# Right to be upset?



## Ewp2308 (May 20, 2018)

Quick summary: married 10 yrs, 15 yrs total, 2 kids. 3 months ago i had a mini meltdown and went to wife with thoughts of sadness and disconnect (thought i was doing the right thing). Her response was to establish a living will making someone else besides me her health care surrogate. (She has a shunt which could fail whenever and require surgery and hospitalization) We never had a discussion prior to her making the change and then sprung it on me. I feel that she has completely questioned me as a person and no longer has trust in my decision making. She says she made that decision to protect herself and it has nothing to do with me. Now we are in a worse place then before (living together but separately) any thought?


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## Married but Happy (Aug 13, 2013)

Trust and communication are key to a successful relationship, and while you communicated and trusted that she would care about you, she did not reciprocate and did not show trust. I would seriously question if this relationship should continue, and if she isn't willing to work on it, I think the choice would be clear.


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## Spicy (Jun 18, 2016)

It sounds like there is tremendously more going on here. Can you provide us with a little more info on the issues in your marriage?


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## Ewp2308 (May 20, 2018)

Few issues prior to marriage. I cheated once and she had a texting relationship (denies anything further). Since marriage i have not stepped out at all. She has had 2 more texting relationships ( denied futher again). Honestly dont know if I believe that and feel like I have lived with the thought of not IF its going to happen again but WHEN will it happen again. I think over that last couple of years I have disconnected myself subconsciously and never really dealt with the issue and that whats led me to the original conversation weeks ago. She always complained that Im not emotional and open towards here but yet when we talk, the conversation is one sided. She has a hard time communicating as well.


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## Ewp2308 (May 20, 2018)

Now she says because of the place we are in right now, validates her decision on the living will. Which I think is complete bull****. She knew it was going to bother me and thats why she didnt have a conversation first and kept it a secret for about a month.


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## SunCMars (Feb 29, 2016)

[email protected] said:


> Few issues prior to marriage. I cheated once and she had a texting relationship (denies anything further). Since marriage i have not stepped out at all. She has had 2 more texting relationships ( denied futher again). Honestly dont know if I believe that and feel like I have lived with the thought of not IF its going to happen again but WHEN will it happen again. I think over that last couple of years I have disconnected myself subconsciously and never really dealt with the issue and that whats led me to the original conversation weeks ago. *She always complained that Im not emotional and open towards here but yet when we talk, the conversation is one sided. She has a hard time communicating as well.*


Yes, I know the feeling well.

"Well, husband, I want you to love me, adore me".
"Even though I am not lovable".

"You act first, then watch me change".

On this...
It requires one to close your eyes, your mind...to the past.
Past memories, past infractions, fractures of trust.

Fractures never healed, never knit.
Never sewn one's ripped open heart together, again? Never.
Hurtful words rolling in the damp fabric of past dealings.

*"You go first, husband...trust me!"*


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## Livvie (Jan 20, 2014)

Who did she make her new health care surrogate?

I agree it was a move to hurt you. Also not telling you for a month.


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## SunCMars (Feb 29, 2016)

This other person, her health care surrogate.....

Who is it? A sister, a brother, a best friend?

She feels you are going to abandon her. 
This feeling was spelled out, when she spelled your name out, spelled another name in your place.

This is a test, a poop test.

The writing is on the wall.

It says, is written, her name, another name, not you.
You are being written off.

The thing is....

Your wife is a very sick women. Sick people get bitter, they say things... hurtful.
They claim you are not present, not at/on their side.

The funny thing is....

They drove you there.
A self-fulfilling prophecy.

It seems...
Insecurities on their part must be made evident, made into a true statement.

Woe is me! 
Woe, I made me, using you.

Making you bad, making you the villain.
Pain does this...
Oh, my..


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## Ewp2308 (May 20, 2018)

The person is her father, not biologically, but he raised her. The issue doesnt lie with him, he is a good man and always thinks logically. She does have abandonment issues (bio dad) that she has self admitted and she also she admitted that she has difficulty communicating with me for some reaso but nobody else. I feel she always tries to flip everything to it being my fault. In 15 years i have never once called her a name, spoke negatively about her during arguments and never even said she has 
acted like a *****. She claimed her therapist agreed with her decision making on the living will. Whereas my therapist appeared in disbelief when i told him.


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## Broken_in_Brooklyn (Feb 21, 2013)

@Ewp2308, the number of affairs your wife has had plus your own indicates your marriage has deeper issues than just living wills. 

She obviously does not trust you and does not respect you. 

Why are you still married?


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## BigToe (Jun 2, 2011)

I don't think your issue has anything to do with affairs, a move to hurt you, insecurities, or anything else. The answer is simple and exposed in the first line of your original post. You had a meltdown and while you might classify it as "mini", your wife saw it as much more than that. In other words, you apparently had an episode of deep depression and I'm guessing it wasn't the first time.

I certainly would not entrust my health decisions to someone that was susceptible to, had a history of, or was battling some type of meltdown. Who's to say that just when she needs strength and courage in determining her health issues you will not be having a "mini meltdown". Your wife is correct, she is merely protecting herself. As you subsequently stated, her father is a stable and logical thinker.

Why didn't she tell you? Because she didn't want to make an issue of it. Let it go.


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## Vinnydee (Jan 4, 2016)

I know several people who lived together, but separately. Eventually they got divorced. Love cannot be willed into or out of existence. It either happens organically or not. Right now you are living as two friends or maybe acquaintances. That is no life to live. Half of the kids are from divorced parents and even more from single mothers since these days children come before getting married. While it may be initially difficult to put the kids through a divorce, they will adjust. 

I think it a worse decision to stay married for the sake of the kids. Children learn about marriage and love from their parents. They will end up with a very negative and distorted view of marriage/love by living with loveless parents. You cannot make your wife love you again. The future is not going to be good if you stay married, but it is your life to do with as you wish. I am 67 years old and have seen all our siblings and friends get divorced. Living together but separately is merely a fear of getting divorced, just like asking for a separation. A stepping stone to the inevitable. 

A man on vacation calls his brother who is taking care of his cat to find out how the cat is doing. He is told that the cat is dead. The man gets upset and asks his brother why couldn't he break the news gradually. First say that the cat was on the roof, then that he fell and got hurt. He went to the Vet where they operated on him and put him under observation. He did well for a few days but in the end died peacefully in his sleep. The brother agreed that that would have been a better way to break the news. The guy then asked how their mother was doing and the brother said that she was on the fire escape...……… You can put off the bad news all you want but in the end, the marriage is dead.


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## Broken_in_Brooklyn (Feb 21, 2013)

OP, is it just possible your 'depression' is linked to your spouse being a serial cheater?


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## 3Xnocharm (Jun 22, 2012)

Broken_in_Brooklyn said:


> OP, is it just possible your 'depression' is linked to your spouse being a serial cheater?


This. 

You said yourself that this really never got resolved. By sweeping it under the rug, its done nothing but fester in your mind, you have no trust in your wife, and rightfully so. And if she isn't willing to work on this with you, FOR YOU, then you are better off to just let her go.


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## Vespil (May 21, 2018)

That's rough, you go to her with a serious problem and she turns it around and makes it all about her.

Feel for ya man.


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## Thor (Oct 31, 2011)

She has every right to name whomever she wants as her medical decision maker. The person she named sounds like a good choice. So this eliminates some kind of defective decision making process as the reasoning.

So the question really is why did she take you off and then not tell you for so long? Really I think your own therapist is best qualified to opine on this. If you were having a deep depressive episode I can understand how your wife might have felt you were not up to the task if it came to that, but this doesn't seem like a highly likely reason to me. We want our medical surrogate to be trusted to have our best interests in mind. Any 3rd party person would likely be impartial that way, yet we don't choose a random stranger do we? Your therapist knows you and can thus judge if you were too emotionally fragile, or if there was something which could explain a reason in your wife's mind to feel more comfortable with her stepfather.

I do know that in my situation I started the wheels turning on getting all those kinds of things changed over when my divorce was proceeding. I am wondering if your W is thinking about D or if she is emotionally checked out of the marriage even if she isn't thinking D. But I'm just reading tea leaves over the internet...


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## personofinterest (Apr 6, 2018)

Spicy said:


> It sounds like there is tremendously more going on here. Can you provide us with a little more info on the issues in your marriage?


Yeah, I'm thinking more than a good cry was involved if she made this decision...


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## Vespil (May 21, 2018)

Also as an aside you should not use a primary email address on a forum it's just asking to be spammed by bots who harvest emails for advertising purposes.


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## Ewp2308 (May 20, 2018)

Thank you for all the replies, I will try address them all but it is not easy on a cell phone. I have told her that I believe I never completely dealt with the emotional cheating, that I don't believe her and I don't fully trust her. (****ty feeling but it is what it is). As far as the meltdown goes, no I don't have a history of meltdowns and do not suffer from any mental illness. I don't believe the one meltdown would have caused that immediate reaction or should I say that is not what I expected. I told her I felt we didnt have a relationship really outside of the kids and felt disconnected. In my opinion, I may have disconnected myself internally over the years to protect myself in case she did it again. I don't know. Even with those past issues, I feel like she always flips it around on me and blames me because I wasn't doing this or that. As far as my cheating goes prior to marriage, it was a one time thing and no emotional connection. I know that doesn't make it right at all. We both were really young back then. In the 10 years of marriage I have never strayed or given any reason for her to doubt me. All I havr tried to do is provide for my kids and family and make the best decisions possible in life.


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## Ewp2308 (May 20, 2018)

I realized I screwed up using the email address when I signed up and cant figure out how to change it or if it is possible to? Anyone know?


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## Livvie (Jan 20, 2014)

Ask a moderator to help you with the username change.


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## MattMatt (May 19, 2012)

Ewp2308 said:


> I realized I screwed up using the email address when I signed up and cant figure out how to change it or if it is possible to? Anyone know?


 @Ewp2308 We can sort it out for you. 

Would counselling help for the two of you?


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## TRy (Sep 14, 2011)

Ewp2308 said:


> She claimed her therapist agreed with her decision making on the living will. Whereas my therapist appeared in disbelief when i told him.


 Her therapist "agreed with her decision making on the living will" because her therapist does not know you and thus arrived at this opinion mainly on your wife's opinion of you. On the other hand, your therapist knows you very well and is "in disbelief". You name a spouse because not only are you supposed to trust that they have your best interests in mind when they make a decision, but because the spouse is the most likely person to be around them if something critical happens; time often matters very much in these situations. 

Your wife has every right to make this decision, just as you have every right to understand the negative implications of this decision.


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## Broken_in_Brooklyn (Feb 21, 2013)

Ewp2308 said:


> Thank you for all the replies, I will try address them all but it is not easy on a cell phone. I have told her that I believe I never completely dealt with the emotional cheating, that I don't believe her and I don't fully trust her. (****ty feeling but it is what it is). As far as the meltdown goes, no I don't have a history of meltdowns and do not suffer from any mental illness. I don't believe the one meltdown would have caused that immediate reaction or should I say that is not what I expected. I told her I felt we didnt have a relationship really outside of the kids and felt disconnected. In my opinion, I may have disconnected myself internally over the years to protect myself in case she did it again. I don't know. Even with those past issues, I feel like she always flips it around on me and blames me because I wasn't doing this or that. As far as my cheating goes prior to marriage, it was a one time thing and no emotional connection. I know that doesn't make it right at all. We both were really young back then. In the 10 years of marriage I have never strayed or given any reason for her to doubt me. All I havr tried to do is provide for my kids and family and make the best decisions possible in life.


Go name someone else for your own living will. Don't wait until you have a stroke and she sticks you in a dump facility. 

Seriously. She has already divorced you in life, Just finish it on paper.


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## Rubix Cubed (Feb 21, 2016)

Ewp2308 said:


> The person is her father, not biologically, but he raised her. The issue doesnt lie with him, he is a good man and always thinks logically. *She does have abandonment issues (bio dad) that she has self admitted and she also she admitted that she has difficulty communicating with me for some reaso but nobody else.* I feel she always tries to flip everything to it being my fault. In 15 years i have never once called her a name, spoke negatively about her during arguments and never even said she has
> acted like a *****. She claimed her therapist agreed with her decision making on the living will. Whereas my therapist appeared in disbelief when i told him.


 If I was to take a guess, I'd say she has relegated you into a father role instead of a husband role, and that is one reason she tries to blame you for everything as well as not being able to communicate with you, but she's fine with everyone else.


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