# Resentment ruining marriage



## beetlebug123 (Nov 5, 2017)

I am Paul, 37 year old from Toronto originally from India. New to this website and any kind of therapy/help request. My marriage is not going great despite both of us trying from last 5 years. We met about 6 years ago and hit off instantly. We had a great rapport and loved each other's company. For months, I was driving 4 hours to meet my wife on the weekends for a coffee as she was studying in a different city. However, we never talked about our past relationships. I did share with her that I had a past marriage but it had ended 6 years before we met. But after marriage, my wife seemed to become more insecure about my past marriage to a point that she said that she is not able to cope up wth the fact that I had been in a relationship and had physical relationship with another woman. 

I also realized after our marriage that she does not have any real close friends and also does not get along great with her relatives except her parents and brother. And they are all nice folks. She started having issues with my friends as well to a point where my friends stopped visiting me and only time I would interact with them was on the phone or if I went to see them. She also was struggling to get a job and blamed it on me that if we had not married, she could have stayed back in her town and possibly gotten a job. I realized how hard it must be for her to sit at home all day so I had her join some courses where I would drop her and pick her up everyday as she did not (and still does not) have a driver's license. After over a year, she was able to find a job but had a hard time keeping it as she did not get along with her manager. Luckily she found another job but she also has issues in this job getting along with most of her colleagues.

She also does not talk to my family at all. And she still has lots of resentment towards me and now says that I lied to her about details of my previous relationship. I have never cheated on my wife or talked bad about her to anyone. She has bouts of anger where she screams and tells me that I am the worst thing that has happened to her. I have tried to stay calm and have maintained that we have tried to make it work but since it is not working, I am ok to part ways. We don't have any kids and I have also told her that when we separate, we will distribute everything equally. I still care (and think love) about her and don't want her to struggle as she rebuilds her life on her own.

We have no intimacy or sex. She doesn't do anything around the house and I have to do everything including laundry, dishes, lawn, vaccum and groceries. I got into an accident couple of years ago and my back still recovering but I still work around the house as much as I can because if I don't the place becomes a mess. Luckily I am able to work from home and still make a good income so money is never an issue. However, when I got into accident, none of my friends called me ask me how I am doing. So now I don't even have close friends anymore. I feel that sometimes I have panic attacks when I realize how I am stuck in this nightmare.

I am not sure what to do. I meditate daily and try to stay positive but it is becoming increasingly difficult. Right now, we are staying in the same house but as total strangers except the times when she is yelling, screaming and crying at me. I have asked her to go to counselling but she won't. And the fact that I suggest it, makes her just resist it more so I don't advise anything now. Please help me. I am not sure how long I am going to be able to pull this.

She was diagnosed a while with low Thyroid hormone levels but she is not too keen on getting medical help. She has gained weight which I think is just one of the effects of Thyroid problem and everything else that she has been going through in this marriage. I do try to see things from her perspective but it has gotten to a point that even if she was going to do anything, if I say it, she will just not do that thing anymore. We have tried this separation method earlier too but then she cries and says that her life is ruined and she will not know what to do. Then the separation issue subdues for few months. But I am at a point now where I cannot take this anymore and I think she is also not doing herself or me a favor by not proceeding with it.


----------



## Edo Edo (Feb 21, 2017)

"I have tried to stay calm and have maintained that we have tried to make it work but since it is not working, I am ok to part ways. We don't have any kids and I have also told her that when we separate, we will distribute everything equally. I still care (and think love) about her and don't want her to struggle as she rebuilds her life on her own.

We have no intimacy or sex. She doesn't do anything around the house and I have to do everything including laundry, dishes, lawn, vaccum and groceries."



This small subsection of your opening statement sums up your situation AND answers your question as to the right course of action in one package. I'm sorry, but it doesn't seem like you even want to fight for this one any more. I honestly don't blame you, considering the situation you described...


----------



## beetlebug123 (Nov 5, 2017)

Edo Edo said:


> "I have tried to stay calm and have maintained that we have tried to make it work but since it is not working, I am ok to part ways. We don't have any kids and I have also told her that when we separate, we will distribute everything equally. I still care (and think love) about her and don't want her to struggle as she rebuilds her life on her own.
> 
> We have no intimacy or sex. She doesn't do anything around the house and I have to do everything including laundry, dishes, lawn, vaccum and groceries."
> 
> ...


Thank you Edo Edo. I just wish that this was a bad dream and not happened in real life.


----------



## beetlebug123 (Nov 5, 2017)

Just now I asked her that I am going out to get groceries and if she needs anything particular for the week. her reply - "Poison". This concerns me and I wonder if I should call some helpline and maybe someone can help her. It is killing me everyday to see her suffer and put myself through all of this.


----------



## john117 (May 20, 2013)

"Personality Disorders for $200, Alex"

Is she receptive to psych evaluation and the hard work required to overcome likely BPD? If yes, you have a chance. If no...


----------



## sokillme (Jun 10, 2016)

Is it resentment or just that she is a crappy wife?


----------



## beetlebug123 (Nov 5, 2017)

john117 said:


> "Personality Disorders for $200, Alex"
> 
> Is she receptive to psych evaluation and the hard work required to overcome likely BPD? If yes, you have a chance. If no...


If I suggest then certainly not. I am planning on having a conversation with her brother and maybe he can talk to her. Thanks


----------



## beetlebug123 (Nov 5, 2017)

sokillme said:


> Is it resentment or just that she is a crappy wife?


To her the reason is certainly the resentment. We cannot have a conversation even 2 minute long without disagreement and then it all goes downhill. It is impacting my health too now as every time we fight, I feel anxiety, shortness of breath and minor chest pain sometimes.


----------



## sokillme (Jun 10, 2016)

beetlebug123 said:


> To her the reason is certainly the resentment. We cannot have a conversation even 2 minute long without disagreement and then it all goes downhill. It is impacting my health too now as every time we fight, I feel anxiety, shortness of breath and minor chest pain sometimes.


I am not exactly following here, what is the benefit for you again?


----------



## Uptown (Mar 27, 2010)

Paul, I agree with @*John117* that the behaviors you describe -- i.e., controlling actions, temper tantrums, verbal abuse, suicide threat ("poison"), impulsiveness, black-white thinking, and always being "The Victim" -- are warning signs for BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder). Significantly, I'm not suggesting that your W has full-blown BPD symptoms. Only a professional can determine that. Rather, I'm suggesting she may be exhibiting strong BPD traits -- which can make your life painful even when they are not so severe as to satisfy the diagnostic threshold.



beetlebug123 said:


> She became... more insecure about my past marriage to a point that she said that she is not able to cope up with the fact that I had been in a relationship and had physical relationship with another woman.


Her strong insecurity about your exW and her successful efforts to isolate you away from friends and family are a sign she has a great fear of _abandonment_. Significantly, _"Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment"_ is one of the nine defining traits for BPD. 



> We have no intimacy or sex.


With BPDers (i.e., those folks on the upper third of the BPD spectrum), it is fairly common for sexual activity to go off a cliff immediately after the wedding. The primary reason is that a BPDer has a second great fear_: engulfment_. It is triggered by intimacy. Although BPDers crave intimacy like nearly everyone else, they cannot tolerate it for very long because -- lacking a strong sense of identity -- they quickly start feeling like you are controlling and suffocating them. And they can feel like their identity is evaporating into thin air as they start to get lost in your strong personality. 



> If I say it, she will just not do that thing anymore.


Likewise, my BPDer exW would immediately lose interest in things that I approved of. When we were shopping for furniture, for example, she had the feeling I was somehow "controlling" her if I agreed with her choice of a sofa or chair. No matter how excited she was about an item, it was the kiss of death for me to agree that she had made a good decision. Indeed, the only way she could know that I was not controlling her decision was to pick something she knew I would absolutely hate.



> She does not have any real close friends.


If she is a BPDer, she likely will push away friends who make the mistake of drawing close. In the same way that your drawing closer will make her feel engulfed and suffocated, a friend drawing close will have the same effect. Another reason that BPDers push friends away is that they can flip very quickly from Jekyll (adoring you) to Hyde (devaluing you). And they can flip back again just as quickly. These rapid flips arise from _"black-white thinking."_ 

Like a young child, a BPDer is too emotionally immature to be able to handle strong conflicting feelings (e.g., love and hate). A BPDer has great difficulty tolerating ambiguities, uncertainties, and the other gray areas of close interpersonal relationships. Her subconscious solves this problem by "splitting off" the strong conflicting feeling, putting it far out of reach of her conscious mind. This way, she only has to deal with one intense feeling at a time.

She therefore will categorize everyone close to her as "all good" (i.e., "white" or "with me") or "all bad" (i.e., "black" or "against me"). And she will recategorize someone from one polar extreme to the other -- in just ten seconds -- based solely on a minor comment or action. Because a BPDer's close friends eventually will be "split black," it is unusual for a BPDer to have really close long-term friends unless they live a long distance away. This B-W thinking also will be evident in the frequent use of all-or-nothing expressions such as "You NEVER..." and "You ALWAYS...."



> We cannot have a conversation even 2 minute long without disagreement and then it all goes downhill.


If she is a BPDer, you will find that it is impossible to have a calm reasonable discussion on any sensitive issue (and any area of disagreement will be sensitive). Catching her in a calm or happy mood does not help at all because, within 10 seconds, a BPDer's anger can be triggered into a tantrum. Sadly, there is not much in life that can be discussed and decided in less than 10 seconds.



> She started having issues with my friends as well to a point where my friends stopped visiting me.... She also does not talk to my family at all.


Because a BPDer has a great fear of abandonment, she tends to see threats of abandonment where they don't even exist. For example, a BPDer will perceive of the time you spend visiting with friends or family members as evidence that you are choosing THEM over HER. Moreover, because she is controlling, she also has a second motivation: isolating you away from people who would support your views of reality instead of hers.



> She also was struggling to get a job and blamed it on me.


BPDers have such unstable, weak egos that they often feel like they don't know who they really are. To the extent they have a lasting self identity at all, it is the false self image of being "The Victim," always "The Victim." This means that you will be allowed to play only two roles: that of "The Rescuer" and "The Perpetrator." Significantly, both of those roles "validate" her false self image of being "The Victim" because, if she were not a victim, you wouldn't be trying so hard to rescue her or to persecute her. 

What usually happens is that you are perceived of as "The Rescuer" throughout the courtship period and as "The Perpetrator" following the wedding (or the day you start living together). But, because a BPDer is emotionally unstable, you likely will see her flipping back and forth between the two. As time goes by, you likely will be increasingly perceived as "The Perpetrator" -- i.e., the cause of her unhappiness and every misfortune.



> And she still has lots of resentment towards me and now says that I lied to her about details of my previous relationship.


If she were exhibiting strong narcissistic or sociopathic traits, such a false claim likely would be a fabrication she made to manipulate you. If she is a BPDer, however, she likely believes her new perception of what you had said. This is called "rewriting history," which is a behavior BPDers exhibit a lot. It occurs because they frequently experience feelings that are so intense that they are convinced the feelings MUST be true.



> She has bouts of anger where she screams and tells me that I am the worst thing that has happened to her.


_"Inappropriate, intense anger or problems controlling anger"_ is another one of the nine defining BPD symptoms. If your W is a BPDer, she carries enormous anger inside from early childhood. You therefore don't have to do a thing to CREATE the anger. Rather, you only have to do or say some minor thing that will TRIGGER a release of anger that is already there. This is why a BPDer can burst into a hissy fit in only ten seconds over very minor actions or comments. Moreover, BPDers have very weak control over their emotions. Indeed, the key defining characteristic of BPD is the inability to regulate one's own emotions.



> Sometimes I have panic attacks when I realize how I am stuck in this nightmare.


Paul, if you've actually been living with a BPDer for five years, consider yourself lucky if you're only experiencing occasional panic attacks. A large share of the abused partners of BPDers become so utterly confused that they feel like they may be going crazy. Because BPDers typically are convinced that the absurd allegations coming out of their mouths are absolutely true -- they generally have a greater "crazy-making" effect than can ever be achieved by narcissists, sociopaths, or Bipolar sufferers. 

This is why that, of the 157 mental disorders listed in the APA's diagnostic manual, BPD is the _one most notorious _for making the abused partners feel like they may be losing their minds. And this is largely why therapists typically see far more of those abused partners than they ever see of the BPDers themselves. Nothing will drive you crazier sooner than being repeatedly abused by a partner whom you know, to a certainty, must really love you. The reason is that you will be mistakenly convinced that, if only you can figure out what YOU are doing wrong, you can restore your partner to that wonderful human being you saw at the very beginning. 



> I am not sure what to do... Please help me.


Paul, I suggest that -- if you feel tempted to remain in this toxic marriage, you consult with a psychologist -- for a visit or two all by yourself -- to obtain a candid professional opinion on what it is that you are dealing with. I caution that BPD is a "spectrum" disorder, which means every adult on the planet occasionally exhibits all BPD traits to some degree (albeit at a low level if the person is healthy). At issue, then, is not whether your W exhibits BPD traits. Of course she does. We all do. 

Rather, at issue is whether she exhibits them at a strong and persistent level (i.e., is on the upper end of the BPD spectrum). Not having met her, I cannot answer that question. I nonetheless believe you can spot any strong BPD warning signs that are present if you take a little time to learn which behaviors are on the list. They are easy to spot when they are strong because there is nothing subtle about behaviors such as verbal abuse, controlling behavior, temper tantrums, and irrational jealousy.

Of course, learning to spot these warning signs will not enable you to diagnose your W's issues. Although strong BPD symptoms are easy to spot, only a professional can determine whether they are so severe as to constitute full-blown BPD. Yet, like learning warning signs for a stroke or heart attack, learning those for BPD may help you avoid a very painful situation -- e.g., avoid taking her back and avoid running into the arms of another woman just like her.

I therefore suggest you take a quick look at my list of _*18 BPD Warning Signs*_ to see if most sound very familiar. If so, I would suggest you read my more detailed description of them at my posts in _*Maybe's Thread*_. If that description rings many bells and raises questions, I would be glad to join the other respondents in discussing them with you. Take care, Paul.


----------



## beetlebug123 (Nov 5, 2017)

Uptown said:


> Paul, I agree with [B"]John117[/B] that the behaviors you describe -- i.e., controlling actions, temper tantrums, verbal abuse, suicide threat ("poison"), impulsiveness, black-white thinking, and always being "The Victim" -- are warning signs for BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder). Significantly, I'm not suggesting that your W has full-blown BPD symptoms. Only a professional can determine that. Rather, I'm suggesting she may be exhibiting strong BPD traits -- which can make your life painful even when they are not so severe as to satisfy the diagnostic threshold.
> 
> Her strong insecurity about your exW and her successful efforts to isolate you away from friends and family are a sign she has a great fear of _abandonment_. Significantly, _"Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment"_ is one of the nine defining traits for BPD.
> 
> ...


Uptown, I don't know how to thank you for your support and taking the time to reply. I have already made an appointment for myself with a psychologist for this Friday and really looking forward to getting some professional help. 

I am filled with gratitude for your input & suggestions.

Thank you!


----------



## 3Xnocharm (Jun 22, 2012)

Wow, your wife is a spoiled princess b!tch. Even if she does have some kind of disorder, you need to get the hell OUT. I fail to see any positive or advantage to you staying with this awful person. You deserve better.


----------

