# Am I Losing it?



## ilovesunnydays (Jan 5, 2010)

I've been married for 14 years. It has been a very rocky road. Pretty much went off the cliff right after we married and have slowly been improving over the years. From the start my husband was super critical of me, how I do things, why I did them, what I wore, where I put the cutting board in the kitchen (I'm not joking, he flipped out about that right after our marriage). He was also depressed for years and I bent myself into a pretzel trying to help him, keep things afloat. He finally got some counseling and is much better overall (good provider and great dad) but there are still issues. I am nervous when we are with other people because he sometimes embarrasses me with the way he treats me or others. Over the years I've stopped trying to arrange social things for this reason. I'm often nervous when he's coming home, I think I'm kind of scared of him on some level because I've been nitpicked so much. He always makes a big point of rubbing in any mistakes I make or he thinks I've made. He pushed me in anger once. I am finding myself pretty angry these days. I feel like a shell of who I used to be. For the first time in my life, I am feeling depressed, have anxiety. I used to be a very confident person and I always second guess myself now and feel anxious about decisions and responsibilities. An incident happened today that led me to this site, we had an insurance adjustor at our home to assess some damage. I told my husband I wanted him to talk to the adjustor because I knew if I did it my husband would be unhappy with the way I handled things and critcize me. While the adjustor was here, I was going around taking care of the kids, when I was passing they asked me a couple of questions which I answered, and my husband gave me death stares. The second time they asked me to find an old appraisal to look up the square feet in the house. While I was looking my husband decided he didn't want me to continue. l thought I was close to finding it so I kept looking, he kept shooting me dirty looks and after a little while the adjustor was ready to give the summary so I gave up, went and sat down with them to listen. I exchanged some small talk with the adjustor and asked him a few questions about how to proceed. The dirty looks continued. After the adjustor left my husband accused me of "groveling" because I asked some questions and was trying to help verify the square footage and was furious that I had talked to the adjustor at all or looked for the appraisal when he told me to stop. He called his dirty looks "communication" and is really mad about it. He says he was in charge and I should have followed his lead. He says I should have just sat quietly and not said anything. I'm pretty confused. Now that I think about it, this isn't totally uncommon, there have been many other times he's been angry at me for being part of a conversation, or saying something he didn't like. The thing that was weird today is that I just answered the questions I was asked and asked a few of my own that were on topic. I've been trying to be very self honest about this as I've thought about all day and I really don't think I did anything wrong. Can anyone provide me with another viewpoint, am I nuts or is he being rather controlling and unreasonable? I need perspective.


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## Blanca (Jul 25, 2008)

It sounds like your H is a control freak- but he also doesnt seem to see anything wrong with what he did. its probably been engrained in him that you just follow his lead. Having this way of life drilled into your marriage for 14 years is going to take a long time to undo. But good for you for starting to undo it. just be prepared for it to be messy.


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## swedish (Mar 6, 2008)

:iagree:

From where I sit, he sounds unreasonable and controlling...I would not get past the dating phase w/a guy like that...but that's just my personality.

What concerns me is that you feel a shell of yourself and walk on eggshells around him. That is not normal or healthy.


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## ilovesunnydays (Jan 5, 2010)

I think you're right. After lots of reading, thinking and praying I told him last night that I know I didn't do anything wrong and I wasn't going to play along with the scenario that I did. He was so focused on proving that I violated our "agreement" and trying to rub my nose in it, it actually made me burst out laughing, thinking that if he could take a step back he would realize how ridiculous he was sounding. I want our marriage to work, it isn't all bad, so I am seeing that I need to refuse to participate in the control stuff. I know part of the problem is me, not in the way he thinks, but if I go along and let him make me feel bad, letting him control my feelings and how I look at myself. I also told him that if the result of having him take care of something is being marginalized and unjustly accused of sabotage, that in the future we would do things jointly so he could expect me to be a part of things and that I would be part of the conversation. I know I am so angry because I have put up with this for way too long, can't believe I didn't figure it out sooner. Anyone else been in a situation like this and made progress? Any other advice?


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## jessi (Feb 11, 2009)

I have a friend like that lives your life, he husband just doesn't think she says anything right, corrects her. He thinks if she doesn't do things the way he would that there is something wrong with it and he actually tells her that her level of effort is not good enough. It's not like things aren't taken care of by her, she just does it her on her schedule, she is a stay at home mom.
I have watched her over the years trying to please him trying to do things his way and also living in fear of not doing something right in his eyes. It's painful to watch.....she is a great person and takes her job as a mother and woman of the house seriously. Never complains of the work load, but I see a woman now not very confident and she also thinks she can't do anything very well, cooking, gardening.....taking care of the kids, it's not her it's him that is making her believe this...this has been the same for her for about 25 years....don't let this happen to you for your whole life......there is nothing wrong with you just being you, your husband is the one that is insecure and he uses his control tactics as way of keeping you in line so he doesn't lose you, maybe if you re-assured him that you won't run for the hills and that he doesn't have to do this to keep you maybe he will get it, or maybe he should go get some help..
living in fear is no way to live
Be strong honey, hugs


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## ilovesunnydays (Jan 5, 2010)

swedish said:


> :iagree:
> 
> From where I sit, he sounds unreasonable and controlling...I would not get past the dating phase w/a guy like that...but that's just my personality.
> 
> What concerns me is that you feel a shell of yourself and walk on eggshells around him. That is not normal or healthy.


With what I understand now, I wouldn't get past the dating phase either! Wish I had known better 15 years ago. I know the way I feel isn't normal or healthy, I want to find a way to feel better and keep the marriage. We have 3 great kids and some things that are good in our marriage. I know I can't force change in him, so I want to focus on me and what I can do. Any ideas how to do this?


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## ilovesunnydays (Jan 5, 2010)

jessi said:


> I have a friend like that lives your life, he husband just doesn't think she says anything right, corrects her. He thinks if she doesn't do things the way he would that there is something wrong with it and he actually tells her that her level of effort is not good enough. It's not like things aren't taken care of by her, she just does it her on her schedule, she is a stay at home mom.
> I have watched her over the years trying to please him trying to do things his way and also living in fear of not doing something right in his eyes. It's painful to watch.....she is a great person and takes her job as a mother and woman of the house seriously. Never complains of the work load, but I see a woman now not very confident and she also thinks she can't do anything very well, cooking, gardening.....taking care of the kids, it's not her it's him that is making her believe this...this has been the same for her for about 25 years....don't let this happen to you for your whole life......there is nothing wrong with you just being you, your husband is the one that is insecure and he uses his control tactics as way of keeping you in line so he doesn't lose you, maybe if you re-assured him that you won't run for the hills and that he doesn't have to do this to keep you maybe he will get it, or maybe he should go get some help..
> living in fear is no way to live
> Be strong honey, hugs


What you described is much like my situation, in greater detail than I went into in my first post. I don't want to let this go on for more and more years, as I've realized what is going on, my first reaction is anger but I know that isn't productive. I don't know if my husband would get help, he doesn't think he's doing anything wrong (his dad is about a thousand times worse than he is so he thinks he's doing things different). I know in his way he really loves me but he is insecure and carries lots of emotional baggage. I want to try to adjust my thinking, not allow myself to take the criticism to heart so much. Then I find myself on the other extreme, to a "don't care about anything he thinks, I'll do my own thing" and I'm not sure that is terribly healthy or productive either. How do I find the middle ground?


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## swedish (Mar 6, 2008)

Is he loving towards you otherwise? Do you feel that he cherishes you as his wife? I'm wondering whether this is isolated to outside situations where he wants to be the man in charge but otherwise he respects you as his wife or whether there is a general lack of respect for your opinion?


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## Dryden (Jan 5, 2010)

I'll provide some detail on the other side of this one. I think for some time my wife was in your same shoes. I don't know that I was quite as bad as that, but I know I did have a tendency to nitpick over stupid things and point out mistakes that really didn't mean anything in the grand scheme. 

When we would argue, she'd comment about always feeling like she was on eggshells around me. I would laugh this off as the anger talking and thought nothing of it. 

It likely has something to do with his upbringing. I was brought up by a fairly demanding mother that wanted the best out of me. I was pushed hard to perform to her expectations. It led me to do the exact same thing to the people closest to me. I held my wife up to very high expectations, and I also figured that my way was the only way to do things.

It took a near separation and a very honest discussion with her about how much my actions were hurting her for me to realize what I was doing. It was something that I never even thought about. I would make a comment about how something was done and move on, not thinking of the ramifications it was having. Once I understood what I was doing to her, and put myself in her shoes, I came to realize how hurtful this could be. 

I still catch myself occasionally falling back into it from time to time, but I must be much better now than before. We don't fight about any of that kind of stuff anymore and if I really want something done a specific way, I do it myself.

Communication is the key to a healthy relationship. We still struggle with it to this day. I find though, the more often we just sit and actually discuss a problem, instead of shouting about it, the better off we are. We may still get upset and offended by what the other person is saying, but it doesn't escalate as high or as fast as when we simply argue.


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## ilovesunnydays (Jan 5, 2010)

swedish said:


> Is he loving towards you otherwise? Do you feel that he cherishes you as his wife? I'm wondering whether this is isolated to outside situations where he wants to be the man in charge but otherwise he respects you as his wife or whether there is a general lack of respect for your opinion?


For the most part yes, he is loving but the sometimes subtle and sometimes overt criticism is across the board and fairly constant. I think he respects my opinion much of the time. The type of thing that happened yesterday does seem to be focused on outside situations. Maybe it is about being the man in charge, I've never thought of it that way. I've felt for a long time that he wants me to be something different than I am, that he doesn't like or accept who I am, my personality and such, and wants to change me to fit his idea of who I should be, I've come to this conclusion from the never ending tide of criticism. It ebbs and flows but is quite constant, often about small, seemingly insignificant things. So in thinking more about it, it is a little weird, he tells me he loves and appreciates me and does some really nice things for me but then turns around and nitpicks, criticizes, treats me like I'm an idiot or we have an incident like yesterday. So I guess I don't know if he really values my opinions because the actions are not consistent with the words. Sometimes I've wondered if I'm off base because of the inconsistency, thinking things like, "Surely there must be a valid reason for him to treat me this way, maybe I really am an idiot?" But I don't really believe that so it kind of makes me feel crazy inside. Does any of this make sense?


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## ilovesunnydays (Jan 5, 2010)

Dryden said:


> I'll provide some detail on the other side of this one. I think for some time my wife was in your same shoes. I don't know that I was quite as bad as that, but I know I did have a tendency to nitpick over stupid things and point out mistakes that really didn't mean anything in the grand scheme.
> 
> When we would argue, she'd comment about always feeling like she was on eggshells around me. I would laugh this off as the anger talking and thought nothing of it.
> 
> It likely has something to do with his upbringing. I was brought up by a fairly demanding mother that wanted the best out of me. I was pushed hard to perform to her expectations. It led me to do the exact same thing to the people closest to me. I held my wife up to very high expectations, and I also figured that my way was the only way to do things.


Thanks for your input, I think it is from the way he was raised. I've spent enough time with his family to see the same patterns. He isn't a mean person at heart and that's why I don't want to give up on things. It gives me hope to hear your story. I'll try to talk about the core issues again, this forum is helping me to figure it out, so hopefully it can be productive.


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