hurtnohio

Wow COGuy. Thanks so much for that insight.

Here's another clue that things are getting worse. After my decision to not be a doormat any more, things have been calmer for a while. However, tonight we were making Christmas plans. Another subject came up that I've known was going to be touchy this year; our anniversary is a week before Christmas. I asked her what she wanted to do for it. She said, "Well we've got church duties that day, and I really don't want to go on a date with you, so....." and her voice trailed off. I asked her, "So do you want to pretend our wedding never happened?" Probably the wrong thing to say, but it tells me things are very, very dead in her mind. She didn't respond one way or another.

We ended up arguing over the dumbest things tonight. I had opened a couple of windows at her request earlier in the night. Before going to bed, I said, "Do you want me to close the windows for you?" She went off on me, asking me if I was implying it was the woman's job to close windows and if I was trying to make myself sound noble or something for doing "a woman's job." I just sat there dumbfounded. How can such an innocent question get twisted so badly?

I keep wondering if the family history she's had may be part of this. Both her mom and dad have some extremely manipulative, deceitful family members in their extended family. One uncle is actually in prison for murdering his wife. There have been suicides, accusations of other murders (unproven), sexual abuse of minors and satanism. Fortunately, the family has broken off all contact with the worst offenders.

Just to give you a little glimpse of how bad all this can be, her mom and dad have ceased all contact with my wife's twin sister because of some extremely poor life choices the sister made. I can understand that, because boundaries need to occasionally be enforced. What's troubling is they introduce my wife to new friends by saying, "This is our angel daughter. We also have a demon daughter, but you'll never meet her because we don't talk to her any more." Her mom made an off-handed comment once that the whole family would be better off if my wife's sister were just dead. She immediately apologized, but how did something like that come out of someone's mouth in the first place? What sane parent says that about their own child?

I wonder if they're starting to see me now as someone else to avoid. In other words, when I make an innocent mistake or do something thoughtless, are they interpreting my actions through the lens of their previous experiences with family members. And since she tells her mom and dad everything about any of our disagreements (even though I've repeatedly told her that's a very bad idea), they are probably filling her head with all sorts of evil images of me. Hard to fight something like that.

Not sure what to do. A lot of my Christian friends are starting to wonder aloud if I've reached the point of either considering a divorce or just accepting that I'll be miserable until the day I die. I can't quite mentally cross the divorce bridge, but I would also like to think that God's got bigger things in mind for me than enduring a miserable marriage until I die.

I guess what I need more than anything right now is for my brother and sister Christians to pray that God will give me wisdom as to what my next move should be.