and should be valitated nicely when needed.

Thank you. I will do.

You're welcome

I wouldn't be able to handle such nit picking. Would you want her doing that to your children?

My husband likes everything folded just so. He even has a shirt folding rack. I take his stuff and fold it as carelessly as I like, and tell him he should just be thankful I am washing, folding, and putting his laundry for him.

No I wouldn't want her doing that to my children.

She seems to be a bit of a perfectionist and everything has to be just so in her ways.

Do you think she is controlling from the symptoms I described?

Yes, and obnoxiously so. Now is the time for you to assert yourself for what you will or won't put up with.

Assertation needs to be delivered with care in an abusive situation - so as to keep it from escalating even further in retaliation