Anxiety, Depression and RelationshipsMarriage and relationships are difficult by themselves, but coping with anxiety and depression can make them even more challenging.
I started a business 2 years ago and have been struggling ever since. It has caused my wife and me a lot of stress and anxiety, but with the current economy, I can’t get a job at the level that I left mine at.
My wife and I have been married for about 4 years. Early in our marriage we were getting into a lot of arguments because I have an anger management problem. I bought a few self help books and started actively trying to change. Things immediately got better and the intensity of arguments dropped along with the frequency.
About a year ago I started slipping on holding back my road rage and like a cancer; I was an angry man again although I couldn’t see it until after. About 4 or 5 months ago my wife and I were in a heated argument. I don’t remember the details of the subject, but in the heat of the moment, she lunged at me like she was about to attack and I flinched. She started laughing and I got more frustrated than I have ever been in my life. I grabbed her and pinned her on the bed where she couldn’t move. When she started screaming at me I put my hand over her mouth and restrained her for about 10 seconds. Then I got up and started walking to the front of the house. She of course was furious and followed me down the hall hitting me as hard as she could and I didn’t let up, I said “No effect, you can’t do anything to me.” All the way down the hall. I walked into the living room and sat down and she returned to the bedroom. I don’t know how long we sat there crying, but I remember what I was feeling. The same feelings I am having now typing this out. I’m pathetic. I humiliated myself and used offensive physical force against the one person I love more than anyone or anything. Afterwards, while feeling guilty and trying to think of how in the world I am going to apologize she actually came and apologized to me. I told her how much I regretted my actions and told her it would never happen again.
A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I woke up and decided to go pick up some breakfast from McDonalds. On the way home she wanted to stop by the Walgreen’s drive thru to pick up some of her medication. She had some panic attacks when working out of town and is on a couple of medications for anxiety and depression. There was a problem with her insurance and she didn’t have her card with us so we decided we would come back later. When we got home, she ate breakfast and I had a few bites but my appetite has been pretty light due to stress (I’m guessing) and she wanted to go ahead and go back to Walgreen’s. So I sat my breakfast on the kitchen counter and we took off. 10 minutes later we pulled back into the drive and walked in the front door and one of our dogs had gone into the kitchen and eaten my breakfast. I was angry and disciplined him while angry (Which I know is a no no but you have to discipline during the act and I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity while cooling down) I punched him in the butt and rolled him, which was probably too much, but he is a big dog and I KNOW I didn’t come close to injuring him. Suddenly I get hit in the side of the head. I stand up and it is my wife and she hits me again (open fist slap to my ear). At this point I am dumbfounded and she slaps me again! Now this probably only took at most 5 or 10 seconds, but finally I say “Why the hell are you hitting me?!” to which she responds “This is why I can’t have kids with you!”. Now on a side note, she has been pressuring me to have kids with her for the last 2 years. We don’t have kids because I am not where I want to be with my business. Anyways, I decide that I am just going to go retrieve my glasses from across the room and leave, which is exactly what I did. When I returned she was adamant about defending her actions as was I. That night she got nauseous from a stomach bug that I had a few days previous. I put my frustration on the back burner to help her out.
A few days later I had to go to a job about 30 minutes from the house and had about half a days work. When I left that morning she said to call her when I was headed home so I could pick her up some lunch on the way in. When I finished the job I called her and she says “I’m not at home, I am going to stay with my family for a while”. She said she didn’t feel safe anymore, but she still wants to spend the rest of her life with me. I asked what she wanted me to do and she said 1: Promise me that you will not get physical anymore. 2: See a therapist about your anger issues. And 3: Tell your parents about what happened because she can’t stand the secrecy.
I told her that I would do what she asked and stopped by my parents house on the way home. Of course all I told my parents was about the incident last week, because that’s what I thought this was all about. I have been trying to get an appointment to see a therapist and am still waiting on the call back and I promised her I would not get physical anymore. She left me because she said she was afraid. She was prescribed the medication she takes because she was having panic attacks when she worked out of town. I did research on panic attacks and read that they create irrational fear. I chalked up her fear to that.
I’m sure I missed a few points and will be posting more, but I have to take a break from writing. I apologize for the poor layout and grammar of the post. I guess what I would like to know from the community is…..Am I a bad husband? I feel like I am the bad guy in this because I DID abuse my wife, but I feel I have been abused as well. I feel like I have been made out to be the bad guy and my wife is an innocent victim. What are your thoughts?
I think your wife's list of demands is reasonable. And I think you need to open up more with your parents. If you aren't totally honest, you won't get the right guidance/advice. You could even print off what you wrote above as a starting point.
I think you have a chance to get things moving in the right direction. There's no way to change the past.
And it doesn't sound like your wife is all that innocent either. I think you could ask the same things of her.
I've always thought it to be a hard/fast/unbreakable rule that men/boys don't hit women/girls. But it should also go without saying that women shouldn't chase us around hitting us for any reason either.
I think you both have some things to work on before you consider ever getting back together.
Be careful, your situation is both opportunities and red flags for you concerning your acting out in anger, but your woman is also needing to acknowledge and get control of herself as well.
First, you are not the evil abusive husband, and she the innocent helpless woman scenario. You lost control of yourself, and so did your woman. To work on this together is important, and so far your attitude and willing to correct yourself is exactly the starting point.
Second, and this is very important, there is poison in your relationship, and this is not your anger management, it is the fact that your woman is not respecting you.
This poison is resentment between the two of you, and is pouring gasoline like crazy already on the fire of any anger management issues.
The closest your woman is respecting you, is after you pinned her down and walked away. You are surprised that she came to apologize after that, but I am not. She was respecting your masculinity at that point, respecting your strength. This would have been the opportunity to put things together quickly for the two of you, if you were truly in control of yourself and how you relate to your woman.
Sadly, instead of recognizing this strength and using it to continue to work both on controlling yourself in anger and working to repair the relationship having the respect and support of your woman, instead you backpeddle and tell your woman you made a mistake, and would not be "weak" again. So now she is back to feeling confused, insecure, and feeling like she cannot trust you to be masculine. Now things continue to be bad as they were, if not worse.
Here are the facts:
A woman wants her man to be in control of himself and his environment.
A man that is not in control, a woman will not respect this man, and instead will resent this man.
To a man that a woman does not respect, she will test him, provoke him, and push his buttons.
If he remains calm, confident, and in control during these times, the woman will both respect him and feel secure to be with him and follow his leading.
If he is swayed like the wind, flustered, apologetic, weak, begging or pleadin or confused, the woman with not respect him, she will feel insecure, and resentment will be built.
To fix this, get control of yourself. Be the man that your woman is looking for, the man that, even if the job situation is bad, even if she is pushing your buttons or provoking you, even if the dog is misbehaving, in ALL THINGS you are calm, confident, and in control of the situation.
Your woman has already taken steps to leave you, make no mistake of this, this is always the "need space" issue, just a woman letting her man down easy instead of crushing him all at once.
To fix this, take control of what you want by taking action. Do NOT wait for your woman to make the move, her moves will be only away from you.
You want to fix the anger issue, so schedule marriage counseling and/or anger management classes for YOURSELF now, and invite your woman if appropriate, but regardless take action.
Hold yourself accountable to YOURSELF, and show your woman in action not words, that you are the man in control of himself, and his environment (in this case, the relationship). Become the man your woman is looking for, is the only way to win her back.
BBW, I latched on to what you said because I have recognized a lack of respect and didn't understand where it came from or how to fix it. A lack of respect has built up my insecurities so how do I as an insecure man become confident? I am even dependent on her salary.
God this makes me go thru all the communication we have had since she left. She came by to pick up some clothes with her dad and I broke down in tears begging her to come home. Now I see that was a mistake, but I don't know what to do.
I think your post was well written. Answer to thread title is no.
Man... where is the anger coming from? I think anger is either resistance to something now. (ie; you desparatly want something to be different) or you just repeating some cycle of pain from your past. The cancer that BBW made reference to is what happens when that pain in one person is transmitted to the other and you then begin to feed on each other, perpetually causing more pain.
Your headed in a good direction with the counseling. Counseling, AWARENESS, and openess are critical for breaking this cycle.
While your working on this... try VERY hard to pay attention to your emotions. When you get mad, pay attention to that anger, then observe yourself, why are you really mad? Is it what the other person did or is that just a trigger that brings out some pain form the past?
Seems you don't want to go through life like this but you are the one perpetrating it. With or without your wife this is your responsibility. If you love her, you have to work hard and fast.
My recomendation when you see a therapist is that you shoud be able to get help pretty quick. (help equals techniques to help you reduce the pain/anger and dig to the bottom of whats going on or BETTER just drop it altogether) and if you dont feel like this is coming within a week or two ...change therapist.
Dwelling on issues or going deeper into contemplation of them, simply continues the life your mind is giving them. Accept all that you have and your situation.
There are many techniques out there. You need someone that you can really open to and that has a knack for getting to the root quickly.
Your saying the right things... but if you could think about these things you write "here" in between the things that set you off AND your reaction ...im thinking things would be better.
You know, if you end up losing your wife, you're eventually going to start over and I can almost gaurantee you will repeat the cycle... so keep going, figure it out, fix it with your wife.
Dont go too deep into your problems.... just dont let them BE problems. You know you could always look at life as "sucking",
but stop for a second. Look around you. If you didnt have a nice house, if you were'nt so fixated on the business and getting ahead, what would be left..... you and the wife. Thats a beautiful thing.
What's important to you deep inside? When you get near the end of your life...will all the things you stress about mean anything?
My response has been a little more fragmented than your initial post but hope you get what im saying.
Take care bud and just let the anger go.
Wishing you all the best in letting go and getting the relationship you say you want with the W.
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DIE TO THE PAST EVERY MOMENT - TWC
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