I believe I am under emotional abuse from my wife and desperately need support. Also since I understand the feeling I can sympathize others.
So, here’s how it goes for us: she can go totally ballistic over something (ranging from me destroying a spiderweb on the balcony, me getting distracted and including cases when I do say something stupid), then he screams for hours, accuses me of everything, making rounds in tiresome “arguments”, then demanding affection and so on so force. Then, of course, she will tell me that I started all that hell and demands stuff. If I point to her that I have no way to end here rage, she says: of course you have: don’t do ever do what starts it (I wish I knew what that is!). I can go on and on describing all this madness and the horrible situation I live in. I guess this will sound familiar to anyone who experienced it, and he can fill in all the details.
The worst part of this is that I love this person and what to help her, but don’t see a way. I already walked of relationship with here, and somehow she convinced me that she has changed. It was ok for almost a year and now I feel like I’m running out of options.
Never been emotionally abused by a partner but I was as a child. Every victim of emotional abuse I have ever known is happier and healthier without the abuser in their life. It sounds like she’s been given plenty of chances to change. I think you either have to find a way to deal with her as she is, or let go. I don’t think she is going to change. And I’m sorry for what you’re going through. (Paging Chimera…)
Look, you wouldn’t put up with this sort of thing from a friend now would you? If your partner is not more supportive, kind and loving than a good friend then that’s no partner.
Yes I understand that. But for some reason I want to think that this is not who she really is. She’s got good sides to, you know. And of course I keep hoping that this time she finally understands what she does to me.
When she’s not in her abusive mode are the two of you able to talk calmly about the relationship? Does she agree that things need improvement?
You have to look out for your own interests, emotionally. My understanding (though not from experience) is that in good relationships both people support each other emotionally. If you aren’t getting what you need from her, and she isn’t willing to change that it might be best to move on.
I don’t treat commitment lightly at all, but you can’t be the only committed partner.
Good for you for seeing her good traits, but consider carefully whether it’s enough to offset the bad times. And that might be a good place to start a conversation with her. “Hey, I like when this, this , and this happen, but when you scream I feel _______, and ______.”
So If I’m understanding this correctly she turns into an abusive lunatic because you touch cobwebs on the balcony the wrong way ?
As long as your not leaving out any other important details. Sounds like she needs help. Therapy, medication etc. But most importantly you need to get the hell out of that living situation , considering you appear to be her emotional punching bag to get the crazy out of her head.
No we can’t. As soon as she hears something she doesn’t want to it goes off the track. She also thinks that this is not her problem but mine: apparently it is my responsibility to calm here down. And if I couldn’t - it was me who brought hell in according to her views.
It actually did happen this way. When in this and similar cases I later point out how ridiculous her response is for something, she would tell that it was not because of some small/stupid thing (or phrase that I said or bad joke), but because of the deep and bad feeling that she had (as a result of that) and that she is not crazy to start screaming after I destroyed the cobweb, she was just really upset, and to suggest that this was because of me destroying that is offensive to her (the argument doesn’t make sense to me at all, should it?)
Stop making excuses. Get out. Look out for number one. No one else will.
If you could see what a proper, happy relationship looks like, you’d cry for it. A relationship is wonderful, if nurtured properly. Your woman is not the right woman.
This seems to be the overriding desire on your part: to make her see what she’s doing and then change herself. You know it will *never *happen. You will stay with her until you finally realize come to grips with it. How much longer do you want to drag this out for?
Rumata, personally, I respect you for trying to help someone who obviously needs help, but you need to set your limits. You can’t give up years of happiness just to help one person.
Instead of taking steps to correct her behavior, your wife denies her problems exist. Even worse, she blames you for the way she’s behaving. Denial and manipulation is a pretty difficult combination to deal with. She’s not going to admit her problems and will actively prevent your attempts at exposing them. Is this something you want to spend years of your life dealing with?
If you answered yes, then I would recommend that you see a therapist. Yes, you and not your wife because you’re going to need professional help to deal with her. The sad truth is that she has been with you for almost a year and she’s still the same. Therefore, it looks like you don’t know how to change her on your own. A therapist can also provide you with much better insights into her behavior that you can ever hope to learn from an internet message board.
Your wife will need therapy as well, eventually. But the hard part will be getting her to go and getting her to take therapy seriously. Because it’s very easy to subvert therapy if you don’t want to change. You need help with this. Find a professional to help you, and good luck.
My buddy married a woman who would go ballistic all the time. He tried therapy, but it didn’t do any good. Finally divorced her. Best thing he ever did.
So I echo what some of the others are saying: she won’t change. Let her be someone else’s problem.
The answer is real simple but you might end up divorced. You clean up your side of the street being honest with yourself and then you hold her responsible for her actions and don’t back off one inch. At 30 years old I had spastic bowels, ulcers and chronic acid reflux from holding stuff in. Dr. advised me to stand up to my wife, she broke everything in the house trying to get me to submit, I left and came back a week later and she was an angel. She started back up but I never backed down again. 10 years later we divorced but she still has remained very close to me. I just won’t put up with crazy ass shit.
When my first marriage was breaking up I suspected that a lot of what was wrong could be linked to what seemed like my husband’s untreated mental illness. I don’t know if there was mental illness because he refused to be screened, declaring that even if he were diagnosed he wouldn’t follow any prescribed treatment.
During that time I was talking through things with a dear friend. I said “but he’s sick. I wouldn’t leave him for having cancer.” Her response was, “you would if he wouldn’t get help.” And that made a lot of sense to me.
This is the thing that will forever stop anything that you or anyone else does from having any effect on her behavior. Even if she admits no one but she can control her behavior, and works on it with a therapist, it will take years before she is able to act like a regular person. Until she accepts that NOTHING WILL CHANGE.
If you stay, she’ll interpret that as you agreeing with her and she’ll stay stuck.
This sounds like my mother, who has narcissistic personality disorder. If this is what is wrong with your wife, then you have no option but to get out of the marriage ASAP. There is no medication, or form of therapy that works on these people.