Grieving my marriahe

Quote:

Originally Posted by Open Eyes Oh I remember those years. Yes “the yuppies” lol. I am older than you, 66. When I had a phone on the wall and they still had phone booths. 😊

I sure miss phone booths. I do NOT miss yuppies. I felt like I was treated like garbage for not dumping my kids in daycare when they were infants.

I think the OP is right and there is confusion and mental health challenges going on in his wife. I think she is at a milestone where she feels something is missing. She had been struggling for a while and escaped through alcohol. Alcohol use NEVER fixes problems, instead it makes things worse on so many levels. I also think his wife is turning to a pier group that is misguided about her real needs.

Between her alcohol addiction and her saying things happened that never happened, there are red flags that she needs help. I think she is at times lashing out at him when he is not really doing anything wrong. Instead he represents a trap she wants to escape from. It’s very common when a child is at a point where they are ready to leave the nest and strike out on his/her own.

It’s along the lines of “I don’t want to play house anymore, I am bored and want to spread my wings like my child is doing”.

@RDMercer you mention how you want to get back to the home and family life you had.

Aside from her abuse of alcohol, I think your wife wants something different in her life. I think she doesn’t really know how to articulate this need. She wants to be something other than the wife and home maker.

This tends to happen as the children get older and are embarking on their independence. It tends to bring forward a part of self that has passed and what Is missing in self.

You mention this change slowly developing over the last 5 years. Yes, that is indicative of the development of a desire for change that many women experience. Men tend to experience a similar crisis when they hit age 50.

Also included in this is the biological change of life a woman experiences where a woman is experiencing a hormonal shift. Some women have a real hard time when they go through the change. This change can happen any time between age 40 to 58 with the average taking place around age 51.

@RDMercer how are things going?

Pretty crazy.

I got my wife to commit to several months of therapy with me. This infuriated the kids as they are exhausted. I had several good interactions with her and good conversations, and really had a chance to enjoy her company a few times. She stepped into family life to some degree by making meals and hanging out with me and the kids together just watching TV.

Things blew apart big time, all in the span of one week. My kids told me about things they had experienced that were worse than I knew while they were growing up. I reached out to a friend of my wife's and asked for some input on getting her to reduce some of her time on the phone with her friends in the evening. This woman told me they were no longer in touch. She found the friendships so toxic and the expectations for time so consuming, and the alternately glowingly positive and extremely negative comments from the ladies to be just too much. She also said the "single ladies" were always telling my wife how much fun it was to date, and enjoy the attention of men, and how easily they could get men to look after things they needed done.

I had a therapy session, and related much of this to the therapist. I've seen her for four years. She said, this is consistent with what I expected to hear. She said, I can't diagnose anyone without treating them, but the techniques we have worked on for years are techniques for someone who is in a marriage with someone with strong borderline traits.

Then my son went to pick her up from a work Christmas party and said she was in way too much contact with her male coworkers. My wife denied that but also finished the night by yelling at me that the kids have just never seen a man be interested in their mother before, and that it felt good to have that interest.

I accept, what my son saw doesn't necessarily mean anything.. People can have a few drinks and be too "friendly", it doesn't mean anything happened.

I asked for a few days of no one bringing up anything, and just keep things cool and keep moving forward with Mom and I getting to counselling.

Then my wife blew off our youngest to go hide in the room on the phone with her friends again. An hour later she came out and youngest lost it with her. I tried shushing kid at first, then bailed out, because I was being accused by my wife of making things worse.

Oldest comes out because he heard his mom start f-bombing the youngest kid, and cursing the kid out. I hadn't heard that. So the two of them proceed to directly and calmly tell mom big, damaging hurtful things she's done and how it has effected them.

Around about here, I re-joined the conversation.

As far as she was concerned, None of it happened. She apologized for none of it, and began telling them various things I had done, all with a bit of a twist to them, or taken out of context. The thing is, she accepted no blame for anything from them. The things they said all came from stuff I put in their heads.

Finally, the youngest said, calmly, I don't want to live with you ever again. I can't. You twist too many things and you are too angry, you don't make time for us, and you never apologize.

If my kid said that to me I would be destroyed. My wife replied with, "fine... Then I won't make you meals, do your laundry, drive you any place, or help you with school. If you want to be the child of a single parent, you'll see what it's like."

Then she went and locked herself in her room.

That was Wednesday evening.

Thursday, I came home from work after my wife had left for work My kids were all home from school because it was all too much to process.

I came in our home and got weak and cried. Cried like I have at loved ones funerals. All I wanted was my simple home with my family together. That' all I ever wanted. For the rest of the day I went through periods like that. Weak, shaking convulsively, and crying. That was yesterday.

Today my wife went to her girlfriend's place. She still hasn't talked to the kids.

Looking at this now, I think she had borderline tendencies, and being hurt by me (p0rn), being shunned by her family and having the relationship with my family break down, and me just not being the person she needed at times hurt her very deeply. I think all that, and the influences from these ladies, swirled into what she is now.

This is all so hard to face

That is so much to deal with and even more difficult coming at this stressful time of year. I hope you can find some snippets of peace.

You put a lot of blame on yourself for your wife's behavior and I wonder if you would do the same thing if a friend were in this situation. Do you think your kids share equal blame with your wife for the things she did to them? If your son or daughter were married to someone who treats them the way your wife treats all of you, what would you advise them to do?


My father wasn't a great parent or husband. He and my mother fought a lot and I suspect he had a personality disorder. He finally left when I was a teenager and I can't tell you how much better life was after that for my siblings and I. We were a lot poorer and there was a sense of shame around divorce, but life was so much better! No more fights in the house, no more tension. No more dealing with a selfish, controlling person. This thing my mother had feared for so long turned out to be the best thing that ever happened.


My husband's mother chose to stay in a bad relationship with a man who was abusive to his children. Her kids shun her as much as they shun their father. I worry you may lose your children if you continue to live with your wife.

I am going to sound harsh here, but you are not protecting your children, and you are in fact, contributing to the harm that is being done to them by their mother. You enable her and you still want her love and affection, when your children are screaming out for help from you to support them in their plight with their mom. You are neglecting your own children's needs, and you are contributing to the abuse that their mother inflicts upon them by enabling her. It is very disturbing at this point.

Take the kids and give them to other family members to watch over because they are crying out for someone to take care of them better.

@HaveHope

I'm not offended. You're not wrong.

I'm scared for them, and scared to lose them.

I was dumbfounded by stuff the kids told me this week.

They really need me.

RDMercer

I am glad you're not offended. And they DO need you - very much so.

You seem to be numb to your children’s pain, and that is just as bad as burying your head in the sand like you’ve been doing all these years.

By allowing this circus to continue, you’re just as much to blame. When are you going to put your children first and get her out of that house?

From what you just shared, your wife is using emotional blackmail on you and your children. She is basically saying she has a right to treat you and your children badly and then threatens that if you call her out that she will punish you.

Her behavior is unhealthy for her whole family. She is acting like a defiant teenager, not an adult. This speaks of her lack of maturity which is often present with alcoholism and addiction. Even if she has reduced her consumption, her behaviors have not changed.

Apologies in advance for not mentioning everyone by name but you've all made very valuable observations.

"Empowered women groups" have a bad reputation, whether they're formal or just a bunch of like-minded people who invite others to join. No longer in the work environment, am not sure if the professional ones still exist. Many gained a reputation for just taking the money, evident by designer clothes/shoes worn at these events. Problems can also exist in the casual groups, caused by personalities. Sometimes the dynamics can seriously affect mental health.

Can relate to the emotional blackmail comments, but in my case, it's my mother who is behaving in this way. We can be too quick to assume we are totally to blame without looking at the bigger picture (being numb). When we ask ourselves why, it can open our eyes to uncomfortable realisation that either a person close to us has changed or they've always had these traits.

You and your children's self-esteem is under threat here. If action is not taken and this situation is allowed to continue, then it's a downward spiral. Hope I've made sense!

I find it despicable that she threatens the kids with “living with a single parent”. She pretty much makes them responsible for downfall of a marriage. She blames them for her behaviors. And she makes no sense. So being in a volatile household is better for the kids than living peaceful life with a single parent? She is full of it. Her behavior is out of control

@poshgirl I agree that these women advising her seem to be encouraging her bad behavior and they are doing so not personally knowing her husband. She has been embracing a false narrative accusing her husband of doing things he has not done. This has been further polluted by his wife’s drinking. These other women may not know she had been struggling with alcoholism and has delusional thinking and extreme mood swings.

What is concerning about what you share is that you keep expressing a desire to have this ideal family and home and what you are failing to see is that this is not what your wife wants. Your wife’s unhappiness is not your fault. However, your wife uses your guilt to empower herself.

Individuals that have trauma related disorders struggle with experiencing emotional balance and insecurities. When a person turns to alcohol and drugs to aide in reducing these unwanted feelings and insecurities, they stop maturing and developing healthier coping methods.

Your therapist has mentioned to you that he feels your wife’s behavior patterns are “disordered”. The therapist mentioned a possibility that your wife may be struggling with borderline personality disorder, but, the therapist can’t really diagnose her because he doesn’t have personal experience interacting with her.

I have also had a therapist listen to behaviors that were confusing me in my older sister. I had three different therapists tell me that I was dealing with a very disordered person. Some possible disorders were brought up of BPD, NPD, and how certain disorders show a persons inability to deal with their deep emotional insecurities and how this comes out in certain behavior patterns. I found it daunting as I began to read about these different disorders.

I also felt sad that a person can be so damaged that they develop these disorders that affect others in toxic ways. The one thing the person can’t deal with is reality. Yet mostly they never learned how to regulate their emotions. As a result, they developed unhealthy ways of escaping these uncomfortable emotional challenges. Some include turning to drugs and alcohol.

When you share about what you have been dealing with in your wife’s behaviors, there are many things she has been doing that narcissists do in order to gain a sense of power. You have described stonewalling, ghosting, being nice and then not being nice. Also, creating a false narrative.

When you love someone that is disordered, you will be traumatized. You also risk becoming trauma bonded and codependent. You ask, how can I help so this person behaves good all the time like when things seem to be going well? The answer is, this is nothing YOU can fix or change. Instead, all you are doing is participating in the person’s disordered functioning pattern.

I know you really want this normal family life that you describe. However, your wife doesn’t want this and her ongoing increasingly dysfunctional disordered behaviors keep saying just that. Your wife is also getting these outside messages that are only serving to increase her disordered and distorted patterns. It sounds like others are projecting their own problems onto your wife. That is when a support group becomes unhealthy.

Meanwhile, your wife’s behaviors are slowly damaging and even traumatizing your children. This especially damaging to your youngest child who no choice but to live in your dysfunctional home.

I am not telling you to divorce your wife, nor am I trying to diagnose her. However, from what you share, I feel that your desire to have the ideal family life and home is causing you to overlook important things that are now at a point where you can no longer ignore the dysfunction that is affecting you and your children.

RD, I've posted before as to how much I relate to your situation. So much of what you write applies directly to my life as well. It's exhausting.

I also believe my DH is borderline, but more recently have been considering covert passive aggressive narcissist - or maybe somewhere in between those two things.

About a year ago I realized I was so invested in him, his life, his problems, my want for something that might not be (the guy I remember to go back to being that guy), that I'd literally lost track of my life. Someone told me that living with someone like my husband, it is very difficult not to end up codependent. Particularly true if you are a loving empathetic person. I've since learned the power of detachment among other things and life is so much better, at least for me. It still stinks a lot of days, but at least I have my equilibrium most of the time. I'm still compassionate towards him, I just don't get sucked into his garbage and let whatever he throws out to remain in his space. Last night he made a very provakative comment that I was not worth talking to- I just let it slide, the way you would with a tantrumming four year old. I ain't picking up what he's putting down, kwim? The more I do this, the more he seems to try very hard to go back to more of the person he use to be. Weird huh? Not really. Borderline behaviors when they fear they are no longer in control of you.

I don't think your kids would be better off elsewhere. You are a very attuned person and there is no one better to be there for them than you. I just finished reading a book about covert passive aggressive narcissists and there's some talk in there about actually sharing with and involving children at an age appropriate level. The concept being that the CPAN parent is not normal and the children should not be left to think that what the disordered parent does is normal or acceptable. This has been my thought with my kid all along. A few days ago she was talking to me about him and I made an offhand comments that sometimes I think he starts acting nice when he wants something. She rolled her eyes and said. "uh huh," as though she's figured that out long ago. Anyway, given the oddity of your individual situation, no one else is going to be able to provide the guidance that you can. For me, that guidance also involves getting me healthier and emotionally separated from him to show her that I am an individual deserving of respect and appropriate treatment and a life of my own. Don't forget that you deserve that too.
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Anyway brother, keep on keeping on, and do take care of yourself. As much as you love your wife, you should love yourself even more. You deserve it.

Hi,

She went and stayed with a friend for a few days. It was really good.

Kids had good experiences at school and work. We put up lights, practiced driving, ate together, played together.

My wife came back today. The place feels different.

She and I spoke, and she made very solid logical points, and questioned decisions I had made, and made good sense and good points. That unsettled me. She made points of places I made mistakes. I was wrong for some things I've done recently. She smart, inciteful, and pointed out parenting mistakes Id made, and couple mistakes.

She didn't even acknowledge any of the questions of points I raised to her. Not that she didn't answer them.
She didnt even acknowledge I asked them. Not one.

I tried again later. She rolled her eyes, said there was no hope for us and walked away.

I feel so shaken and so insane.

I feel like I've been too emotional and riled the kids up jn a negative way, and this cluster is all my fault, again.

I'm questioning why I let the kids get the run of me so badly, and why I listened to them about their mother.

I feel sick, and I feel like I'm supposed to apologize profusely and try to get her back.

The kids are in their rooms not interacting with each other either of us.

(((RD))). That sounds like what they call "crazy-making." It's not unusual, and it's not you. From my experience, it's about control. Who has it. My DH is very skilled at turning everything around on me. As I've become more aware of his tactics, I've learned to not play into them.

Dh and I are on different pages. I thought he was on an "us" page where we are working toward the same end. Now I realize that his interest isn't in having a cohesive family, it's getting his needs met at any cost. It's most obvious when he puts his needs above DD's. When he priorities his dumb drama over her needs, it becomes so clear. He is a broken kid, and more importantly, i am not his mother. Perhaps this applies to your wife too 🙁

We very much enjoy when dh is away. It is so calm and fun and there is no drama. There's a guy on YouTube who refers to this as the "drama sh**storm." Hopefully you can refer back to your time alone with the kids and see how much more functional that time seemed. And then see the storm she brings with her.

I mentioned a book a few posts ago and it might help you understand the dynamic that might be at play a little bit better. We love them, we try talking, begging, explaining, you name it, and we just get beat up over and over, and confused too. I've developed some better boundaries and quit trying to explain or get him on board with me. It's helped a lot. I feel bad for you because I feel like you and I are on the same road and I know how sick I feel at times.

I don't think it's you though. She, like my DH, has a lot more to gain by making you think her issues are actually yours.

You and your kids had several days of normal family life when she was away.

What did she say to compliment you about doing so well at taking care of the kids?

You listened to them because they shared their honest experience of her with you.

It sounds like now, though, you are tempted to turn your back on them in order to again chase the mirage of a relationship with your wife.

To again be told incessantly and relentlessly that you, and only you, are the problem.

She came home after you had a peaceful time with your children and proceeded to make you feel like crap. She is the bad parent not you.

You are so stuck in her dysfunction you don’t see the bigger picture.

I think OpenEyes and Bill3 missed what I was saying here.

I'm telling you how I felt, and the thinking I'm fighting against. That's all.

For the rest of the evening my interactions with her remained just as disjointed.

She was friendly, smiley, physically close, then tell me how she couldn't wait to divorce me.

She'd tell the youngest how important it was that they're heard and how important that relationship is to her. But the youngest is saying the same issues are a problem as I am saying, but to me she says they never happened.

It causes so much dissonance in my head that I can't explain it. I'm exhausted, sick, grieving, depressed, mentally scattered.

@RDMercer, your feelings are important. Your wife is behaving in a very disordered confusing manner. It’s concerning for members here and your confusion and self doubt are the result of your dealing with an emotionally manipulative person.

What she said was cruel and pathological.

Her threatening divorce is her way of abusing you so she feels in control. She uses the same tactic with her sons who do not want her in their lives. As soon as she sees a way to leave you she will. She doesn’t care about you or her two sons.

She liked being away and probably her friend is believing her BS and poor me and advising her on how to get as much as she can from you so she can leave you. She is setting up her new life right under your nose.

She keeps telling you she doesn’t love you and wants to divorce you. BELIEVE HER!

People who are disordered are unhappy and feed off of external people and things to sustain themselves. Alcoholics depend on the alcohol as an outside source to sustain. Even if they reduce their consumption, they often binge thinking they are in control of the disease/disorder when in reality THEY ARE NOT. That is why alcoholism is a very narcissistic disease. They don’t really hold their own, they prefer to blame and put down others instead which is a part of their dysfunction

With her away you and your boys enjoyed yourselves. It was healthy and good. Then she came home and DESTROYED that and insisted on telling you it’s your fault and handing you a verbal list of all the things you failed at and then she announced her plan to divorce you.

Honestly, you and your sons should have stood up to her and told her to LEAVE. She knows you are afraid to stand up to her. You ARE afraid and you instead give in to believing things are bad because of you.