Basics
I am 42 years old, married with no children. (just two cats that I love dearly)
I work in IT and have done so for 20 years in various roles.
I don’t take any form of drugs, not my scene.
I am a keen cyclist, and commute via push bike, adding in extra milage in the morning as exercise.
Relationship
- my wife is withdrawing from the relationship very quickly. We have been married for almost 8 years, and knew it other for 4 years prior to that.
She has cited various reasons, most notably that she feels that she is not my priority, the second was I don’t do the little things like noticing sleep in her eye before we go out, or a tag sticking out. I believe there is a lot more to it. I look around me and I see lots of little things I do but it doesn’t get acknowledged.
I can see she is hurting, I don’t believe I fully understand why and it’s killing me.
This kicked off over xmas when she just dropped a bombshell of how unhappy she is and she is reevaluating the relationship. I feel on trial every day, and everything I do is wrong so I am failing the evaluation.
She is on facebook all the time, messaging people etc and is very secretive about it, I have wondered if there is someone else, however I don’t believe there is.
The email banter we used to have during the working day has stopped.
One thing I have noticed over the years is a key difference is she is not really an affectionate person, where I am more the run on hugs and pats on the back type. Things like when I finished each subject in my MBA she would just say ‘oh goodo’ not well done or anything positive.
I have felt for a long time that I am a lower priority for her at least after family, but this could also be just the way she expresses herself.
We talked about having children at one point, however this was complicated by the fact she suffers with polycystic ovaries. We didn’t try IVF, but she has one two occasions blamed me for the lack of children and my focus on work.
She has been on anti-depressants previously, but is not at the moment.
We love to travel and went to Alaska last March which was magic, and we have booked another holiday this year for June, however through the booking process we sat down together to go through it and I could feel she just wanted to get it over and done with.
Despite all of this and the way it sounds she is the love of my life.
Work
- I am stuck in a dead end, high stress job and I feel likely to be made redundant later this year.
I ended up in a dead end high stress job after the small company I worked for was acquired, they moved my function interstate, and the small team I had built up (10 people) were disbanded. The role I have been put in is called Service Delivery, and it’s essentially the escalation point for when things go wrong, and they go wrong constantly. The role is one of day in day out negativity, stress and politics. This has been a huge drain on me and the relationship. Because IT is a fast moving field I have let a lot of technical skills lapse so the only other jobs I could get at the moment are similar high stress roles, but even those are hard to get here at this time.
The relationship issues are also having a negative impact on my work. I can’t concentrate.
As much as work is a focus, I don’t put in the hours that many around me do. I try and keep it isolated and don’t like talking about work at home as I feel it brings negativity into the home. She however used to talk about work constantly, all the politics and carry on. It got to the point that when I was really hurting around some work issues I would ask her to stop as it was making me feel physically unwell listening to it. . . no matter the job work talk is all the same, and all it was doing was making me think of my work. She reacted badly to this and has clammed up completely.
Study
- I have engaged in a second masters degree to realign my career back to technical and away from management, however it is getting too much.
Study has been my answer to address the issue with work. I started the second masters degree in the middle of last year so still a long way to go. But the latest subject I have not been able to cope with or complete due to all the relationship stresses. I feel like this is slipping, I am failing and be escape path from the job is slipping out of my hands. I actually enjoy the study itself, it is somewhat of an escape but also gives me a sense that there is a future, but I just cant concentrate on it at the moment.
Family
- I have a pretty good relationship with my parents, they are elderly and slowing down. They live interstate. My wife however has a toxic hatred for my mother, I’ve never really understood why. The only two arguments I ever saw were my mother who is very sensitive, reacting badly to the way my wife said something. My wife has a habit of being exceedingly blunt. Now I have to almost call my parents in secret so as to not upset her.
- I have a good relationship with the inlaws, however I would note that my wife’s mother is a very blunt and direct person, and her father is almost disconnected emotionally. He is an amazing guy, he used to be a professional scientist and has a level of focus I’ve not seen before. My wife has a sister who treats their father terribly, the way she speaks to him and constantly puts him down is sad, I don’t know how he copes. That said the way my wife’s sister speaks to their father is increasingly similar to way my wife speaks to me. Nothing is right, everything I do is wrong.
Friends
- I have largely withdrawn from many of my friends, so far as to say I have no independent friends, they are all ‘our friends’, they are also all married with kids so have limited time and opportunity to see them. I know I am totally withdrawn and this is a bad thing.
Self
- I panic at having to speak to more than a few people at a time. Groups of say 5 or more and I just have to introduce myself leads to a sense of panic. This has been something I have had for many years, perhaps even high school.
- I feel my self esteem has been slowly eroding for a few years now, I look in the mirror and feel embarrassed by who I am, and as this snowballs out of control, who I am at risk of becoming.
Current situation
- I keep on thinking about suicide every few days, sometimes it’s about how to do it, other times it is what a goodbye letter would be and the people that would be hurt by this action. I don’t believe I will do it but the thoughts popping into my head regularly scare me.
- I have what I would call stress or anxiety attacks. These come on at various times and in slightly different ways, but it is an overwhelming feel of hurt and anxiousness, my torso feels like it is filled with acid and being eaten away. This is quite often during the day when I can't communicate with my wife.
- I feel I am loosing my love and so very alone.
I am 42 years old, married with no children. (just two cats that I love dearly)
I work in IT and have done so for 20 years in various roles.
I don’t take any form of drugs, not my scene.
I am a keen cyclist, and commute via push bike, adding in extra milage in the morning as exercise.
Relationship
- my wife is withdrawing from the relationship very quickly. We have been married for almost 8 years, and knew it other for 4 years prior to that.
She has cited various reasons, most notably that she feels that she is not my priority, the second was I don’t do the little things like noticing sleep in her eye before we go out, or a tag sticking out. I believe there is a lot more to it. I look around me and I see lots of little things I do but it doesn’t get acknowledged.
I can see she is hurting, I don’t believe I fully understand why and it’s killing me.
This kicked off over xmas when she just dropped a bombshell of how unhappy she is and she is reevaluating the relationship. I feel on trial every day, and everything I do is wrong so I am failing the evaluation.
She is on facebook all the time, messaging people etc and is very secretive about it, I have wondered if there is someone else, however I don’t believe there is.
The email banter we used to have during the working day has stopped.
One thing I have noticed over the years is a key difference is she is not really an affectionate person, where I am more the run on hugs and pats on the back type. Things like when I finished each subject in my MBA she would just say ‘oh goodo’ not well done or anything positive.
I have felt for a long time that I am a lower priority for her at least after family, but this could also be just the way she expresses herself.
We talked about having children at one point, however this was complicated by the fact she suffers with polycystic ovaries. We didn’t try IVF, but she has one two occasions blamed me for the lack of children and my focus on work.
She has been on anti-depressants previously, but is not at the moment.
We love to travel and went to Alaska last March which was magic, and we have booked another holiday this year for June, however through the booking process we sat down together to go through it and I could feel she just wanted to get it over and done with.
Despite all of this and the way it sounds she is the love of my life.
Work
- I am stuck in a dead end, high stress job and I feel likely to be made redundant later this year.
I ended up in a dead end high stress job after the small company I worked for was acquired, they moved my function interstate, and the small team I had built up (10 people) were disbanded. The role I have been put in is called Service Delivery, and it’s essentially the escalation point for when things go wrong, and they go wrong constantly. The role is one of day in day out negativity, stress and politics. This has been a huge drain on me and the relationship. Because IT is a fast moving field I have let a lot of technical skills lapse so the only other jobs I could get at the moment are similar high stress roles, but even those are hard to get here at this time.
The relationship issues are also having a negative impact on my work. I can’t concentrate.
As much as work is a focus, I don’t put in the hours that many around me do. I try and keep it isolated and don’t like talking about work at home as I feel it brings negativity into the home. She however used to talk about work constantly, all the politics and carry on. It got to the point that when I was really hurting around some work issues I would ask her to stop as it was making me feel physically unwell listening to it. . . no matter the job work talk is all the same, and all it was doing was making me think of my work. She reacted badly to this and has clammed up completely.
Study
- I have engaged in a second masters degree to realign my career back to technical and away from management, however it is getting too much.
Study has been my answer to address the issue with work. I started the second masters degree in the middle of last year so still a long way to go. But the latest subject I have not been able to cope with or complete due to all the relationship stresses. I feel like this is slipping, I am failing and be escape path from the job is slipping out of my hands. I actually enjoy the study itself, it is somewhat of an escape but also gives me a sense that there is a future, but I just cant concentrate on it at the moment.
Family
- I have a pretty good relationship with my parents, they are elderly and slowing down. They live interstate. My wife however has a toxic hatred for my mother, I’ve never really understood why. The only two arguments I ever saw were my mother who is very sensitive, reacting badly to the way my wife said something. My wife has a habit of being exceedingly blunt. Now I have to almost call my parents in secret so as to not upset her.
- I have a good relationship with the inlaws, however I would note that my wife’s mother is a very blunt and direct person, and her father is almost disconnected emotionally. He is an amazing guy, he used to be a professional scientist and has a level of focus I’ve not seen before. My wife has a sister who treats their father terribly, the way she speaks to him and constantly puts him down is sad, I don’t know how he copes. That said the way my wife’s sister speaks to their father is increasingly similar to way my wife speaks to me. Nothing is right, everything I do is wrong.
Friends
- I have largely withdrawn from many of my friends, so far as to say I have no independent friends, they are all ‘our friends’, they are also all married with kids so have limited time and opportunity to see them. I know I am totally withdrawn and this is a bad thing.
Self
- I panic at having to speak to more than a few people at a time. Groups of say 5 or more and I just have to introduce myself leads to a sense of panic. This has been something I have had for many years, perhaps even high school.
- I feel my self esteem has been slowly eroding for a few years now, I look in the mirror and feel embarrassed by who I am, and as this snowballs out of control, who I am at risk of becoming.
Current situation
- I keep on thinking about suicide every few days, sometimes it’s about how to do it, other times it is what a goodbye letter would be and the people that would be hurt by this action. I don’t believe I will do it but the thoughts popping into my head regularly scare me.
- I have what I would call stress or anxiety attacks. These come on at various times and in slightly different ways, but it is an overwhelming feel of hurt and anxiousness, my torso feels like it is filled with acid and being eaten away. This is quite often during the day when I can't communicate with my wife.
- I feel I am loosing my love and so very alone.