# Wife Just Holds Onto So much Anger...



## Drover (Jun 11, 2012)

My wife just bottles everything up inside and keeps it forever. We were talking last night and she's still holding on to things that happened years ago. She lets things other people did affect her relationship with me. Things her parents did, things her grandparents did, this that situations dictated that no one could control, things past boyfriends did. I've come to the conclusion she has an absolute mare's nest in her head and just can't seem to let go. Holding onto it all is hurting her, making her angry and causing her a great deal of emotional pain. She knows this but doesn't know how to let anything go. Any ideas...?


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## Gaia (Apr 27, 2012)

Drover said:


> My wife just bottles everything up inside and keeps it forever. We were talking last night and she's still holding on to things that happened years ago. She lets things other people did affect her relationship with me. Things her parents did, things her grandparents did, this that situations dictated that no one could control, things past boyfriends did. I've come to the conclusion she has an absolute mare's nest in her head and just can't seem to let go. Holding onto it all is hurting her, making her angry and causing her a great deal of emotional pain. She knows this but doesn't know how to let anything go. Any ideas...?


Relaxing hobbies that will make her happy and individual counseling... are the two best I can come up with right now. The hobbies can be VERY helpful.... especially if neither of you can afford to go to counseling.. and she could look up a few ways to help deal with her anger on her own until she gets that counseling. Oh.. meditation may help as well.


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## thunderstruck (May 9, 2012)

From this post, and others, I think I'm married to your W's clone.:banghead:

Sorry, man, nothing good to add here. This is really her problem to work out. You just need to keep getting stronger and refuse to drop down into that pit with her.


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## Wanting1 (Apr 26, 2012)

Talking about it. Every time you talk about something hurtful, it loses a little bit of power over you. Encourage her to discuss things with you. Big things may need to be discussed often over time. If she can't open up with you, then maybe an IC or a close friend. It really does help just to vent and get it out there. Discussing things also allows you to see things from a different view, as your experiences change how you view things over time. If you do become a sounding board for her, I caution you to just listen. Do not try to fix it. That can be a hard one, especially for guys. But listening is the greatest gift you can give to someone who needs their voice to be heard.


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## Mistys dad (Dec 2, 2011)

Holds on too or recycles?

I used to think my wife held on to things and wouldn't let them go. Then, over time, I found that it wasn't so much holding on. It was recycling things from the past to justify whatever is happening at the moment. 

Sort of an "on the fly" trump card to avoid responsibilty for the current situation.

Past transgressions can be overcome. Recycling is harder, because it is always evolving and changing it's mask.


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## Accipiter777 (Jul 22, 2011)

Drover said:


> My wife just bottles everything up inside and keeps it forever. We were talking last night and she's still holding on to things that happened years ago. She lets things other people did affect her relationship with me. Things her parents did, things her grandparents did, this that situations dictated that no one could control, things past boyfriends did. I've come to the conclusion she has an absolute mare's nest in her head and just can't seem to let go. Holding onto it all is hurting her, making her angry and causing her a great deal of emotional pain. She knows this but doesn't know how to let anything go. Any ideas...?



I used to do this too... untill I realized my wife is not responsible for these things... I AM. Maybe put her in the same position to make her see what it feels like?


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## Gaia (Apr 27, 2012)

Accipiter777 said:


> Maybe put her in the same position to make her see what it feels like?


Nuuuu DANGER WILL ROBINSON!!! That could make it worse! Be it recycling or holding onto this anger.. I think her seeing a psychiatrist for it would be a better idea.


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## Santa (May 31, 2012)

Drover said:


> My wife just bottles everything up inside and keeps it forever. We were talking last night and she's still holding on to things that happened years ago. She lets things other people did affect her relationship with me. Things her parents did, things her grandparents did, this that situations dictated that no one could control, things past boyfriends did. I've come to the conclusion she has an absolute mare's nest in her head and just can't seem to let go. Holding onto it all is hurting her, making her angry and causing her a great deal of emotional pain. She knows this but doesn't know how to let anything go. Any ideas...?


I feel you. Sounds just like my wife. The worst part is, mine will hang onto the smallest infraction I did from before we were married, (like a white lie to not hurt her feelings over something stupid and small) and bring it up nonstop in any disagreement, yet she will do the same or much worse (like lying about something we agreed not to do or do pertaining to kids) this week and then scream I cant get mad because that would be holding it over her yet, even though she JUST did it and will NEVER say she is sorry for anything. 


I think God got her periods backwards and she gets happy only for a couple of days a month. lol

So I am waiting for replies with baited breath as well....


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## thunderstruck (May 9, 2012)

Mistys dad said:


> I used to think my wife held on to things and wouldn't let them go. Then, over time, I found that it wasn't so much holding on. It was recycling things from the past to justify whatever is happening at the moment.
> 
> Sort of an "on the fly" trump card to avoid responsibilty for the current situation.


Truth, and I get that all the time. Got a load of it this morning.

Me: I'm angry at you for what you did earlier today.
W: You're angry at me! Who do you think you are? 20 years ago, you did _________!

It will drive you nuts if you let it.


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## Gaia (Apr 27, 2012)

thunderstruck said:


> Me: I'm angry at you for what you did earlier today.
> W: You're angry at me! Who do you think you are? 20 years ago, you did _________!


I know it probably wasn't meant to be funny.. but that^^^ Just made me :rofl:


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## Drover (Jun 11, 2012)

Most of the stuff she's wound up about doesn't even have anything to do with me. Some of it does, and I own my mistakes (nothing like cheating or anything). But she's just so full of anger it's like concrete holding her down.


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## Santa (May 31, 2012)

Wanting a Strong Marriage said:


> Talking about it. Every time you talk about something hurtful, it loses a little bit of power over you. Encourage her to discuss things with you. Big things may need to be discussed often over time. If she can't open up with you, then maybe an IC or a close friend. It really does help just to vent and get it out there. Discussing things also allows you to see things from a different view, as your experiences change how you view things over time. If you do become a sounding board for her, I caution you to just listen. Do not try to fix it. That can be a hard one, especially for guys. But listening is the greatest gift you can give to someone who needs their voice to be heard.




That sounds good but mine hasnt stopped talking about the same little issues for 5 yrs now and we have exhausted hours on hours on hours going over these same things. Its like she wants to be a victim and everyone "feel" her pain and say "oh poor you!!" when I honestkly think she needs someone like a mother to say "hey! Stop *****ing and complaining and put your big girl panties on!! Its called life!!" 

Its like my wife has ZERO coping skills..


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## Drover (Jun 11, 2012)

thunderstruck said:


> Truth, and I get that all the time. Got a load of it this morning.
> 
> Me: I'm angry at you for what you did earlier today.
> W: You're angry at me! Who do you think you are? 20 years ago, you did _________!
> ...


She does that occasionally, but that's not what I'm talking about. And really the last couple of times she pulled that I just told her to knock it off.


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## Santa (May 31, 2012)

Mistys dad said:


> Holds on too or recycles?
> 
> I used to think my wife held on to things and wouldn't let them go. Then, over time, I found that it wasn't so much holding on. It was recycling things from the past to justify whatever is happening at the moment.
> 
> ...





Bingo!!! I think thats what my wife actually does!!! mmmmmm


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## Drover (Jun 11, 2012)

Santa said:


> Its like my wife has ZERO coping skills..


There it is.


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## Gaia (Apr 27, 2012)

Ok... this if for all of you with wives like this... 


COUNSELING .. for her... 

Clearly there are issues she (they?) are needing to discuss and work out.


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## thunderstruck (May 9, 2012)

Gaia said:


> I know it probably wasn't meant to be funny.. but that^^^ Just made me :rofl:


I'm at the point where I have to laugh at things like this, so yeah, laugh your azz off. :smthumbup:



Santa said:


> Stop *****ing and complaining and put your big girl pnties on!! Its called life!!"
> 
> Its like my wife has ZERO coping skills..


See, that's the thing...she probably never learned to put those on. My W has zero coping and/or self-soothing skills. She goes from zero to batshyte in seconds, over relatively minor things. She was arguing with D11 recently, and it was like I was watching two children on the school playground. 

In many ways, I think I've fallen into the daddy role for my W. That's...not a good thing.


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## Drover (Jun 11, 2012)

Gaia said:


> Ok... this if for all of you with wives like this...
> 
> 
> COUNSELING .. for her...
> ...


We were supposed to be going to MC next week. The doc also does IC. I suggested she should just go for herself instead, and maybe after she's worked on her issues we start the MC in a few weeks.


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## Drover (Jun 11, 2012)

thunderstruck said:


> See, that's the thing...she probably never learned to put those on. My W has zero coping and/or self-soothing skills. She goes from zero to batshyte in seconds, over relatively minor things.


My wife actually uses the term "putting her big girl panties on" frequently. And it's all I can not to roll my eyes because she just has no idea how.



> She was arguing with D11 recently, and it was like I was watching two children on the school playground.


My wife does this with my won. It's just ugly to watch, and it draws disrespect from him to the point where I have to step in. Lately I've had to just tell her to knock it off, which of course, draws more disrespect from him.


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## Gaia (Apr 27, 2012)

D11? won? Confused here... lol


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## Santa (May 31, 2012)

Gaia said:


> Ok... this if for all of you with wives like this...
> 
> 
> COUNSELING .. for her...
> ...




What if you cant afford any at the moment?


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## Gaia (Apr 27, 2012)

My first post... lol.. happy hobbies, things to help W relax, meditation, and her looking up and researching as many ways as possible to get this "Anger" under control. The W is definitely going to have to do alot of work on herself to manage that and be able to recognize as well as admit when she is wrong.


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## Drover (Jun 11, 2012)

Santa said:


> What if you cant afford any at the moment?


There are lots of organizations that do sliding scale or even pro bono counseling. Try the local churches and mental health organizations. Or local healthcare providers. I found it for $40/session.


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## FirstYearDown (Sep 15, 2011)

I am still angry and hurt about some things my husband did around our engagement and our wedding night. The difference is, I rarely bring up those actions, nor do I spend too much time thinking about those things. We are married now and if I want to have a happy union, I can't keep harping over the past. I deal with the pain mostly by myself because my husband already knows what he did and I am well aware of his remorse. Neither of us can go back and change the mistakes.

Have you expressed remorse for the things you are responsible for? It might also help to share some sympathy for what your wife has endured. When you do that, you can also gently nudge to her to learn to stop indulging bitterness and perhaps speaking to a therapist.


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## KathyBatesel (Apr 26, 2012)

I'm going to disagree with most of the replies here. I've been the one who holds on to those past hurts, and suffered for it. 

Simply talking about it is *not* the solution. Every time she talks about it, she's exercising her memories and making them stronger, reinforcing them. 

The only thing that will strip those memories of their power over her is if she gives those memories new meaning. When she thinks "When he forgot to call, it hurt me," she assigns a meaning to a missed call: hurtfulness. If she thought it had a different meaning, "When he forgot to call, he must have been busy," she would have assigned a different meaning that's less personal and easier to cope with: competing demands kept him from being able to do what he wanted. 

I don't have any quick-change suggestions for it, because it's a lifelong process she has developed that leans toward seeing the negative rather than the positive. You might ask, "What does that event mean to you?" and then ask "How can I change what it means to you?" or "Would you be happier if it meant something else?" and see where it leads.


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## Runs like Dog (Feb 25, 2011)

Living with someone who is pathologically angry and resentful is extremely corrosive if you let it. Unfortunately there's not much you can do to fix that person. They are partially broken inside and their anger is both a vent and a generator of their anger. They try to blow off steam and it just makes them madder. 

Look for psychological abuse by both parents when he/she was little. Typically one parent was the bully and the other was that person's enabler. Neither one defended the child. 

You can't fix that kind of broken. It requires a massive investment by your partner to seek out long term professional assistance and desire to want to get better with or without you. 

My own blushing bride, while not 100% diagnosed is in fact clinically paranoid. A paranoid narcissist, a bully a tyrant and a martyr fueled by anger and resentment who's view of interpersonal relations is a zero sum game where she wins and everyone else is reduced to tears. 

Normal people experience anger and brief flashes of rage and disappointment and then we erupt or whatnot and it's over. Not with her, in fact if you want to see my wife go hulk-smash, AGREE with her, let her win. Then she knows she was right all along and was rewarded for her grumbling, fuming, muttering, hissing, rage, which then escalates. That is the face of paranoid psychopathy.


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## Drover (Jun 11, 2012)

FirstYearDown said:


> Have you expressed remorse for the things you are responsible for? It might also help to share some sympathy for what your wife has endured. When you do that, you can also gently nudge to her to learn to stop indulging bitterness and perhaps speaking to a therapist.


Yes, I take responsibility for things I have done (or not done, which is usually the case). A lot of her issues have nothing to do with me though. And on the rare occasions she does open up, I do listen. As I said, therapist is next week.


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## thunderstruck (May 9, 2012)

Gaia said:


> D11? won? Confused here... lol


D11 = my daughter, age 11. Sorry, I'm bringing slang from other boards over here.


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## Gaia (Apr 27, 2012)

thunderstruck said:


> D11 = my daughter, age 11. Sorry, I'm bringing slang from other boards over here.


lol it's ok.. and umm .. yeah I would say that arguing with a child.. is pretty inappropriate.. anger issues or not. She should definitely seek therapy imo... I have anger issues myself but I've never taken them out on a child... that's just me though.


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## Ten_year_hubby (Jun 24, 2010)

Drover said:


> My wife just bottles everything up inside and keeps it forever. We were talking last night and she's still holding on to things that happened years ago. She lets things other people did affect her relationship with me. Things her parents did, things her grandparents did, this that situations dictated that no one could control, things past boyfriends did. I've come to the conclusion she has an absolute mare's nest in her head and just can't seem to let go. Holding onto it all is hurting her, making her angry and causing her a great deal of emotional pain. She knows this but doesn't know how to let anything go. Any ideas...?


Seems to be a lot of this going around. My wife suffers from this affliction as a result of growing up in an alcoholic household and developing an overly rigid personality structure. She was sharing some of her long held feelings (again) last night. I explained to her how the other persons in these situations might have felt and created plausible explanations for their behavior. I went on to encourage her to forgive these persons (now that she can understand them better) for the things they have done, and to some extent, continue to do. As several notable forum contributors have counseled in other threads, forgiveness is key here, but she is the one who has to do it


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## CallaLily (Jan 13, 2011)

Its her burden to carry. Several options for you though. Learn to live with it.(I wouldn't want to) Learn coping skills and how to take care of yourself so when she gets like this its not as bad on you. Leave and give yourself the gift of LIFE. I'm sure there may be other options but those are some that came to mind. Good luck!


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## Ten_year_hubby (Jun 24, 2010)

Drover said:


> My wife does this with my won. It's just ugly to watch, and it draws disrespect from him to the point where I have to step in. Lately I've had to just tell her to knock it off, which of course, draws more disrespect from him.


This can be a really bad situation which I also have in my house. It would be best to bring things up to your wife privately, but no one understands better than me that sometimes we can't do things the way we would wish.

Although it would not be the preferred method, I think that a respectful, direct and firm correction does not necessarily damage the relationship between the offending parent and their child, at least not as much as the behavior being corrected.


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## Santa (May 31, 2012)

Gaia said:


> My first post... lol.. happy hobbies, things to help W relax, meditation, and her looking up and researching as many ways as possible to get this "Anger" under control. The W is definitely going to have to do alot of work on herself to manage that and be able to recognize as well as admit when she is wrong.


I guess thats the hardest part for my wife. She doesnt think she is wrong and all of her anger and emotional outburst are all justified regardless, and everyone just needs to see how unfair the world is to her.....................................................:banghead:


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## Santa (May 31, 2012)

Runs like Dog said:


> A paranoid narcissist, a bully a tyrant and a martyr fueled by anger and resentment who's view of interpersonal relations is a zero sum game where she wins and everyone else is reduced to tears.
> 
> Normal people experience anger and brief flashes of rage and disappointment and then we erupt or whatnot and it's over. Not with her, in fact if you want to see my wife go hulk-smash, AGREE with her, let her win. Then she knows she was right all along and was rewarded for her grumbling, fuming, muttering, hissing, rage, which then escalates. That is the face of paranoid psychopathy.




You are married to my wife too??  lol


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## Ten_year_hubby (Jun 24, 2010)

Santa said:


> I guess thats the hardest part for my wife. She doesnt think she is wrong and all of her anger and emotional outburst are all justified regardless, and everyone just needs to see how unfair the world is to her.....................................................:banghead:


This can be a problem. Your wife needs find a way to understand that she is making the choice to allow herself to express her anger in this fashion and it may not be a good choice. Her feeling of justification derives from a sense of entitlement, ie, she is entitled to express her anger in this fashion. She probably observed this in one or both of her parents growing up.


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## Santa (May 31, 2012)

Ten_year_hubby said:


> This can be a problem. Your wife needs find a way to understand that she is making the choice to allow herself to express her anger in this fashion and it may not be a good choice. Her feeling of justification derives from a sense of entitlement, ie, she is entitled to express her anger in this fashion. She probably observed this in one or both of her parents growing up.




She did. She resents them for being alcoholics and ranting and raving at her, yet not taking care of her or her two younger brothers for which she had to bascially play mother for, yet her own actions are exactly the same and she doesnt see it. 

She drinks, gets drunk, goes over all of the true or perceived things bad that have happened her whole life, gets mad, raises holy hell and takes out on entire family including kids and then passes out.. 

Then the kids and I have peace for a hour or two..


Next day, repeat


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## CallaLily (Jan 13, 2011)

Santa said:


> She did. She resents them for being alcoholics and ranting and raving at her, yet not taking care of her or her two younger brothers for which she had to bascially play mother for, yet her own actions are exactly the same and she doesnt see it.
> 
> She drinks, gets drunk, goes over all of the true or perceived things bad that have happened her whole life, gets mad, raises holy hell and takes out on entire family including kids and then passes out..
> 
> ...



She needs to be in AA and Alanon both since she drinks and is a child of alcoholic parents. You and your kids both need to be in Alanon. If you haven't already, check out some local groups in your area.


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## VermisciousKnid (Dec 27, 2011)

Santa said:


> That sounds good but mine hasnt stopped talking about the same little issues for 5 yrs now and we have exhausted hours on hours on hours going over these same things. Its like she wants to be a victim and everyone "feel" her pain and say "oh poor you!!" when I honestkly think she needs someone like a mother to say "hey! Stop *****ing and complaining and put your big girl panties on!! Its called life!!"
> 
> Its like my wife has ZERO coping skills..


Mine too! There's no difference of opinion with her. She's right and everyone else is wrong. Everything is conflict and complaint. She's always the victim. No one lives up to her standards, never mind that those standards are arbitrarily high and only for the purpose of letting people know that they could have done better. 

You can never make that person happy. For some reason they are focused on sympathy. Mine happens to be empathetic as well, but she still views the world as an unending series of problems that someone/something is visiting on her. It isn't a rational approach to life.


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## Ten_year_hubby (Jun 24, 2010)

Santa said:


> She did. She resents them for being alcoholics and ranting and raving at her, yet not taking care of her or her two younger brothers for which she had to bascially play mother for, yet her own actions are exactly the same and she doesnt see it.
> 
> She drinks, gets drunk, goes over all of the true or perceived things bad that have happened her whole life, gets mad, raises holy hell and takes out on entire family including kids and then passes out..
> 
> ...


Ouch! This is not an anger problem, this is a drinking problem. Nothing good is going to happen if your wife drinks to the point of passing out. We need to focus on this first


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## Drover (Jun 11, 2012)

Thanks, I feel better. At least my wife doesn't drink


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## dallasapple (Jun 20, 2012)

Hi Im new..I have carried anger..mostly what you can do is validate her feelings..dotn tell her she "shouldnt feel that way" or ask her "why is that still bothering you " that blocks her.."help her feel it" and dont tell her its "wrong to feel that way" or when are you going to get over that..thats my only suggestion ..

Dallas


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## dallasapple (Jun 20, 2012)

OH and if she drinks heavily?She cant grieve..as hard as she cries nothing will be "felt"..and shedded and passed on ..she will be "arrested"..

Dallas


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## Santa (May 31, 2012)

Ten_year_hubby said:


> Ouch! This is not an anger problem, this is a drinking problem. Nothing good is going to happen if your wife drinks to the point of passing out. We need to focus on this first


Oh I know... 


She has a angry drinking problem! 
And I dont even drink,thank God!!

I have come to the conclusion that she drinks to kill some pain that was there long before I came onto the scene and she will not talk or discuss anything to do with her at all! Its everyone else that has a problem and we all need to get with the program to make her life happy or else living hell will be dished out on a daily basis. 

I'm at the "over it" stage and ready to walk away. I have done all I can do but she wont listen to me or anyone else. She has to come to the conclusion by herself and at this point I think me loving her has basically just enabled her and she doesnt even love me really, but rather needs me to support her stay at home, drinking into oblivion pain game... its really sad to be honest. 

Meanwhile kids will suffer either way....
:2gunsfiring_v1::absolut:


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## Drover (Jun 11, 2012)

dallasapple said:


> Hi Im new..I have carried anger..mostly what you can do is validate her feelings..dotn tell her she "shouldnt feel that way" or ask her "why is that still bothering you " that blocks her.."help her feel it" and dont tell her its "wrong to feel that way" or when are you going to get over that..thats my only suggestion


I do validate. I think everyone is entitled to their feelings, but holding on to such deep resentment over every bad thing that has ever happened to her is just not healthy and gets in the way of her ever being happy. If she doesn't "get over" things how does she help herself? How do you remain at all functional if you're tied up in knots about things that happened 40 years ago? What coping mechanisms do you use?


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## KathyBatesel (Apr 26, 2012)

Ten_year_hubby said:


> Seems to be a lot of this going around. My wife suffers from this affliction as a result of growing up in an alcoholic household and developing an overly rigid personality structure. She was sharing some of her long held feelings (again) last night. I explained to her how the other persons in these situations might have felt and created plausible explanations for their behavior. I went on to encourage her to forgive these persons (now that she can understand them better) for the things they have done, and to some extent, continue to do. As several notable forum contributors have counseled in other threads, forgiveness is key here, but she is the one who has to do it


I'm a firm believer that forgiveness isn't something that we can just "do." As long as the energy is there in those negative thoughts, and those fears still reside inside her, she cannot forgive. She has to see changes before she can let it go. Those changes can come about if she changes the meaning she assigns to those memories or they can happen when the people change, but since she has more control of her thoughts, that's the place for her to start. 

I came from an incredibly dysfunctional household and held a lot of rage over it, too. I had to change my thinking from "I was misused and mistreated" to "I was raised by flawed individuals who lacked the ability to nurture."


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## Drover (Jun 11, 2012)

KathyBatesel said:


> I'm a firm believer that forgiveness isn't something that we can just "do." As long as the energy is there in those negative thoughts, and those fears still reside inside her, she cannot forgive. She has to see changes before she can let it go. *Those changes can come about if she changes the meaning she assigns to those memories or they can happen when the people change, but since she has more control of her thoughts, that's the place for her to start. *


You're the second person to say something like this in this thread. Obviously you can't make the other people change. Hell, she couldn't even find half the people she harbors resentment toward.

So explain changing the meaning of the memories for yourself. Examples? How do you go about this?



> I came from an incredibly dysfunctional household and held a lot of rage over it, too. I had to change my thinking from "I was misused and mistreated" to "I was raised by flawed individuals who lacked the ability to nurture."


This is kinda what I'm always saying to her. This person is who they is. You know that about them. You can't change them. So what's the point of holding it against them forever? It's not hurting them, only you!


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## dallasapple (Jun 20, 2012)

Drover said:


> I do validate. I think everyone is entitled to their feelings, but holding on to such deep resentment over every bad thing that has ever happened to her is just not healthy and gets in the way of her ever being happy. If she doesn't "get over" things how does she help herself? How do you remain at all functional if you're tied up in knots about things that happened 40 years ago? What coping mechanisms do you use?


O.K if you are validating and she STILL hangs on for 40 years?(ya'll have ben married 40 years WOW) yeah thats an issue..

Dallas


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## FirstYearDown (Sep 15, 2011)

My family was horribly dysfunctional and abusive. Now we are all very fragmented-the spoiled youngest boy is the only one who lives at home when he is nearly 30. The esteemed oldest who is loved because he is a lawyer no longer speaks to his family due to emotional issues. The second oldest lives in another country and rarely visits. I am the only daughter, yet I did not even invite my parents to our wedding because my mother was being too confrontational and insulting.

I have had a total of five years of therapy which began when I was 17 and attempting suicide frequently. Now at age 30, I realize that some of the damage can never be healed and it shows in some of my choices and phobias. 

The Drama of the Gifted Child - Book Commentary | Serendip's Exchange
Love this book. Great page on the concepts. Get your wife to read it.


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## dallasapple (Jun 20, 2012)

FirstYearDown said:


> My family was horribly dysfunctional and abusive. Now we are all very fragmented-the spoiled youngest boy is the only one who lives at home when he is nearly 30. The esteemed oldest who is loved because he is a lawyer no longer speaks to his family due to emotional issues. The second oldest lives in another country and rarely visits. I am the only daughter, yet I did not even invite my parents to our wedding because my mother was being too confrontational and insulting.
> 
> I have had a total of five years of therapy which began when I was 17 and attempting suicide frequently. Now at age 30, I realize that some of the damage can never be healed and it shows in some of my choices and phobias.
> 
> ...


Yep...It can only be healed by acceptance thats the "way it is" and a decesion to move on..

They wont fall at yoru feet and apologize..not going to happen.

(((HUGS)))

Dallas


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## Drover (Jun 11, 2012)

dallasapple said:


> O.K if you are validating and she STILL hangs on for 40 years?(ya'll have ben married 40 years WOW) yeah thats an issue..
> 
> Dallas


No, these are things that have nothing to do with me that cause her anger. It's not even anger at me...just anger.


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## Drover (Jun 11, 2012)

dallasapple said:


> Yep...It can only be healed by acceptance thats the "way it is" and a decesion to move on..
> 
> They wont fall at yoru feet and apologize..not going to happen.
> 
> ...


EXACTLY! How do I get her to see that???


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## dallasapple (Jun 20, 2012)

Drover said:


> No, these are things that have nothing to do with me that cause her anger. It's not even anger at me...just anger.


She could be "addicted" to anger..(I dnt mena that in a fetetious way)..she could be in like "quick sand" of anger..

But MAYBE you can help pull her out???

Dallas


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## Pandakiss (Oct 29, 2010)

Drover said:


> My wife just bottles everything up inside and keeps it forever. We were talking last night and she's still holding on to things that happened years ago. She lets things other people did affect her relationship with me. Things her parents did, things her grandparents did, this that situations dictated that no one could control, things past boyfriends did. I've come to the conclusion she has an absolute mare's nest in her head and just can't seem to let go. Holding onto it all is hurting her, making her angry and causing her a great deal of emotional pain. She knows this but doesn't know how to let anything go. Any ideas...?



i was like this for a long time. i didnt trust my husband to tell him things that bothered me, and im so easy going that i dont tell him when i want something.

for instance, he can always ask for a bj, and get one, but i wont tell him i would like to be touched or something like that, so when its been a week or so, i get annoyed he isnt thinking about what i wanted.

we would fight the same old fight. we had to talk out some old crap, i mean from 20 years ago to finally get to the root of the trust problem.

what helped was being able to talk about things that bothered me, sure we did fight about stuff all over again, but we are older and wiser, and we could come back and go over the whole thing and compare the two situations.

we then had another level of understanding. past resentments suck majorly and the only way to get through it is to talk it out.

as for recycling, its the same thing. i know its a broken record, and nobody listens to that crap on repeat, but after 10+ years, it might be time to say you know, you always bring that up...what happened back then, i dont remember the exact details.

also right fighting, if you are talking about who did/didnt take out the trash, and out of left field comes some crap about the toilet seat being left up/down, say i would love to revisit that with you, but lets work out this trash thing first.

and actually come back to it, have the follow through with the conversation. find out what the other person felt about it...usually thats what its about, was it a dismissing, or made to feel as though feelings werent vailadiated.

we all have our own "view" on an arguement, and weather or not it was right or wrong, we are entitled to our feelings.. it better to clear up some old thing from years ago, because its the foundation of today and tommorow.

my issue is im nice, and dont speak up about my needs, and when i told him about it, we had a nice talk, and its still an on going talk, in a good way now. a little yelling and cussing dont scare me, and at least things are now out in the open to be talked about.


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## Runs like Dog (Feb 25, 2011)

Santa said:


> You are married to my wife too??  lol


Hardest mental illness to crack I'm afraid. Paranoids instinctually resist and refuse all modes of treatment. That's the nature of their illness at its core. The key to dealing with them and surviving is understanding that their fear and loathing for all other people is a reflection of their own monstrous self love. It's narcissism run amok. It's a martyr complex that implodes into tyranny.


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## Runs like Dog (Feb 25, 2011)

Santa said:


> She drinks, gets drunk, goes over all of the true or perceived things bad that have happened her whole life, gets mad, raises holy hell and takes out on entire family including kids and then passes out..


Have you ever gotten a suicide vibe from your wife? It's a serious question. Your wife seems to show classic chronically abused child behavior.


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## rks1 (Jan 27, 2012)

KathyBatesel said:


> I came from an incredibly dysfunctional household and held a lot of rage over it, too. I had to change my thinking from "I was misused and mistreated" to "I was raised by flawed individuals who lacked the ability to nurture."


The above resonates with me strongly. It was not until I started to see things this way that my anger towards my parents started to subside. I can't say that I am not longer angry towards them, but the negativity towards what they put me through when I was younger has significantly reduced (thanks to counseling). Once you change your mindset from seeing people as 'perpetrators' to 'unfortunate victims of their own sad choices', the anger starts to dissipate. It's taken me a long time to get to where I'm at, and I truly hope someday the anger will be gone fully, so I can just focus on loving them for the people they are today.


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## MEM2020 (Aug 23, 2009)

Hmmmm

A few times my W has used the phrase "I don't think I am ever going to get over ...some thing that I have done..." . 

Last weekend she got into some world class mischief - and when she realized what she had done was flooded with remorse. After the Nth apology about what she had done (I accepted the first one offered she just felt really bad), I said: Ok, you want to feel better? 
(W) YES
(Me) I think we both recognize two end of the forgiveness spectrum: There's me, who accepts the first apology most of the time. And then on occasion we have the opposite reaction which is: I don't think I will ever get over "...".
(W) Looking embarrassed - I do say that don't I
(Me) How about I drop this in the neural shredder - permanently erase this event - and - YOU remove that phrase from your speech pattern?
(W) You really will forget this?
(Me) The only trigger event will cause me to reach for the "memory un-delete" routine will be hearing a very specific phrase from YOU. Get it?
(W) Got it

Only time will tell if the phrase "I don't think I will ever get over this" is permanently gone from the house. But at least it has been banished for a long time. 





Ten_year_hubby said:


> Seems to be a lot of this going around. My wife suffers from this affliction as a result of growing up in an alcoholic household and developing an overly rigid personality structure. She was sharing some of her long held feelings (again) last night. I explained to her how the other persons in these situations might have felt and created plausible explanations for their behavior. I went on to encourage her to forgive these persons (now that she can understand them better) for the things they have done, and to some extent, continue to do. As several notable forum contributors have counseled in other threads, forgiveness is key here, but she is the one who has to do it


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## KathyBatesel (Apr 26, 2012)

Drover said:


> You're the second person to say something like this in this thread. Obviously you can't make the other people change. Hell, she couldn't even find half the people she harbors resentment toward.
> 
> So explain changing the meaning of the memories for yourself. Examples? How do you go about this?
> 
> This is kinda what I'm always saying to her. This person is who they is. You know that about them. You can't change them. So what's the point of holding it against them forever? It's not hurting them, only you!


She doesn't need to find anyone. It's a bit tricky to explain how to change the meaning of something. The simplest way I can say it is that she must reframe her experience. 

I'll use examples I am familiar with - my own life. For some reason, my mother just never bothered to be a mother to me, and even though she knew my father was molesting me (had walked in on it when I was a baby), she did not even try to get custody when they divorced - back around 1978, when women got custody pretty automatically still. My father died, and I haven't spoken to my mother for almost a decade, since she finally admitted out loud that I "have never been anything but a problem to (her)." 

During my childhood, there were hundreds of things that happened to build the kind of rage I knew. When I became an adult, those memories flavored my interactions with other people. To cull just one example and relate it to this topic: 

I was extremely hypersensitive to anyone's attempts to influence my thinking. My perceptions and experiences had "shown" me that people didn't have my best interests at heart, that they were selfish, and that given a chance, they would hurt me or abandon me. 

That affected my relationships a great deal, as you might imagine. I wanted/needed to believe I was lovable and worthy, so I put my all into my relationship(s). However, I was just plain uncooperative and difficult, not to mention very controlling! 

Over the years, through a series of failed relationships, I kept taking stock of my own behaviors and pursuing personal growth. Part of that growth meant I had to learn to trust others and let myself be influenced, but it wasn't easy! I observed people carefully and "tested" whether I could trust someone in small ways before I'd open up to them, and these small tests showed me that I could trust a little more, then a little more, and so on. 

Yet I was still angry and resentful, and those feelings always came back full force when something triggered ANY feelings of being betrayed or hurt. I'd typically have a very strong reaction (the word "overreact" has been used many times to describe things I've said or done) and later feel embarrassed that I didn't have better control over how I'd felt and behaved. 

At one point, I realized I'd been doing to others the very things I resented from other people in my past. I'd worked too much to spend great time with my daughters and they'd felt abandoned by it, for instance. I hated myself that I'd done to them the horrible abandonment that had been done to me - they felt unwanted and unloved. I spiraled into a deep depression that lasted almost two years. It wasn't until I was able to step back and say, "Aha! I never intended to hurt my kids! Maybe my mother didn't intend to hurt me." At that moment, my perception toward my past experiences with my mother changed. Instead of having a deep belief that she just wanted to control me and use me because I wasn't the kind of kid she wanted, I found myself coming to believe that she was simply a person who was incapable of loving anyone. It no longer *meant* I was unloveable, it meant SHE failed at loving her own child. 

I don't know how to trigger a change in meaning when a person isn't ready to accept it. My feelings of unlovableness were so deep (and until then, I'd coped with them and walled them off quite well) that I didn't consciously recognize them until I hit that depression. 

I hope that you can share this with your wife or that she can find a way to dig into those feelings and find ways to see those past events as proof that SHE was worthy, lovable, and deserved better - and that it was the OTHERS who were flawed.


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## Drover (Jun 11, 2012)

Last night she opened up about some things. For years she has blamed me for taking her away from her hometown when I got an out of state job after we married. She blames me for the fact that she wasn't there for her grandmother, who was her primary "parent" as a child, when she died. She blames me for taking her live in yet another state several years after that, instead of moving home. And then she feels like I wasn't there for her when we lived there.

None of this makes any sense to me. It's like she expected me to be with her 24/7 while earning a living for our family. And she expected me to just know what she needed w/o telling me. The thing is, she never communicated these things to me. She understands that it's irrational, but it's how she feels. 

I'm sure this all ties back to the fact that her mother abandoned her as a baby and she lived out of a suitcase for most of her childhood, shuffled back and forth between relatives. It gives a strong fear of abandonment and deprivation, as well as a need to exert an irrational amount of control over situations and people.

I'm just not sure what to do about it. We're going to see a MC Monday. Maybe she can help with some of it. To be honest, right now I'm having a real problem with patience. I've waited on her to figure things out for 10+ years. My fear is that she's just not going to make the effort even though she says she will. I know I can't control that. I know I can only control what I do, not what she does. But it's just so frustrating...


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## KathyBatesel (Apr 26, 2012)

If she's unhappy, she'll make the effort to be happy again. Don't give up after ten years of waiting just as she's taking steps to make changes! Your fear that she won't make the effort may be more that you're afraid of being seen as the "bad guy" or a fear that you'll have to make changes that you don't want to make, but I think you'll find it's really not that bad if you have a good counselor.


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## Pandakiss (Oct 29, 2010)

Drover said:


> Last night she opened up about some things. For years she has blamed me for taking her away from her hometown when I got an out of state job after we married. She blames me for the fact that she wasn't there for her grandmother, who was her primary "parent" as a child, when she died. She blames me for taking her live in yet another state several years after that, instead of moving home. And then she feels like I wasn't there for her when we lived there.
> 
> None of this makes any sense to me. It's like she expected me to be with her 24/7 while earning a living for our family. And she expected me to just know what she needed w/o telling me. The thing is, she never communicated these things to me. She understands that it's irrational, but it's how she feels.
> 
> ...



makes perfect sense to me. ask her if that is the way she feels now, today. 

ask her her view on the situation then vs now, does she see things through different eyes.

and she just told you all the problems steamed from this feeling. you have to allow her to tell you the view she had at the time.

every problem started from the dis trust, and anger..then resentment. she has to tell you how she felt then, and the difference in the relationship now.

she should be able to tell you she saw you acting one way then, and now with time and really getting to know you, there should be a different view on behaviors and attitudes.


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## thunderstruck (May 9, 2012)

Drover said:


> Last night she opened up about some things. For years she has blamed me for taking her away from her hometown when I got an out of state job after we married.
> 
> And then she feels like I wasn't there for her when we lived there.
> 
> *I'm just not sure what to do about it.*


I took an out of state job after marriage as well, and I've heard these same things from my W. Like you, I don't know what to do about it. I have a great job in a bad economy, and chucking that to move across the country (not home, but to a state she "likes") doesn't seem like the best move now.


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## turnera (Jan 22, 2010)

Therapy.


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## thunderstruck (May 9, 2012)

turnera said:


> Therapy.


Mine refuses.


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## turnera (Jan 22, 2010)

Then tell them you can't continue in a marriage that makes you miserable.


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## bubbly girl (Oct 11, 2011)

I used to be like that...I'd stay angry about something my husband did years ago and bring it up from time to time. 

I didn't go to therapy. I read a lot on this site about it and how it destroys marriages and it's true. 

What changed me? I realized what I was doing, and it was wrong. I realized that I'm not perfect and I would hate for my husband to throw in my face past mistakes. I realized that this way of life was making me miserable and my husband and kids miserable. It wasn't how I wanted us to live our lives.

The key to changing is realizing that you're in the wrong for this behavior. It's kind of like how an alcoholic can't get help until they admit they have a problem. You're wife needs to realize that she has a problem with her behavior before she can change. 

Therapy would help her if she's willing to be honest.


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