Dadof3greatkids

I've been reading this board for about a year and I finally feel the need to vent and seek some advice. A little background. This may be a little long, but I've noticed that the responses seem to be more relevant when there are more facts in the original post.

My wife told me in marriage counseling about 18 months ago that she does not love me and many times does not even like who I am as a man. We went to counseling because we fought often. A lot of the problem stemmed from my verbal abuse and, as our MC put it "not fighting fair." (MC also said verbal abuse was mutual). Basically, when I felt hurt or unloved by her, I would say things that I knew would trigger a response. For example, I would point out that she was acting cold and unloving - "just like her mother." I would also use things she shared with me to attack her - like stating that her college boy friend probably cheated on her because she did not initiate physical initimacy. My wife has NEVER (not once) initiated sex with me or (as she has told me and our MC) anyone else she has been intimate with (2 others). She also would does not say "I love you," though she would always say "I love you too."

[Side note - I do not believe she was ever sexually abused. My wife comes from a family where her mother shows ZERO (and I mean ZERO) physical affection towards her husband or kids and is very uncomfortable with being touched. She is not a mean person and I have grown to have sympathy for her. Still, I am convinced that she has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, as she constantly criticizes everyone around her and will repeat the criticism often despite being asked to stop. My wife recently told me that her parents fought all the time when she was growing up. Her dad appears to be a borderline narcissist and falls within the classic Alpha-male Asian father stereotype (everyone unquestionably does what he wants, eats where he wants to eat, etc.), though he is VERY warm to me and most people.]

When my wife told me in counseling that she did not love me and often did not like me as a person, this sent me into a great depression. After that we went through a very tough patch where we were not intimate for about 3 months. We continued counseling and things slowly got better, with occasional blow ups. She still has never initiated sex, but will once every couple of months initiate a kiss when she walks in the door.

After several rounds of MC, I have come to realize that my wife cannot handle ANY amount of criticism. If there is a fight and I say "I am 90% in the wrong here, but you did play a part in this..." she goes absolutely screaming nuts crazy ("So it's all MY fault..."). Every disagreement ends only with me taking FULL responsibility for the fight. If I even hint at something she could have done differently, she loses it.

She has also told me that I can't "demand" that she be physically affectionate or say loving words to me. She says that I have to "inspire" her to have those feelings. I have asked her what that means, and she says that I have to "consistently" be a good man, husband, father and son-in-law (I am occasionally (but not always) difficult when I am dragged against my will to Korean restaurants). So I will be good for a couple of months - no change. I then do something inconsiderate (basically being cranky and irritated) and she then goes off on me about not being a "good guy." This results in me criticizing her for being unaffectionate, which she says is caused by me not "inspiring" her, etc.

I told her that I feel like I am in a no-win situation, because I have to try hard, never faulter and hope, after years of perfection, that will "inspire" her to love me again. Meanwhile, I have read all sorts of MC materials that say I am supposed to communicate my needs to her. I have done so using the "I feel that..." approach and it still does not work. Last night I said that "I feel that you are requiring perfection from me..." she completely lost it and accused me of intentionally trying to use a "trigger word" to inflame her and that it was my fault she loses it with me.

While in her rage last night, she again told me that she is still struggling to "like me" and must do that before she can love me the way I want. She recently went back to our counselor who basically told her to tell me that she needs space when she is upset. I have given that to her.

I would try to go again to couple's therapy, but it usually does not end well, unless the focus is on me. I don't mind that and it has helped me, but whenever the focus shifts to her, she quickly spirals out of control and becomes severely depressed and/or angry.

Meanwhile, I am trying to stay focused on being a good husband and father. I am also working out a lot and have got into very good shape. I feel better about myself than I have in years. Still, it's hard to live with a person who says she does not love me and calls into question my character on a fairly frequent basis and uses it as an excuse for her unresolved issues.

Help!

okeydokie

could she possibly be in the throws of menopause? alot of her actions sound hormonal, as in they are out of balance

Deejo

Have you brought up and discussed ending the marriage?

Do you love her? If so, why?

__________________
"I figured out they were serious eventually but was thinking it was ridiculous. I wanted to kick them in the balls." - Trenton

Ten_year_hubby

Yes. This is called loving someone who has made themselves unlovable, usually due to a combination of self loathing and not having childhood needs met. She blames you for all the bad feelings that engulf and overwhelm her.

My observation is that all your troubled interactions are verbal. No hitting or throwing, staying out all night or staying in bed all day.

The first best thing you can do is get yourself into a frame of mind where nothing she says can affect you. This may take some doing, but only when you have developed an inner peace that cannot be rocked by anything she says, only then will you be able to provide the leadership needed to pull her out of the abyss of selfishness she has found herself falling into.

Dadof3greatkids

Thanks for the comments. Regarding bringing up divorce. When the whole "I don't even like you" incident happened, I spiraled out of control for a few weeks. I brought up divorce and she basically said "if that's what you want, fine." She is clearly torn and has a lot of mixed feelings. There was a time that our MC told me that "she might be looking for an excuse to get a divorce, don't give her one." We interact with her parents often. Her parents would be REALLY upset at her if she instituted a divorce and couldn't point to infidelity or something else concrete as a reason.

We have not talked about divorce in over a year and even then it was not a serious discussion.

For all my griping, I do love her. When things are good between us, they feel really good. That makes it all the more hurtful when she sinks down into a low and tells me "it's been 15 years of hell being married to you. No one could put up with this kind of abuse."

Re hormones. I think it is a little early for menopause. However, when she PMS's she is especially nutty. It got to the point that I used an iphone application (meant to measure times of fertility) to remind me when her PMS was about to begin! She was prescribed an anti-depressant to deal with this, but stopped taking it almost immediately. When I mentioned that maybe she should take it she basically said "You just want me drugged up..."

I am at a place now where I can disengage from her when she gets explosive. I am not hysterical like I was 16 months ago. I want to deal with this in a calm constructive way. I am seeing (alone) our MC tonight.

Another note - a couple of times when things get really bad and she has spiraled downward she has said that she feels bad for me - that maybe she can't give me the kind of love that I need and that maybe we are just too different from each other. (Further side note - I am the oldest child and my mom was extremely flattering and loving to me as a child and still is to this day. She is also affectionate towards my dad and often forgives his at times verbally abusive behavior by saying that he is a "good person"). I understand our backgrounds are very different on several levels, but I want to make this work, both for our own happiness and for the kids.

AFEH

It is a case of detaching. The bond between a man and his wife can be massive, much like we have them inside of us, like a Matryoshka doll Matryoshka doll - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. It’s the only way at the moment I can think of describing it.

Because they’re on the inside of us, they’re right under our skin, inside our boundaries, our defences. And while we’re holding them there they sure can cause us a lot of pain with their words.

That’s one of the reasons I like that book Awareness so very much. It helps us detach, separate such that they are no longer on the inside of us and we can therefore see them clearly. It takes a while though to make the separation such that we are an individual once again.

827Aug

It's going to be next to impossible to rebuild your marriage while your wife is angry. She needs to begin individual counseling to resolve her anger issues first. Perhaps it stems from low self esteem, stress, and/or depression. I've been there in life, and I can relate to what she is experiencing.

AFEH

Surely only when her words no longer wound him, can he help her? Because when she wounds him with her acts of covert aggression, he retaliates with his acts of aggression and that escalates the problems.

He also sounds like a covertly aggressive person, so he too will wound his wife. He is aware of that behaviour which is an exceedingly good thing but something he must put a stop to if his marriage is to improve.

AFEH

It seems to me a lot of people don’t understand the difference between anger and aggression. The guy has an aggressive wife. He needs to learn how to protect himself from her aggression such that she’s no longer able to wound him. She’ll likely stop when she sees it has no effect on him.

Dadof3greatkids

I played a part in creating this dynamic. I enjoy debating and my job requires me to do it often. My wife is very smart but just does not have the same debating skills that I have. I think years of me twisting arguments to win a battle are losing me the war. She has learned that if she loses it, she "wins" the debate. I realize that and now try to respond to her feelings rather than pick apart the minutia of the point she is making. That has helped other topics we discuss, e.g., kids and money. However, when it comes to "us" and my feelings she quickly spirals into yelling.

So far the best answer is for me just to shut up when she starts losing it or (more often) just not bring up the subject of what I expect in our relationship. Honestly, most of her complaints of specific conduct are valid. However, when we are talking about us the specific issue discussion turns into a character assassination. This does not happen when we talk about the kids or money.

Ten_year_hubby

Three kids, woman over 40, chaotic family of origin and an almost neurotic father. None of this bodes well.

However powerful it may be, marital love alone is not enough to overcome childhood trauma and the emotional damage it causes.

To the extent your wife can understand that her anger comes from past hurts caused by her parents and if she can identify those hurts and forgive her parents for the wrongs they have done to her, she can free herself from this undercurrent of anger that circulates through all her emotions.

To the extent that love, support and empathy from her partner can help her find the strength and direction to to do this, we can back out of the current situation. The op needs to gently and firmly insist that his wife own her anger, determine the cause and take positive steps to let it go. And she needs to agree that this is a priority

AFEH

You are showing serious signs of self awareness. Which is seriously good. It’s your ego that knows all about winning a debate but if the goal is to win, it sure as heck means that you intend the person you are debating with to lose.

So in order for you to win and them to lose, you WILL change your position. Even if it’s a most fundamental position on which your whole initial debate depended upon. Where your wife is going wrong is in not recognising that in you and simply walking away from your debate and leaving you “hanging”.

The type of behaviour you have is extremely frustrating for the person you are debating with. And out of that frustration can come a very high level of anger and if you, in your “debate” get right under your wife’s skin such that you wound her she may very well retaliate with acts of aggression to “Hurt you back”. In fact her telling you she doesn’t love you could very well be a defence mechanism. It sure was when I told my wife I didn’t love her just before we split. What I meant was that I withdraw my love from her because to love her became too painful for me. I hope that makes sense to you.

Your debating skills should be turned from I win/you lose to I win/You win. Because as sure as you know very well, for you to Win is for you to Lose! The only result that works is Win/Win and that’s what you must head for.

You already have a fairly well developed observer consciousness, you observe your “ego in action” very well. Guess how to develop your ego consciousness even further? Read Awareness: Amazon.co.uk: Anthony De Mello: Books.

After a little while your wife will see very big changes in you. The dynamics between the two of you will change. And then she will begin to change.

And always, but always go for Win/Win because it’s the only thing that works long term.

Dadof3greatkids

I will definitely give the Awareness book a read. Thanks for the advice.

The MC agreed with a lot of the advice here. She basically agrees that my wife has huge unresolved issues with her parents. She also agreed that I can't force her to deal with them, but just continue to work to make myself stronger so that my wife's actions do not harm me.

I decided to take a "if you can't beat them, join them approach" tonight. I told my wife that I understand that she was raised in a way that her happiness is tied to the approval of her parents, or, at least in the active pursuit of the happiness of her family. I told her that I realize that she and her family perceive me as an extension of my wife that when I act in a way that undermines her efforts to seek or obtain approval this makes her feel less connected to me. I told her since her family's happiness is tied to going to restaurants that I would realize that from now on when we all go out. I will represent her in a positive way by not being rude and troublesome about the food and restaurant and to engage with everyone while there.

From past experience, I KNEW this is what she wanted, but also KNEW she would not offer her appreciation for my statement. Instead, she basically said that she did not trust that I would be "a man of my word" and that I should write down (this is a new one) what I said so that I couldn't later say "that's not what I said." Instead of getting upset at her for her negativity, which often happens, I embraced her idea and said "that's a good idea, I will send it to an email to both of us so there's no confusion in the future as to what I said."

She then said that "I don't need to see it, just write it down for yourself." Undaunted and keeping positive I said, I don't want there to be any confusion that I am writing down what I said. She then said "I don't need a legal document - if you truly mean what you are saying, you will write down what you just said." I then sent the email anyway and never once reacted or otherwise showed that she was getting to me.

Not sure if I am just encouraging bad behavior and her dysfunctional relationship with me and her parents, but I figured it was worth a try, just to show her that her behavior was not bothering me.

AFEH

Change can take a while. There are three things going on 1) You changing your behaviour 2) Your wife recognising/seeing you change and 3) your wife changing her behaviour to adjust.

In the case above you “spoke” about change. Why? I’d guess that you were looking for approval from your wife, or that you wanted her appreciation, gratitude? If that’s the case, wrong move! And you can see what happened.

Be the changed person you want to be. Then use your “observer consciousness” to observe your wife’s behaviour once she notices the change in you. You have a fantastic example to practice with wrt the Korean restaurants.

As an aside, criticise those restaurants and you criticise her whole culture. Criticise her culture, you criticise her, she may even interpret that, far from loving her as you say you do, you actually dislike her!

Chris Taylor

"So far the best answer is for me just to shut up when she starts losing it or (more often) just not bring up the subject of what I expect in our relationship."

No.Wrong moves.

First, if she starts to "lose it", get up and end the conversation. Tell her that you aren't going to be spoken to that way.

Nor are you going to sit there and take it. If the conversation is civil, then discuss and make sure you are heard.

Finally, just not bringing up your expectations for the relationship will keep you in this situation. As a partner in this marriage you have a right to let her know what your expectations are, as long as you do so in a civil manner.