Ending a 12 year relationship, very confused.

[hawkmoon]

Almost everything you have said here happened to me for 18 months and only got worse.

Good luck my brother.

Very much so hawk, her anger and the way she twists her memories of events is something I am simply not capable of dealing with, god knows I've tried. When she left yesterday I asked her why she had pushed me away the way she did and her response was that it was me who had pushed her away....lol, I don't even know where to begin with how wrong that is.

For anybody reading this who is in a similar situation, I know it sounds stupid but you should keep a diary of events so that you have a record of what events happened and how they happened. Don't do this for any legal reason, or to use as ammunition in another pointless fight, but do it simply for your own sanity. As things got worse for us my wife would twist things more and more to the point where she would dispute the words that came out of her mouth 30 seconds ago. Any rational person understands that they are fallible and can make mistakes or forget little details, and when you have a person who you trust implicitly telling you that you are the one who is wrong it is very easy to doubt yourself, keeping a diary will remove this doubt. I didn't do this and it was very hard on me when she began to accuse me of being clinically depressed, escalating to being bipolar as things got worse, and peaking with declarations of borderline schizophrenia when I would disagree with her claims....this thread helped a bit, and I shared everything with my parents so they could corroborate that I wasn't actually crazy, lol, to the moment she walked out the door she maintained that it was me who needed to get help while she remained completely oblivious to her own discontinuities. So much fun.

 

[OuchThatHurts]

Very much so hawk, her anger and the way she twists her memories of events is something I am simply not capable of dealing with, god knows I've tried. When she left yesterday I asked her why she had pushed me away the way she did and her response was that it was me who had pushed her away....lol, I don't even know where to begin with how wrong that is.

For anybody reading this who is in a similar situation, I know it sounds stupid but you should keep a diary of events so that you have a record of what events happened and how they happened. Don't do this for any legal reason, or to use as ammunition in another pointless fight, but do it simply for your own sanity. As things got worse for us my wife would twist things more and more to the point where she would dispute the words that came out of her mouth 30 seconds ago. Any rational person understands that they are fallible and can make mistakes or forget little details, and when you have a person who you trust implicitly telling you that you are the one who is wrong it is very easy to doubt yourself, keeping a diary will remove this doubt. I didn't do this and it was very hard on me when she began to accuse me of being clinically depressed, escalating to being bipolar as things got worse, and peaking with declarations of borderline schizophrenia when I would disagree with her claims....this thread helped a bit, and I shared everything with my parents so they could corroborate that I wasn't actually crazy, lol, to the moment she walked out the door she maintained that it was me who needed to get help while she remained completely oblivious to her own discontinuities. So much fun.

wrought, I've read your posts on here for ages so obviously I realize that you are an intelligent person. For the same reason, for the life of me, I can't wrap my head around this chain of events! Everything you describe - her personal and past issues, targeting you, inability to sustain a pregnancy, etc., all point to some insecurities and problems on her behalf.... YET... even in the midst of a professional somehow this got turned into, guess who? YOU again! Now in the form of some sort of mental problem with you! What's the straight scoop here? It's impossible to tell from the few paragraphs here what might be best for you (and her) but what's your ideal outcome to this situation? Do you really want to stay married? To this girl? Do you do any activities together? Have fun together? I know this is all basic stuff but something is wrong. Maybe it's a couple of problems. Are you still going to counseling even though you are separated? ARE you still separated? etc., etc., etc.

 

[wrought]

wrought, I've read your posts on here for ages so obviously I realize that you are an intelligent person. For the same reason, for the life of me, I can't wrap my head around this chain of events! Everything you describe - her personal and past issues, targeting you, inability to sustain a pregnancy, etc., all point to some insecurities and problems on her behalf.... YET... even in the midst of a professional somehow this got turned into, guess who? YOU again! Now in the form of some sort of mental problem with you! What's the straight scoop here? It's impossible to tell from the few paragraphs here what might be best for you (and her) but what's your ideal outcome to this situation? Do you really want to stay married? To this girl? Do you do any activities together? Have fun together? I know this is all basic stuff but something is wrong. Maybe it's a couple of problems. Are you still going to counseling even though you are separated? ARE you still separated? etc., etc., etc.

Thanks for replying Ouch, I've appreciated reading all of the things you've posted on here over the years and the insight you've provided to so many of the guys, it might not get said enough but Thank You.

Ok, after typing out the stuff below here's the short version:

Q) Do I want to stay married to her?
A) No, I do not want to stay with the person she has become.

Q) Activities together?
A) Yes. We would go to the gym together and train separately, do all the usual couple stuff (eat out, go to movies, etc. etc.), we were never really apart except while we were working.

Q) Have fun?
A) No. One of her coping mechanisms is to pretend that nothing is wrong, so we would have a big fight, nothing would get resolved, she goes to bed and wakes up like nothing happened and everything is perfect, then after a day or so she'd explode again. Lol, I can't afford the kind of drugs that would let me relax enough to have fun under those conditions.

Q) Still going to counselling?
A) Not as a couple. She is seeking personal counselling and wants me to see a psychiatrist to get 'help' for my anger issues.

So the more wordy version:
We are still separated, its only been 2 weeks now but I feel immensely better, I'm not living in fear of what will trigger the next fight. I don't know if we will stay married and cannot even tell if it is salvageable at this point but I am keeping an open heart and have told her that I see us staying apart for at least a few months (until 2010 at the minimum). I do know that the people we are right now, with the baggage and issues we are carrying, cannot stay married and cannot live peacefully in the same house.

The 'ideal', disney outcome would be for the separation to provide each of us with the time and space for enough personal reflection and growth that we could come back together at some point in the future as a new couple with a new beginning. How realistic that is....well, time will tell, she came by at the end of last week and reflexively started into one of her patterns of attacking again but this time instead of getting frustrated and angry I held back and rode it out with her, identifying her script and trying to get her to see the extreme disconnect between what she was saying and what was actually happening (ie. her accusing me of not making time for her now that we were separated and failing to support her vs me leaving work early to meet her at the house and holding her while she cried all of her emotions out).

While she may eventually recognize the way she acts I do know that after 12 years and a continuing escalation in the frequency of her episodes I simply cannot tolerate it any more. I do not like the person I was becoming because of this and am not willing to put myself through it just to be there for her because I see that as my frustration with her turns into anger I am hurting her as much as she is hurting me. This is an awful catch 22 situation for me because I was raised to be strong, be supportive, be responsible, and to be there when my family needed me no matter what the personal cost, this is my nature and I believe that this is why it took so long for me to acknowledge that not only was I failing to make things better but by sticking it out for so long I was actually making things worse. I could have broken the cycle a long time ago if I had only been strong enough to walk away when I saw the warning signs, its a lesson learned though.

I know it sounds cliche, but from my bodybuilding I know how hard it is to lift and carry a physical burden...I do it for fun, I strive to increase my capacity, increase the load, expand my strength...yet I've realised that doing this emotionally is suicide. You've got to know when to let go because continuing to carry an ever increasing emotional burden will eventually kill you. Letting go is sometimes the only way to grasp what you truly desire. Haha, now that's some cliched sh!t right there, I may not walk tall but I carry a large shovel!

Keep living, keep learning, keep abiding.

 

[hawkmoon]

Wrought, I am stunned how similar our situations are.

My advice is to stay out. She needs serious help from a professional and you can not fix her. Your wife similar to mine was probably heading on this trajectory all her life and only now has it reached a level where you can no longer tolerate it. She is not going to automagically heal.
I too came from a loving family - but a divorced family. I swore I would never let my kids suffer a broken home - but the reality is we can't control other people.

I have been out for 6 months now and miss my daughter Monday -Thursday immensely, but at least I'm not getting torn apart as soon as I walk in the door anymore. And more importantly my little girl doesn't have to witness it.

 

[wrought]

Wrought, I am stunned how similar our situations are.

My advice is to stay out. She needs serious help from a professional and you can not fix her. Your wife similar to mine was probably heading on this trajectory all her life and only now has it reached a level where you can no longer tolerate it. She is not going to automagically heal.
I too came from a loving family - but a divorced family. I swore I would never let my kids suffer a broken home - but the reality is we can't control other people.

I have been out for 6 months now and miss my daughter Monday -Thursday immensely, but at least I'm not getting torn apart as soon as I walk in the door anymore. And more importantly my little girl doesn't have to witness it.

You're right Hawk, coming to terms with the fact that I can't fix things has been very difficult and I will not let her come back until she resolves her issues (if she ever can).

I wrote out that post above yesterday afternoon and she came by last night....it was just the same thing, the same script, she's stuck on things that happened 10 years ago and wants to blame me, blame her sister for teaching her the behaviours that she can't control, blame work, blame everything and only take a bit of responsibility for herself.

She still declares that my REactions are the cause of her actions, not the other way around, but she might begin to understand given time. I've decided that I will support her as I can, if not to save the marriage then only to help her move forward into a healthy life, but I'm not going to sacrifice myself to do this.

Lol, I don't know if I'm still in denial, a potential sociopath, or what, but I'm not sad that she's gone, in fact I'm feeling guilty at the fact that I'm enjoying the quiet.

 

[triathloncoach]

Ride on

Wrought, I wish I could handle my own issues as well as you appear too.

Stay mentally healthy, anger is your enemy. But you seem to know that. It is was it is. Much respect to you. Someday she'll recognize what she lost if it's too late for change. You'll eventually feel better than ever. Don't rush it along.

 

[wrought]

anger is your enemy

This is an inarguable truth. One of the failures I've had to face here is that at as things came to an end I became a very angry person. I was angry with her, I was frustrated at the repetition of the fights, and I was angry at myself that nothing changed.... but even seeing that nothing was changing I did not stop and try something else, I stayed angry.... because it was easier.

At the end, anger was a shield because I couldn't turn the other cheek again, give her my hope and faith only to have it thrown back in my face yet again. I made things worse because I stayed and fought for what I wanted when the fighting simple took us deeper into the quagmire. I should have had the strength to walk away a long time ago but I was afraid of losing her and hurting her in the process.

She just called me, enraged because I was upset on the weekend and had changed my relationship status on facebook from married to nothing. I tried to explain that I had been upset, she yelled, I offered to change it back, she yelled some more, so I yelled back, then after some yelling I tried to talk again and she hung up....fuck me, this is not healthy and I shouldn't have given in to those old feelings of frustration.

lol, if you're reading this and are like wtf is this goober doing writing all this out. My answer is that its kinda cathartic and more for my benefit than anybody else's, haha, I'll come back to this in a year or two and think "what self indulgent drivel" so just consider yourself to be ahead of the curve and I'll catch up later.

 

[gordo14]

I have really enjoyed your misery...not like you think though. I Am....was....er i dunno in a relationship just like this. It was almost 8 years. Never married, but we raised 2 children from previous relationships together. I was Dad, and she was Mom.

I'm glad to know that i'm not crazy(she is just like your lady to a t). That there are actually people who have experianced the same as me, if not more. At this point i have broken it off again, and am also feeling guilt from the fact i am hurting her, and her daughter, but i can't live like this anymore. And i don't want either one of our children growing up thinking thats how relationships should be. Sorry for the rant, just wanted you to know there are others that can relate.

I have given mine numerous opportunities to change, even split for 4 months. She will get well for a while then once she hass me reeled back in its right back to the old behavious. I don't think there is any fixing, or changing for them??

Keep your head up and stay strong. You are doing the right thing. You don't want to stroke out at a young age due to all the stress and anger. Honestly...love and marriage should be easy. It takes work, but it shouldn't be that hard, and draining.

Stay strong.

 

[wrought]

Figured I would post an update on here. Things haved moved along relatively smoothly. We're separated now, she's got her own place and we're moving ahead with the division of assets prior to finalizing everything so that we can have an uncontested divorce with no money issues.

The funny thing is that now that things are officially over we're getting along better than when we were married. I think that we each put a lot of pressure on ourselves to make something work that was never going to work in terms of the marriage and we make better friends than spouses. After a couple of meltdowns she's behaving quite maturely and although there has been a lot of pain throughout this whole experience I don't feel there is any reason for me to hang on to any bitterness moving forward.

So for all you guys who are going through this, on those days when you feel like shit, like your life is over please stop and understand that your hurt is temporary, it is not the end of the world, you will survive, you will emerge stronger and better, and YOU WILL BE HAPPY AGAIN!

Live, learn, live some more.

 

[minister]

Good move to try counseling, however you are correct when you said this guy uses a script, in other words they treat everybody the same, and we are all different, my advice would be to get counseling with someone that has some spiritual experience, like a Christian counselor, sometimes these things are deeper than the mind my friend, it goes to the soul, I have counsel many people from a spiritual perspective and the results have been phenomenal, I wish you the best, Try to hang on to your marriage with everything you got, marriage is a precious institution and a blessed union. Wishing you the best, God bless you.