# Need major advice - Don't know what to do anymore



## sallyohlala (Jul 10, 2010)

Ok so I have only lurked on this board but I need some advice from people that I don't know in the real world. 

My husband and I married in 2004. We had our son in 2008. I feel like there are so many issues in our marriage:

1. We argue every.single.day. Multiple times a day. Everything. EVERY conversation we have we either bicker, or it turns out to be a full fledged argument.

2. He yells a lot. But then again so do I because I get so aggravated. I will have to repeat something literally back to back for him to get it. And then it becomes a screaming match. Like even when he is talking I have to tell him to lower his voice because my son tries to copy him. I don't like this.

3. He wants to argue and cuss in front of our son and call me a ***** and say I want conflict. Then I ask him 'you actually think I want to be arguing and be miserable?' and he says "Yes, I think you do". I try to bring this the cussing to the urface and he says sorry but keeps doing it. I don't want my son raised in this kind of environment.

4. I have a lot of anxiety since I have met him and have dealt with his family. I am even now on anxiety meds since after giving birth to my son (just finished weaning off actually). I asked him to go to counseling with me for our marriage and he said that I am the one that needs counseling becuase I am the one on crazy pills. Nice support right? I can't believe my own husband said crazy pills to me. I feel like he is a stranger to me.

5. I am very unhappy and depressed. Most of the time. When he is around it's all the time, when he is not around my son and I have so much fun together and I don't feel this heavy feeling. 

6. This is personal but my son is now going to be 2 years old this month . We have had sex 4 times in the 2 years. Yes, FOUR times. We haven't had sex for 9 months straight now. I have NO desire to have sex with him. I can't even fake it. Not after that crap I have heard, crazy pills, calls me a ***** in front of our son ( I also call him names but try not to in front of our son).

7. We seen a counselor before we got married (he tried to cheat on me before we got married and I caught the email). He did not do anything but we went to counseling for it. We moved on but now I am bringing up to him that we need to see a counselor and he says that if it did not work the first time it's not going to work now. He said we don't have money for the copayments and I said yes but it's our marriage and he said we just can't do it.

8. I don't find him attractive anymore. He is not an ugly man...it's just that I don't see him in "that way" anymore. I think I just see him as a friend and a roommate now. Maybe it's the lack of sex? Maybe all of the arguing? 

9. We always talk about how bad our relationship is and how we are going to fix it and he always says "well just save yourself from all of this". He has been saying that for the longest. BUT the other day he said "yea and save me too" as he walked out the door for work. When he got home that night I asked him if he meant what he said and all he can say is "i just said it to say it".

10. He pulls the race card. *A LOT*. And I can't take this anymore. Everything is "oh they treated you (as in me) like that because you are what you are" and "you did not get that job because of your race." "Oh I hate those type of people they are always trying to bring us down". I am sooo the opposite of this and never knew this until after I married him. It makes me sooo sick to my stomach. My neighbors wanted me to watch their newborn for extra money (I am a SAHM) and DH said that they wanted me to watch the baby because they know I am latina and that's what we are good at. He is also latino. I have half latina half italian.

11. He analyzes every.little.thing. that people think of him. And then just washes my brain over with it. Like seriously it makes me sick. Repeats it and repeats it and I just don't worry like that. He gives people dirty looks in the stores just for them looking his way. He is very tall and there aren't many people where we live that are as tall as him This little boy who was like 12yo I guess had a basketball in his hand and was staring at DH like "wow". I guess he likes basketball and doesnt see many tall people in person. DH says to me "what the fvck is that kid staring at me for?". I said "well maybe he looks up to you becuase you are tall my goodness calm down". I don't want our son hearing this.

12. I just feel so spent....horrible...depressed....daydream about what my life would be to start over and how unstressed I would be. I was recently diagnosed with Fibromualgia and feel that this marriage is taking more of a toll on my body than every before. Believe me, I am not blaming him for everything. I know I can be a big ***** at times. But this is just not working out. There are times our son wakes up in the middle of the night crying because we are arguing so loud and that is really unhealthy and I want to get him out of this environment. It's just not right that he is getting woken up because we are yelling at each other. It has happened 3 times so far but I don't want this to happen anymore. 

13. I also want to add that we had our son from donor sperm. I did IVF. DH cannot have any children. We knew this before we got married (well somewhat but then looked into it further after we got married). So fertility issues for us have always been something we went through since like day one. From day one things were hard but now it's just worse between us. We have been through so much regarding fertility. 

14. Donor Sperm was initially his idea that he approached me with. I did not like it at first but read up on it and accepted it and was 100% for it after a while. It took me some time. I love our son, I don't even see him as someone else's. Never have. DH loves him too. Since day 1 DH says comments on how like oh the baby is crying with me because he knows I am not his blood. I tell him no he just is used to being with me all day and smells my milk it's normal. He will get used to you and everyone else. Our son looooves him. But every now and then DH brings up the fact that he is not his in different conversations between him and I. 

15. Everyone says son looks like DH and he makes a comment to me (because no one know we did donor sperm) when we get home in private like "yea right I don't know how because he is not my blood". I told him that is not to be discussed because it is what it is and it's really messing me up mentally and emotionally to keep hearing this. He said that I was a "****eeeed up mother" because I left my kid to sleep for 15 min and not change his diaper. He had not slept in 22 hours and had horrible silent reflux as a newborn. And just wanted him to sleep in my arms for 15 minutes. But yet he thinks I am a fvcked up mother for this.

16. I was trying to talk to him the other day and he kept walking away from me. I was literally talking in a calm voice. I put my hand on his chest to hold him back not pushing or anything like that. He took my wrist (now mind you I have fibromyalgia so whatever hurts someone, hurts me 10x worse as my pain threshhold is very low) and kept squeezing it harder and harder. I told him to let go. I was in so much pain. I instantly just relfexed and punched him in the jaw. pretty lightly as I am not a strong person. Told him never to do that again. He took me by my arms and walked me really fast into a wall and was holding my arms sooo hard. And put his face into mine rally close and said "dont you ever hit me again or I will hit you back". I told him it was a reflex because he hurt my wrist. 

I just dont know what else to do. We hardly spend time together because all we do is argue. All he does really is watch basketball when he gets home at 8pm until 2am then he goes to bed. He does give son a bath eveyr night. His regular hours at work are 830-430 but he does overtime every single day and gets home at 8pm. He is there I know that for a fact. And I know his job is stressing him and him being the only one working but I have been looking for a job as well and do have something promising coming up. On weekends we dont do anything together. I am usually either out running errands, while he stays with son at home. Or vice versa. Or I have son and he is home watching tv. He mows the lawn but it's dreadful sorry but it's really badly done, leaves scraps all over hate place and says screw what people think in neighborhood which I think is not nice but I dont say anything.

Thanks for listening.


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## Uptown (Mar 27, 2010)

Sally, I am so sorry to hear that you are in such pain. It sounds like your H may be suffering from strong traits of PPD (paranoid personality disorder). That disorder is characterized by a long-standing suspiciousness and general mistrustof others -- making the person hypersensitive, to the point that he is easily slighted and thus habitually relates to the world by often scanning the environment for clues to validate his prejudicial ideas or biases. PPDers tend to be guarded and suspicious and have quite constricted emotional lives.

I mention this because, if your H has a personality disorder like PPD, going to marriage counseling will not help. First, he has to go to individual therapy with a psychologist to learn how to manage his underlying disorder which is distorting his perceptions of you and other people. And, of course, he must learn how to manage the enormous anger he clearly carries with him everywhere. That learning process is not accomplished in a few visits but, rather, likely requires him to be committed to therapy for a couple of years.

Much of the behavior you describe reminds me of my exW, who has BPD (borderline personality disorder). Like your H, she cannot trust people, has tremendous anger inside, and is verbally abusive. I therefore have written a lot about BPD on this forum in my other posts. 

Yet, I doubt that your H suffers from BPD traits because BPDers are unstable, which causes them to flip back and forth between idealizing their spouses and hating their spouses. They therefore cycle between pushing their spouse away and pulling her back in. And it just take the tiniest comment or action to trigger them into a rage. 

In contrast, your H's behavior has been so consistently awful and argumentative since you married him two years ago. If he were a BPDer, he would flipping between loving you and hating you -- not being the consistent pain in the a$$ you are describing. I therefore suggest that you find out what you are dealing with by going, on your own, for a session or two with a psychologist.


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## sallyohlala (Jul 10, 2010)

We were married 5 years ago (going on 6 this September). We had our child 2 years ago. Thank you...it's interesting what you have wrote. I would have never thought of this honestly. My sister is the only one I can confide in with all of this. Although it's not good to really get family involved. I needed someone to talk to. Or would have blew my top. She is just finding things out now after the 5 years of marriage. She read an article and brought it to me it was about a man and a woman who are married and they found out the man had aspergers. Sister really believes that my H has aspergers after reading this article. Just not as intense as the guy in the article has it. We are planning on seeing a therapist tomorrow. Hopefully we will get some insight there as well as to what is going on.


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## Uptown (Mar 27, 2010)

Sally, yes, Aspergers could explain it too. As I understand the difference, Aspergers occurs when the person has a deficiency in cognitive development preventing him from understanding body language and other forms of non-verbal communication. And he lacks empathy.

With PPD, however, the person likely has empathy and the ability to understand non-verbal communication. The disorder nonetheless distorts his perceptions of other people's intentions, causing him to see malevolent intent where it does not exist. With my exW, for example, she is empathetic and reads people very quickly and very well, having keen insight into strangers and casual friends. 

Heaven help them, however, when they become close friends and form a close relationship. Once a relationship is established, they pose a threat of _abandonment_, the thing that most terrifies her. She is so oversensitive to it that she misinterprets innocuous statements and actions as an indication that the person wants to end the relationship. So -- despite her empathy and congnitive skills -- she strikes out with abusive accusations and, in that way, keeps losing one close friend after the other.

If I understand PPD correctly, it is even worse because the person fears malevolent intent even from strangers. So unlike BPD (which my exW has), PPD undermines the person's interaction with everyone, regardless of whether a personal relationship exists or not.


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## sallyohlala (Jul 10, 2010)

Wow that is so deep. Yes he sure does lack empathy. I honestly know for sure that he knows NOTHING about women. I have gained a few pounds since being off of the anxiety meds (I weaned myself off with Dr's go ahead). I gained about 15 lbs fromt he meds and probably from just being so unhappy. I eat the same things - pretty healthy with occasional sweets. The other day we were at a department store shopping for our child. He points over to the PLUS SIZE and says "hey if you say your clothes no longer fit you, then you should go to that section and see if you can find anything". I was like "dude I'm a size 6 or an 8 (depending on brand). I am no where near plus size." Either way, you just don't say that to a woman - especially your wife. That made me feel GREAT (insert sarcastic voice here).


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## whynotme (May 18, 2010)

Hi Sally,

I am so sorry...honey, your marriage reminds me of mine - a LOT. I hope you hear me when I say GET OUT as soon as you can...I understand from uptown's responses he may have a personality disorder...that may be so. But men that call you names, that is also the start of abuse. Your story moved me to post because I considered my relationship abusive, and yours sounds like mine was. No sex, name calling, belittling ("crazy pills") hurtful physical contact. 

Basically when a man feels he can call you names and say anything to you or about you he is showing disrepect. If he doesn't respect you or see you as a person like he is (empathy) he will start to make you feel used like old shoes. My guess is you are probably feeling like that already.

You have already been in this for 5 years. You have seen your health decline, trust me, it will get worse if his issues don't get solved, and you continue to stay. I got very overweight during my marriage, and I was on cymbalta. I was scared of my ex-husband all the time, I never knew when he would go off, and over time, he got worse and worse with the outbursts. I've been away from him for a year and six months and I'm still not all the way back to normal. I was married for 4 years, no kids.

Now for the head trip. Maybe you feel like you can't just leave. What about your son and how much you had to go through to get him. What about the family that would be broken and the life you have together that you have built. What I would say is look at your relationship carefully and listen to your gut. You have already said numerous times you don't want you son growing up in this. That is your gut telling you something very serious is not right about your life.

So, if he will go to counseling, then encourage him. Support him. But honestly, he sounds like the abuser my ex-husband was. My ex-husband has deep-seated emotional problems that started way before I ever met him, that have nothing to do with me. He thought that because we were married, I would see all his faults, and no matter what he did I had to stay, because we were married. I didn't care about his faults, his excessive spending, his weird household rules about chores, his anger outbursts, whatever. When you love someone you tolerate a lot, right? But I had to draw the line at overt abuse. When he threatened to punch me, yeah we were done. What I didn't know then is that I should have drawn that line a lot sooner. Like I never should have let it get as far as it did.

Don't stay too long if you know in your gut it's not right. A relationship like what you've described can kill your spirit, or maybe even really kill you. My best wishes for your safety, whatever you decide. Please think of yourself and your son first.


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## Uptown (Mar 27, 2010)

Sally, I agree with WhyNotMe. Your first priority is the safety and welfare of your young son. If he is not safe around your H -- or if your H will be verbally abusing him the same way he has done you for six years -- you should file for separation. If your H seeks therapy for her personality disorder, you might want to separate and then delay the actual divorce until you see whether he makes a great improvement. 

The problem with that approach, however, is that a PD likely has been firmly entrenched in his mind since childhood and will take years of therapy for him to learn to manage (it cannot be cured but it can be managed). Moreover, during those years of therapy, how will you know whether he is making good progress? I spent $200,000 taking my BPD wife to six different psychologists for 15 years and never knew for sure whether she was improving -- not until, at the very end, she decided to have me arrested on a bogus charge so she could obtain a restraining order blocking me from returning to my own home. So I was locked out of my home for 18 months, the time it takes to get a divorce in this state.


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## sallyohlala (Jul 10, 2010)

Update: So we went to a therapist today and I left even more angry. This woman was wrong is so many places for us.

I brought up the fact that DH pointed towards the plus size area (and I am about a 6-8 in clothing!). She said well maybe he didnt mean it that way I said even though he didnt there are certain things you don't say to women. He said he was not trying to be politically correct with me and she laughed. She thought he was so freakin cute for some reason. I don't know she brought up his height by saying "wow how tall are you?" but like in a liking kind way. She mentioned oh I didnt know you worked for "so and so" when she took his insurance card and he said yes you know them? And she said yes a few people from there have come here for help. I think that is very unprofessional and she shouldn't go around saying that no one's business.

I bought up the race thing and she sided with him. She is a white woman too and I swear he is a racist. She said it ws probably because of his past experiences. Oh please which one? Someone asking you if he is black in college? Oh please. Get a grip.

I brought up the fact that he kept squeezing my wrists tighter and tighter. I told her I punched him in the jaw and she said thats a no no and I said I never said it was ok it's wrong but I am going to defend myself I don't care who it is. She asked me are you sure it was getting tighter and tighter? Are you sure you just are not imagining it was? Oh my gawd I was livid but just stood calm thinking Ok I am never coming back to see this woman. He said I lied about all of that tighter and tighter stuff. Right there he just said I was lying. What is the point of going to therapy if you are not going to tell the truth?

She said H is walking on eggshells. He was like Yes Yes I am. The only thing she sided with me is that he should not have gone and tried to have sex with his ex gf before he married me. he said I shouldnt have and she said i agree. That's all she said about siding with me. 

I am sure therapists side with one couple but honestly this was ridiculous and for the stuff I just mentioned you just don't come out and say things like this and show that you are siding. Very unprofessional as I said before. 

He mentioned that fact that I punched him in the groin. I said yes because at every stop sign he would not stop and there was a child in the car. I kept saying it, he kept doing it and you know what i got fed up and hit him in the groin. I was int he car and you know what so was my child. All therapist said was well you could have caused an accident punching him in the groin. Yea well he cold have too by not stopping at stop signs. OMG I am so upset with all of this. 

I walked out crying and more pissed off than ever. I am going to try ONE more therapist. H is willing to go as I told him she is siding with him. H said whatever i didnt want to come but if this is what it takes I came. So I told him then why mention that you didnt want to come if this is what it takes? I don't understand this logic?? Am I freakin' missing something here???? If this therapist does not work I am done. DONE. I will save my money once I get a job and move into another room until I can do so. I have a great lead on someone who can get my foot in the door at a company. Plus I have another phone call to make Monday to set up an interview somewhere else. H is getting another car this coming weekend so thats a plus i get my car back completely. We share if right now. 

Once I get a job I am putting in my application and a beautiful apartment complex that is based on income. And I will take it from there. All I can do is pray. 

Thanks everyone for your time and lovely words of wisdom. I keep you updated. Sorry for the typos...son is sitting on my lap and it's pretty difficult to type while he grabs at my hands LOL.


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## sallyohlala (Jul 10, 2010)

Uptown said:


> Sally, I agree with WhyNotMe. Your first priority is the safety and welfare of your young son. If he is not safe around your H -- or if your H will be verbally abusing him the same way he has done you for six years -- you should file for separation. If your H seeks therapy for her personality disorder, you might want to separate and then delay the actual divorce until you see whether he makes a great improvement.
> 
> The problem with that approach, however, is that a PD likely has been firmly entrenched in his mind since childhood and will take years of therapy for him to learn to manage (it cannot be cured but it can be managed). Moreover, during those years of therapy, how will you know whether he is making good progress? I spent $200,000 taking my BPD wife to six different psychologists for 15 years and never knew for sure whether she was improving -- not until, at the very end, she decided to have me arrested on a bogus charge so she could obtain a restraining order blocking me from returning to my own home. So I was locked out of my home for 18 months, the time it takes to get a divorce in this state.


18 months??? OMG I am so sorry. What state are you in? I am in Indy.


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## Uptown (Mar 27, 2010)

Yes, in most states, like here, you have to wait a year -- after you have stopped cohabitating -- to simply file for divorce. Then it takes another 5 or 6 months to go through the court process. During that period, I spent the first night sleeping on the floor of my office, then got an apartment. But the divorce was granted over two years ago, so I am doing very well now. So don't worry about me, Sally.


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