losing_hope

I am in a bad situation.

I could write on and on, and still only scratch the surface of the problems, but I'll try to stick to the important stuff.

First and foremost - I would never cheat on my wife. Unfortunately, my wife believes otherwise, and that's one of the main problems.

She's always been jealous, but somehow it all has just gotten worse over the years, especially in the past few. We have a boy, who's just over two years old.

In May, after a particularly nasty fight, we both saw a psychiatrist separately. My wife was diagnosed with cyclothymia. She also has PCOS, and has probably been sexually abused as a child. So she has a lot of issues, and one of them is anger, which she has a hard time controlling. She even has medication specifically for anger and anxiety.

In the office where I work, I've befriended some of my coworkers. I've always been more comfortable with women, and that's really all they are, friends. And now you can probably already see where this is heading.

In the past, when my wife got jealous of my friendship with another woman, I stopped the friendship. And I sorely regret doing that. Because the same pattern would happen over and over again. She would still never be happy, and I would be out of friends. There is no way that I can stress this enough, that I would not cheat on my wife. I would not even talk about her with my friends for fear of offending her. I wouldn't see my friends outside of work, unless my wife was there too.

But at the same time I feel that she's not holding herself to the same standards. She has told her friend everything, including things said during the counseling. She has told her friend that she would be happy never having sex. Whether that's with me or in general, I'm not sure. She has commented negatively on my looks to her.

I know some probably will automatically say that it's my problem, since I have female friends. But I think friendships are important, and regardless of the sex of the friend, they are to be cherished, not feared or blamed. Because ultimately, the friendship is not between us. It's my wife's insecurity and psychological baggage.

But none of this matters, because in her eyes I am having a torrid affair, and she just needs to find the proof.

I feel that she bullies me, and I've even taken online tests to find out if you're in an abusive relationship, and the results all say that I am dangerously close to being in one.

We've been seeing the psychiatrist together and separately regularly. One of things that he told me is that I can't take her behavior, outbursts and accusations personally. That it is her disease that makes her say that.

So I took up yoga, and in general I do feel better about myself, and have been coping with it.

And just by understanding that I am not the reason for her behavior has helped me a lot.

But today we had another joint session with the psychiatrist. I thought it went pretty well. But my wife was full of anger again. And in the parking lot afterwards, it all blew up.

I'm not proud of myself, and how I handled the situation. It was extremely difficult to control myself, when you're being accused, yelled at, the F words are flying and she's telling me that I'm cold and emotionless.

Even right now, I'm crying as I write this.

So I got into it, in the heat of the moment. Nothing physical, but I said some things that I now regret. I should have known better.

I know that eventually her mood will shift, like it does for anyone with cyclothymia. But how much more can I take it?

I don't know if I'm really looking for an answer here. I just felt I needed to talk to someone, anyone. Since I can't tell my friends, because I'm afraid my wife would get even angrier. So that makes me feel lonely.

Why do I stay with her? Because when she's not in hypomanic or depressed mood, she's the best, and I love her. But then again, isn't that how abuse victims justify their staying too?

Laurae1967

I think you should get some counseling. You need to learn to take care of yourself and to decide if you want to spend the rest of your life with someone so ill and abusive. Sorry you are hurting!

DelinquentGurl

I feel the first thing you need to do is take some of the power that your wife has over you, back.
You are entitled to have friendships and interactions with other people other than her, and she is using her jealousy as a means to control you.

You said yourself that you would never cheat, but it's up to her to actually decide to have some faith in you.
Jealousy is masked insecurity, and you should not have to give up your life in order to make her happy.
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losing_hope

Thanks! I already am getting help, and like I said one of the pieces of advice was that I should not take it personally.

Another was to simply not let my wife bully me into anything, whether it is agreeing to not talk to my coworkers, or whatever.

Of course, over the years, I have probably learned that giving in is the better option than to fight back. Of course in long term, that makes things worse, for me and for us.

It's a weird balancing act, because when my wife is in "that mood", you can't reason with her. And arguing will make things very explosive very quickly. I probably never realized that it was her issue, not mine.

One of the big questions that I need to ask the psychiatrist is whether I should just talk to her openly about my interactions with my coworkers. It makes her jealous, and explosive, so I tend to avoid it. But maybe that's akin to making her problem mine, and thus making the situation even worse.

Jealousy is more of a reflection on the person feeling jealous than anything else. And my wife does have a low self-esteem. She also has an uncanny ability to turning any kind of compliment or a positive thing into negative. So after a while of course, I probably stopped with the compliments. Because after all, no-one wants to compliment someone who can't take it.

EleGirl

You know that your wife has behavior patterns that are angry and abusive. There is a very good book, ‘The Dance of Anger”, by Harriet Lerner. I read it years ago when I was in a marriage with a man whose behavior sounds a lot like your wife’s. He’s never been diagnosed but I would not be surprised to find out he has similar issues as your wife.

But back to the book. I learned a lot from it. Once of the things I learned was how to not let myself be sucked into the type of angry outburst that you describe.

You know that your wife is going to behave in that manner from time to time. So you can teach yourself a much healthier way of reacting to it. You can decide how you will react. The book gives several techniques to use.

I used the ‘stop’ technique a lot. When my husband had an angry outburst I put my hand up to indicate ‘stop’ and said the work “STOP” in an even, firm tone. If he continued the outburst, I would repeat the “stop” and then tell him I would leave him to calm himself down. If we were in the house I would take our son with me to a quiet room.

I actually practiced this in front of a mirror, over and over. I visualized my husband in one of his angry attacks, yelling, screaming awful things at me. And then I would just calmly, firmly put my hand up and say stop. Once I practiced and got it down, I was never again sucked into the anger.

After the first few times of doing this in reaction his outbursts, I explained to him that I was going to do that every time he had an angry outburst. Told him that I would go somewhere, like to a room or for a walk and that I would take our son with me as I would not leave him with an angry, out of control person. And that he needed to find a way to calm himself down. It’s each person’s responsibility to control their own behavior.

So he took up bike riding when he was angry. After doing this for a few months, I’d do the stop thing, and he’d just get his helmet and bike and ride until his anger dissipated.

Now the book helped with the anger thing. I did not help with his messing around with the nurses at the hospital where he was doing his residency. So I did eventually divorce him. But I learned a lot. Sometimes tuition for a lesson is very high.

I highly encourage you to read the book and try the things it suggests.

losing_hope

This is great. I've heard of that technique before. Basically like a safe word of sorts, or it could be even non-verbal. And maybe even I could let my wife know when she's in a good mood that if I ever felt that way, this is what I'll do.

And at that point, we both agree to just take a time out. That we don't need to get the issue(s) resolved right there and then. And that it doesn't mean that either side is right or wrong, that we will get back to it.

I think practicing it will be important though. Because in the heat of the moment, I would forget it.

EleGirl

Practicing it is important. There is no way I could have used the technique without the practice.

I believe you said that your wife has issues with your behavior as well. Even if these concerns are manifestations of her illness, she could learn to use the technique as well. That way when she preceives a problem she can say stop and go off to her own quite time. It might be one way for you to get great insight into what is going on in her mind and the 'preceived' love busting.

Just some further thoughts.