To divorce or not to divorce - That is the question

[Gerontius]

I like your post above, @Gerontius, but disagree that divorce is to be avoided at all costs. I think when a relationship becomes abusive and starts to corrode one person or both, that people need to act in the interests of their mental/emotional health and life goals. I think that domestic abuse terminates the wedding vows, well before divorce does. Also, if a person has married a predator or even just a narcissist - and people, especially young people, may not realise this until they are already married - then they ought not be pressured to stay with such a person, on account of having married them. Some of these people are really good at putting on a show for a while, until they have their target where they want them.

If a marriage doesn't bring out the best in both people, and allow both people to have peace of mind and to develop themselves positively as human beings, then it's not a healthy marriage. Sometimes counselling can help couples, but only if both are motivated, and they have a decent counsellor, but both of those aren't givens.

I'm a fan of marriage personally and I take it seriously, but there are conditions under which I would discontinue a marriage - and that is if it stopped being healthy, and started seriously damaging one or the other person and their humanity, wellbeing and purpose in life.

This is definitely the "Rest of the Story," as Paul Harvey would have said on the radio.

I always like being optimistic about stuff. Even bad stuff. Down inside I like to think most people could do just fine by actually changing.

But I think it's neat that you brought up the other aspect of the vows--The moment you start seeing people who are abusing one another, it's very likely they were never properly married in the first place. I'd think it's pretty tough to call it a marriage when people go through the motions of getting married without opening themselves up to that actual generosity inside, where they'd never even think of hurting their spouse.

"Marry in haste, repent at leisure" might be good advice for a lot of folks rushing into marriage...how can it be a union of two hearts if people involved don't even know their own heart.

 

[Callistemon]

Glad l can now discuss this but it has taken 7 years to get here with the help of an sensitive autistic handsome guy.

I want to make a little song for you, with apologies to whoever wrote the original...

"He's a sensitive autistic handsome guy..." (to the tune of, He's a sensitive new age guy but do you think I can find that anywhere??? I remember how the chorus goes...very catchy...)

 

[Callistemon]

This is definitely the "Rest of the Story," as Paul Harvey would have said on the radio.

I always like being optimistic about stuff. Even bad stuff. Down inside I like to think most people could do just fine by actually changing.

But I think it's neat that you brought up the other aspect of the vows--The moment you start seeing people who are abusing one another, it's very likely they were never properly married in the first place. I'd think it's pretty tough to call it a marriage when people go through the motions of getting married without opening themselves up to that actual generosity inside, where they'd never even think of hurting their spouse.

"Marry in haste, repent at leisure" might be good advice for a lot of folks rushing into marriage...how can it be a union of two hearts if people involved don't even know their own heart.

And with reasoning and values like that at your relatively young age, you've got a great shot at making marriage work yourself when you find the right person!

I wish half the people who got married thought that hard about the implications and about the work on the self people need to do. But often people are under the misconception that when you meet your knight or knightess in shining armour, everything will be an effortless happy-ever-after. Good relationships require a lot of thought and self-reflection, and good communication, and conflict resolution skills, etc etc etc. I think the popular myths about love relationships have a fair bit to answer for, and in another life I spend a fair bit of time debunking misconceptions about relationships in pop music lyrics.

 

[Thinx]

The thing with relationship therapy, which isn't really like counselling, more like a mix of coaching, counselling and small group work, is that it's very dependent on the involvement of the people who have the relationship. As a relationship therapist, my skills lie in how well I can support those people to work out or get in touch with how they want their unique relationship to be, and what is standing in the way of that happening, and how to address all that.

@Gerontius did a nice job of thinking through what a useful process would look like, and captured that idea that he'd be a kind of detective looking for clues! But a detective in the service of the couple, I don't always need to understand all of the clues and important realisations, as long as they do.

When people have left working on things so long, it's often because they possibly had shaky communication abilities or skills to begin with, as many of us do, and also early attachment issues that need addressing, but which they are unaware of and at a loss to address. If the couple are also an NT / ND / Autie mix then there's additional needs to work with.

Finding a therapist who can help with all this is important, and that person needs to be able to help motivate the 2 people according to their different individual needs, to do this work, which often will touch on deeply ingrained fears around attachment security in early relationships.

I suppose the OP and partner would need to examine what it is they've been hanging on for? If there is still some commitment and hope for a better understanding, which there may be, somewhere deep down, then perhaps the search for a therapist should begin. The issues will not be solved without help and support for both people. And the current way of living seems a difficult and unhappy compromise.

 

[Aspychata]

The thing with relationship therapy, which isn't really like counselling, more like a mix of coaching, counselling and small group work, is that it's very dependent on the involvement of the people who have the relationship. As a relationship therapist, my skills lie in how well I can support those people to work out or get in touch with how they want their unique relationship to be, and what is standing in the way of that happening, and how to address all that.

@Gerontius did a nice job of thinking through what a useful process would look like, and captured that idea that he'd be a kind of detective looking for clues! But a detective in the service of the couple, I don't always need to understand all of the clues and important realisations, as long as they do.

When people have left working on things so long, it's often because they possibly had shaky communication abilities or skills to begin with, as many of us do, and also early attachment issues that need addressing, but which they are unaware of and at a loss to address. If the couple are also an NT / ND / Autie mix then there's additional needs to work with.

Finding a therapist who can help with all this is important, and that person needs to be able to help motivate the 2 people according to their different individual needs, to do this work, which often will touch on deeply ingrained fears around attachment security in early relationships.

I suppose the OP and partner would need to examine what it is they've been hanging on for? If there is still some commitment and hope for a better understanding, which there may be, somewhere deep down, then perhaps the search for a therapist should begin. The issues will not be solved without help and support for both people. And the current way of living seems a difficult and unhappy compromise.

Relationships are so complex. In this case, it's a family unit, and the big divide started. Sometimes this is a result of two people unwilling to talk. Because of attachment styles, they are bent on sabotage because neither party believes they are worthy of love or commitment. If they truly desire and care about each other, they need to step up to the plate and tell that one that they are important. It's hard to do. I know l have open my emotional flood gates and told them this. They refuse to go there.

 

[Aspychata]

The thing with relationship therapy, which isn't really like counselling, more like a mix of coaching, counselling and small group work, is that it's very dependent on the involvement of the people who have the relationship. As a relationship therapist, my skills lie in how well I can support those people to work out or get in touch with how they want their unique relationship to be, and what is standing in the way of that happening, and how to address all that.

@Gerontius did a nice job of thinking through what a useful process would look like, and captured that idea that he'd be a kind of detective looking for clues! But a detective in the service of the couple, I don't always need to understand all of the clues and important realisations, as long as they do.

When people have left working on things so long, it's often because they possibly had shaky communication abilities or skills to begin with, as many of us do, and also early attachment issues that need addressing, but which they are unaware of and at a loss to address. If the couple are also an NT / ND / Autie mix then there's additional needs to work with.

Finding a therapist who can help with all this is important, and that person needs to be able to help motivate the 2 people according to their different individual needs, to do this work, which often will touch on deeply ingrained fears around attachment security in early relationships.

I suppose the OP and partner would need to examine what it is they've been hanging on for? If there is still some commitment and hope for a better understanding, which there may be, somewhere deep down, then perhaps the search for a therapist should begin. The issues will not be solved without help and support for both people. And the current way of living seems a difficult and unhappy compromise.

I never even knew this person had anxiety, because l was hanging on trying to deal with their depression. So l had all my issues that l have worked thru alot. But this person still excites me and l feel like a teenager everytime around them. To be or not be, only they know the answer.

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

I think she sounds a bit toxic and definitely narcissistic. A narcissist typically lacks empathy for most people, think they are more important than others and so are their opinions and thoughts, high sense of entitlement, and the most unsettling characteristic of all being she thinks anyone who disagrees with her is out to get her and jealous of her which is why they are all plotting to humiliate her. I went through this with the woman that helped raise me and eventually abuse me both verbally and emotionally. You need to get out now because things are only going to get worse.

In my case, the narcissistic woman was so convinced that people were out to get her because they were jealous of her and hated her that she formed this paranoid idea that I was plotting with my therapist against her and we were out to get her. She seriously believed this and would force me to tell her after every session exactly what was said and if I didn’t comply, she’d get really made and threatened to punish me for not telling her the “truth” and scared me into telling her because she claimed to have already talked to my therapist on the phone after our session and I should tell her before she “spanked” me. I couldn’t prove that it was or wasn’t true and so I’d tell her not knowing that legally she couldn’t talk to my therapist about our sessions together. Then I’d be smacked anyway and punished for what I said. She used this type of narcissistic behavior into gaslighting me into behaving exactly how she wanted me to act and say exactly what she wanted me to say. She was always the victim and it was everyone else’s fault for her own decisions and how her life turned out.

This woman thought she was the only one who did the work at her one job and that there was this clique that excluded her and made her do all the work and that she was better than them because she did everything while they “lounged around doing nothing” during their shifts together. She claimed that things would have fallen apart without her and that her opinions were better than everyone else’s and that people needed to give her more respect than they already did.

From what I’ve read about your wife it sounds like she’s going down the same path. I let this woman continue to abuse me and control and gaslight me until my mid 20s and I refused to cut her off or try to escape from her completely because I was afraid that she would be right when she claimed that I needed her and could never survive on my own without her “help” and because spending the weekends with her was the only way I got to watch tv and use the internet and play my DS Lite and games which she took away from me and only let me use for one hour at a time while I was with her. She made it so that my apartment would be extremely boring to be in and it was either go with her on the weekends so that I could actually have a tiny bit of entertainment or sit silently in a small apartment with very little to do inside other than staring at the wall the entire weekend. Other people could see things were getting out of hand and that I needed to get away from her. Leave your wife now before she starts threatening you with physical violence. You can never be sure that it won’t end up that way.

 

[Aspychata]

I think she sounds a bit toxic and definitely narcissistic. A narcissist typically lacks empathy for most people, think they are more important than others and so are their opinions and thoughts, high sense of entitlement, and the most unsettling characteristic of all being she thinks anyone who disagrees with her is out to get her and jealous of her which is why they are all plotting to humiliate her. I went through this with the woman that helped raise me and eventually abuse me both verbally and emotionally. You need to get out now because things are only going to get worse.

In my case, the narcissistic woman was so convinced that people were out to get her because they were jealous of her and hated her that she formed this paranoid idea that I was plotting with my therapist against her and we were out to get her. She seriously believed this and would force me to tell her after every session exactly what was said and if I didn’t comply, she’d get really made and threatened to punish me for not telling her the “truth” and scared me into telling her because she claimed to have already talked to my therapist on the phone after our session and I should tell her before she “spanked” me. I couldn’t prove that it was or wasn’t true and so I’d tell her not knowing that legally she couldn’t talk to my therapist about our sessions together. Then I’d be smacked anyway and punished for what I said. She used this type of narcissistic behavior into gaslighting me into behaving exactly how she wanted me to act and say exactly what she wanted me to say. She was always the victim and it was everyone else’s fault for her own decisions and how her life turned out.

This woman thought she was the only one who did the work at her one job and that there was this clique that excluded her and made her do all the work and that she was better than them because she did everything while they “lounged around doing nothing” during their shifts together. She claimed that things would have fallen apart without her and that her opinions were better than everyone else’s and that people needed to give her more respect than they already did.

From what I’ve read about your wife it sounds like she’s going down the same path. I let this woman continue to abuse me and control and gaslight me until my mid 20s and I refused to cut her off or try to escape from her completely because I was afraid that she would be right when she claimed that I needed her and could never survive on my own without her “help” and because spending the weekends with her was the only way I got to watch tv and use the internet and play my DS Lite and games which she took away from me and only let me use for one hour at a time while I was with her. She made it so that my apartment would be extremely boring to be in and it was either go with her on the weekends so that I could actually have a tiny bit of entertainment or sit silently in a small apartment with very little to do inside other than staring at the wall the entire weekend. Other people could see things were getting out of hand and that I needed to get away from her. Leave your wife now before she starts threatening you with physical violence. You can never be sure that it won’t end up that way.

Oh dear. This sounds horrible. So sorry to hear that you dealt with a very controlling abusive female who was your mother. Hope you have had some therapy to help you.