Venting and sorting thoughts.... Kinda long

I hope she isn’t blowing up at you in front of your children.

We have to give ourselves our own sense of self worth. We can’t look to others to give us our worth. We have to already feel inside and know that we ARE worthy - perhaps that’s something you could work on building and strengthening? Within yourself and for yourself? And apart from her? So that you can feel good enough just as you are?

We cannot diagnose of course, but to me, it does seem like she may be narcissistic. I’ve never heard of anyone’s emotional problems making it totally impossible for them to see outside themselves. Your wife also seems to lack any empathy for your feelings and needs, which is characteristic of a narcissist. But again, I can’t diagnose. I’ve known many narcissists in my life, however, and have been involved romantically with several. Of course it’s possible she’s not. She just resembles one, and like Divine stated, it could be narcissistic tendencies.

Lots of people on this forum suffer from mental illnesses and physical ailments and we all know people in real life who suffer tremendously. Yet they (most of them) aren’t treating their loved ones in this appalling manner.

She does it because she can. If you continue worshipping her and serving her hand and foot and put up with her verbal abuse and her lack of appreciation, she’ll continue sitting around and being mean. Because she has zero incentive to stop.

It sounds like she blurts that out when her problem with trust gets triggered.

Yes! Someone can struggle so badly with ptsd that it can take a lot of effort for someone to just function. A person struggling can experience nightmares and wake up actually feeling tired from sleeping instead of feeling rested and refreshed.

Your wife should stay away from alcohol. It tends to aggravate the ptsd and how a person feels the next day and it can contribute to the angry outbursts too.

You are good enough.

More than good enough.

I agree with Bill3 it’s not your job to be her punching bag. You have a right to be happy and feel loved.

Often if people are repeatedly told that they are no good, they start believing it.

I hope you work with a therapist (individual therapy for yourself) and listen to people who value you like your coworkers and management and your kids and even us on anonymous forum and keep building your strength and your belief in yourself.

We are here for you!

I began therapy in mid 2018.

In late 2017, I had been put down so regularly for prior porn viewing and threatened with divorce so much that I was in a very, very, very low state of mind. Struggling to find reason to continue.

I asked for a seperation after several days of being berated.

She has never forgotten that I asked for that. Her doing it every few weeks didnt matter as much as me doing it once, because I meant it, and she was only trying to hurt me, she has said.

It happens throughout the night, or she phones me at work. Not directly in front of the kids, but they know, and they hear, they have to.

She can remain angry for days on a single topic. Some things remain for years.

I had knowledge back about 5 years ago of a woman in another dept who was being mistreated at work and also held back for promotion due to gender. I saw it. I reported it. She was promoted, and moved on from our workplace. I had no contact with her before or since. I told my wife about it. She continues to bring up how I had to be the hero for another woman.

No one else at work knows what I did. There was no glory.

Ive been rebuilding my esteem.

Im a designated workplace mentor in a construction environment. People matter to me. Development of the person matters to me. My kids get a lot of hands on time doing things with me. I do a lot to maintain and renovate our home and loik after our vehicles, often with the kids around.

Through all this, Ive still gotten promotions year after year at work.

This stuff is all just true. There has to be some worth in me. I cant be worth nothing because I looked at porn while in a marriage that had years of no contact. That cant be the only measure of me as a person.

I would not hold someone to these standards.

What is sad to me is I feel she has beaten you down because of the porn, but in other ways too.. But you do see your self worth in other ways. That's great! Keep building up your esteem apart from what she says. Whenever she puts you down, berates you and/or criticizes you, come up with an opposing statement about yourself that counters what she believes and says - something that you know is true about yourself that is the opposite viewpoint and the actual truth. That may help.

Yes, this seems to be her method: try to hurt you, rather than face an issue.

Bringing up porn from seven years ago, your suggestion to separate, the woman at the office that you helped: they don't seem relevant to whatever is going on now, they rather seem intended to hurt you, and thereby deflect attention away from whatever is going on now.

She might be using that porn situation as an excuse of behaving unkindly towards you. If it wasn’t porn, she’d find something else to hold over your head.

Her anger is bottomless.

I also think anger can be substituted for hurt...

Her hurt is bottomless.

She has been hurt and betrayed by multiple people close to her. Me included.

She is stuck, cant move forward, cant move past it.

Shes in physical and emotional pain every day.

Her body has betrayed her.

She cant even think like she used to.

Theres reasons why Ive taken so much, and reasons why Ive done a lot of it alone to keep others out of it.

But Im tired. Im tired of no peace. Right now Im keeping my distance and its good.

Maybe this will spur a change.

Goodnight

RDM

I think you have a pretty good understanding of a lot of what your wife is challenged with.

Yes I believe she does have a great deal of hurt and it’s caused her a lot of suffering and she doesn’t feel SAFE to love. THIS makes her angry.

Yes I can believe that any hurt you share with her, her response is and probably will be that she hurts more.

Love = HURT/TRAUMA to her. She may even be jealous that you can love and she can’t. You can love your parents and she can’t. She loves her children but doesn’t have a safe love with them like you can. And her anger about all this probably IS bottomless.

She may even experience apathy and disassociates a lot. She also probably grieves a lot. Lots of losses that challenge can ruin a marriage. Hard when LOVE = HURT to someone.

(((((RDMercer)))))

❤️🙏

While I do not suffer from physical ailments and while I do work, I too have suffered from a LOT of pain and hurt in my life, a LOT of abuse, and I deal with depression and anxiety issues, yet I am a very loving, giving and supportive partner to my husband. I do not take my anger and pain out on him. Instead, I go to therapy and I am on medications for my mental health issues and suffering.

Your wife has immense suffering yes -- but again, this does not give her reason or justification to lash out at you in anger over and over again. She is beating you up verbally and emotionally.

She needs professional help. She needs therapy and a good counselor.

Yes, your changed behavior and pulling back may influence her, but if we're talking about a lifetime of emotional pain and potentially other mental health illness, she needs a professional counselor to address these issues. She also needs to understand and know that SHE is the problem in your marriage. And yes, she is the problem.

There are a lot of similarities in our home to the home she grew up in. I see that more and more. It was honestly my biggest worry that our life would turn out like that.

I don't see the "splitting "and lies and maliciousness, the covert jabs, that I saw in her home, but I do see the husband taking a lot of anger from the wife, and trying to not upset her, and making her anxiety the family priority. I do see the defensiveness and deflection she grew up with. That can either be from BPD tendencies or from a destroyed self-esteem, or from living in so much pain.

As for my self esteem, it was pretty destroyed for about 6 years.

I began to try to see myself from other perspectives. I let myself hear the things my kids, coworkers, and extended family said to me and about me.

After two weeks of increased distance, of all things, last night she tried to initiate sex. Actually, she tried to get me to initiate sex. I never acknowledged her advances or efforts.

I'm ok.

@RDMercer you really impress me with your dedication and how much you try to understand another person and have loved them despite the things they do that have hurt you.

You have learned about alcoholism and how that disease affected your father maybe both your parents and your parents faced their challenge and admitted they had a problem and got help. You were able to have a relationship with them and even love them despite the dysfunction you had to live with before they got help and learned how to live their lives differently.

It’s clear that you wanted to love your wife and when two different therapists mentioned your wife was being abusive towards you, you wanted to see if she could heal and love you. And yes other people can tell you she is a mean abusive person. Yet what you see is a very abused hurt person. You genuinely want to love your wife. You have been very committed to trying.

I also think you really wanted to find a way to be a good father and husband and take care of your family. It’s possible that is what you yourself wanted to experience that was disturbed and dysfunctional because of alcohol addiction.

This isn’t just about you, instead you really wanted to find a way to create something you did not have and wanted in your own family growing up. This isn’t just about but how you wanted that dream of having a healthy loving family and you have taken on everything to have that happen.

This is NOT an easy decision for you. Yeah, you made a mistake with the porn. You still carry guilt for that and your wife won’t let you forget it either. That porn wasnt about love either. It was just your effort to fill a need and a pretty normal need a sexual need because your wife was not there for you that way. You were not attracted to those women in that porn, you were attracted to your wife and she was not being receptive that way.

Your wife pretty much pushes you away. Her history of abuse and mental and physical illnesses have consumed her. Well, mental illness can be rather cruel that way. And alcoholism can also be cruel that way too. Both mental illness and alcoholism can consume people. In that respect it’s fair to say both those challenges contain a lot of narcissism and narcissistic behaviors. I know you have seen this. I also know you feel sorry for individuals that struggle like this. Me too! In fact I have experienced a lot of cognitive dissonance because of this.

It’s clear you don’t want to hurt anyone. And my guess is especially not your children. You are carrying a lot of weight with all of this. It’s not surprising you ARE so tired the way you describe. Your family IS dysfunctional and you have tried very hard to find some way to fix that. You cannot fix your wife.

I think what you are doing now is working on accepting that. I think that’s what you need a lot of support for. This accepting doesn’t mean you are not good enough. Actually that is how your wife controls you. I think you are beginning to recognize that too.

Question is, how do you move forward without hurting your children? If you break away you know it’s going to get ugly. You can’t even leave your wife for a short business trip. Your wife can’t really be there for your children either. The only way that works is if you are always there and your wife can be present and yet not really be present for her children. Your wife isn’t really present for your children either because she is pretty much consumed in her own world. Your wife pretty much lives in her own head. That’s how sick she is. Yes mental illness can get that bad.

Some people can struggle with ptsd and still function. And pretty much everyone who suffers if honest will admit that a bad trigger can cripple them for anywhere from an hour to an entire day to a few days. And everyone that has it if honest will admit they can struggle with anger. Actually I learned that a lot of alcoholics have ptsd and they used alcohol to self medicate to help them manage it. Also some who have ptsd and borderline personality disorder challenges have self Medicated with alcohol some have undiagnosed bipolar AND ptsd. Yes alcoholism is an umbrella condition that have a lot of other challenges hiding under that umbrella. The same is true for ptsd.

From what you share it sounds like your wife has ptsd so bad that she can barely function. That’s not something you can fix. Your wife is incapable of having a normal relationship with you or anyone for that matter. No one will be good enough for her. This is not a lack in you. This is what you need to accept. And that’s hard to do when you love someone. It’s ok to grieve that.

I did not see your latest post until after I posted my last post.

Very interesting what you just shared about your wife’s mother and how you can see how your wife has created that same dynamic in her own family. Yes this is often what happens. Your wife uses similar tactics on you. Yes this could be borderline your wife is exhibiting. It’s what she saw her mother do.

It can be hard sometimes to know if it’s borderline or narcissistic behavior. This has been something I have been challenged with when it comes to my older sister.

What your wife just did by initiating a sexual approach? Yes she is playing you to regain control over you. Narcissists do that too. They pretend to care but they don’t instead it’s all about their own ego and need to control.

Your wife doesn’t feel for you and most likely can’t empathize your hurts and needs. Often this is played but not real. Sigh... I have had to have a lot of therapy about this very reality about my older sister. You are a good person you wanted to love someone who is not able to love you the way you deserved. You are not the first to face this kind of challenge.

Time to let go of this porn thing.

At the time you needed it. She had no desire whatsoever in meeting your needs. As long as you see it as bad or a mistake, she will continue to use it to control you, either thru shaming you about it, or that you "cheated" on her.
Next time she brings it up, say darn right, and I enjoyed it. Might sound cruel, but she will eventually come to the understanding that she can no longer use it to control you.
While you hold the "shame" within yourself, she can use it against you. Time to let it go. Forgive yourself.
In actuality, there is nothing really to forgive, except that she has you convinced you commited the gravest sin known to mankind.

Omg @RockyRoad007, you made me laugh over what I bolded in your post.

@RDMercer:

The points being made here about the porn use being held over your head are all valid and very good ones.

Your wife continues to use the porn as a way to deflect any responsibility for the issues you bring to the table, or whenever you make a valid point in your defense, she uses this as a weapon against you. That is deflection and blame, and is also a form of emotional abuse and control.

I agree that it may be time to let go of that guilt and responsibility for yourself -- don't let her accusations make you feel entirely responsible.

The bottom line is: your wife denied you sex for a very long time, and you had to get your needs met. In fact, you did not go outside the marriage and physically CHEAT. You used porn, a far more innocent thing. And I am not a porn fan whatsoever and have my own strong beliefs about it, but in your case, I defend your rights to use porn when your wife is denying you sex and when a very basic need wasn't met within your marriage. Hell, if you truly HAD cheated, I wouldn't have blamed you one bit! That's just my own two cents.

So I agree -- try to let go of that guilt you feel over it and forgive yourself. If it were me, I would even say something like: you denied me sex, so I used porn. Big deal. I did what I had to do to get my sexual needs met because you certainly weren't going to give that to me. And then walk away.

@RDMercer I think you are finally allowing yourself to recognize there is really nothing you can do to have a functional relationship with your wife.

Actually you are the only adult in your home and your wife is not a partner but instead one of the children. You basically have four dependents and no partner to help you.

You have even shared how you needed to reach out to work collegues and friends to make sure you had value. Not only that but your wife guilt trips you whenever you have needs of your own.

I think this current challenge of social distancing has forced you to see important realities. It’s extra hard when your children are home and you see how you do and it’s harder to have your own space to work.

I believe you when you say that you can see how your family is all walking on egg shells around your wife. The fear you had of that dynamic your wife had in her family environment has happened.

This is very similar when a family has to deal with alcoholism in a parent. I think that is a kind of mental illness too. Actually that too leads to this lonely feeling of not having a true adult partner in a relationship. And also not really having a normal parent as that illness is also in control of the individual.

I bet where you are now is familiar. Wanting to love someone and have it be normal and having a mental illness challenge intrude on that.

Tell me do you privately ask yourself when do you ever get to actually feel happy? Do you ever ask yourself when you get to have your own feelings?

Do you feel you need to keep all these challenges you have shared private? That it’s somehow wrong to talk about it and that you need to figure it out yourself?
Isn’t that familiar to you?

Tell me do you want your children to end up feeling that way too? Well, I don’t know how old your children are but I think your children would benefit from some kind of family therapy.

What I hear from what you share is that both you and your wife have the same dynamic you experienced in your own family of origins. It’s not just your wife that created the same scenario is it?

What I hear in what you share of what you are experiencing is that you are a good guy that try’s very hard and yet suffers from “emotional neglect”. And when you do have your own needs you are shamed for it.

Do you carry all the weight for everyone else’s happiness except your own? Do you know what that is called? It’s called “codependent”. Do you want your children to be that way too? Does everyone have to put their own emotional needs aside so Mom can be happy and function in whatever way she can function?

Well you are 45 years old and you have learned how to navigate your life as a codependent. And you are finally TIRED. And for at least six years you battled with low self esteem. Well that tends to happen when struggling from emotional neglect. If you really sit and think about it the low self esteem you experience has been there longer than just that six years.

A partner is someone that can hear you. Not someone who hears you for their own selfish needs. Not someone who says “oh yes that is terrible and I am sorry, and then proceeds to go on and on about themselves. Actually, children tend to listen only to get their needs met. They don’t have the maturity to understand a partnership. Maturity teaches the give and take and respecting of boundaries and the emotional needs of others and how to be sensitive and respectful of that.

Your wife doesnt see you at all instead you were there to service HER needs. If someone says “I Just want someone to take care of me” BELIEVE them!

I think this was hard for you to reach out like this. You did the right thing, it’s a good start. You can’t go on carrying all this weight.

I believe your wife is suffering badly from metal illness and I think your wife may also have a personality disorder as well. I am not a professional but my gut is telling me there is more involved than the ptsd and physical challenges.

I know ptsd can get very crippling and even debilitating at times as I struggle with it myself. I am impressed at how much you try to understand it and empathize. Yet part of my challenge also comes from emotional neglect and carrying all the weight like you do as far as not having an adult healthy partnership.

I worry for you getting to a point where you get so hurt that you will begin to believe LOVE = HURT/TRAUMA. In all honesty I don’t think your wife is capable of loving you the way you deserve. I know that sucks when you want that so badly.

I think you need therapy and I also think your children should get therapy for this challenge. I am sure this relationship challenge you are having is confusing them. They deserve to be able to talk about it.

I want to say thank you to all of you.

And, while I've stopped being as apologetic for looking at porn, I still haven't pushed back to quuuiite that degree yet.

But, I have stopped hating myself.

My wife can get angry, really angry, at me, or fume to me about someone in my family, and if I as much as say I dont think it is quite like you are seeing it right now, her anger will really blow up. There IS a "you're on their side" and Im alone" mentality that comes out.

Once angry, she will just go lower, and lower, and deeper, until "you looked at porn."

Ive always been drawn to her, and these last few weeks, its just not there. Maybe that will change, but it doesnt feel like it.

Likd I said, I tried to talk to her about a family I felt empathetic towards, and THAT broke apart over 2 days to, "you used to look at porn".

There was No examination of self on her part.

Things are odd here now. Last night she began getting angry after I said I wanted to watch something of my choice to unwind, not something she picked out. She got madder, then said she couldnt stand to be near me. I said, "I get that, so just please leave. I need some down time."

Today, I've been asked to go out for coffee, if she could bring me a drink, if we could do something together tonight.

Everything in me just doesnt want to. I havent gotten angry in any way. It all just doesnt matter.

A friend, a good friend, asked me a couple of years ago what I like to do. I told him I dont know anymore. That was a wake up call.

I DO try to look after some small things since then that bring me happiness and that I can enjoy.

I havd dodged yhd codependeng label before. J will read up on what it all means.

And.... in my family, growing up, i witnessed a period of several years of alcohol abuse. Things were good before and after, and a lot of talk openly about how it effected me as an adult. Im glad I have them still.

Thank you all for your openess. This was more eye openjng than counselling.

RDM

"But, I have stopped hating myself."

That's major.
Like.... Really Major.

@RDMercer, I can relate to your sentiments about your marriage right now. I have a pretty troubled marriage at the moment, my husband is on and off abusive towards me, and I may have to leave him as a result. Right now, I am pulling back from him, just as you are with your wife. I have personally reached a breaking point, after he raged on me the other day again, and for the first time in six months.

It took me months to fully admit to myself (and on here) that what I am experiencing is emotional and verbal abuse. It's not an easy situation to contend with, and I sympathize and empathize with you. I get all of my husband's own anger and rage directed at me. He takes it out on me, and I now believe that he is an angry person inside.

Yesterday, I gave him an ultimatum: I told him point blank that if this behavior continues and happens one more time, that we will have a serious problem. In between the lines, that means I am leaving him. I don't know if he realizes that that's what that means. But he will not own up to having an anger/rage problem, and I know I cannot work with that, nor will I continue to be abused in a relationship, let alone a marriage. And I took my marriage vows very seriously -- just as seriously, I believe in being happy and feeling fulfilled and respected within a marriage and relationship, and I am willing to walk away if the disrespect, rage, anger and abuse continues any longer.

I miss my happy self. I miss pursuing many of my own interests that have fallen by the wayside. So I can also relate to you saying you don't know what you like to do anymore, because you became somewhat lost by giving of yourself so much. I feel I have lost a part of myself in this marriage. He has too many physical ailments to be able to join me in all the physical activities I enjoy, so I don't pursue them, to my chagrin.

So I really feel for you, being in the position you are in. Happiness is very important in life, I believe. And if that is sacrificed because of another person, it only harms us in the end.

I believe people need to continue pursuing activities they enjoy regardless if their partner joins them or not. Even in the most wonderful marriages, partners often just can’t or won’t partake in the same activities due to whatever legitimate reasons or just lack of interest. I believe it’s extremely important to continue doing what you like doing even if your partner doesn’t, with family members or kids of friends or finding like minded groups or doing it alone