my wife (35F) and I (41M) have been struggling with relationship issues for a while and have been in counseling for over 2 years. we’ve been together for nearly 10 years now. it started because of things I had done to hurt her and our marriage, and I’ve worked tirelessly to become more accountable, more present, and more communicative in a positive way. I’ve worked on being more open and vulnerable despite my better judgement and evidence that when men do this in a damaged relationship, it actually is a turn off for women and more respect is lost.
through the course of therapy both together and individually, my entire focus has been on improving how I interact as a partner and to not do things on a personal level that hurt us like my drug addiction. I’ve been very successful despite my efforts not improving our relationship. I’ve pointed out tirelessly evidence and signs that as I put the tools we’ve been taught to use, she has done the opposite. it’s been frustrating because we’ve basically been spinning our wheels for well over a year now, almost in a worse spot than when we started and I can’t for the life of me get her to see her part in it. she’s changed, drastically, in every way as a partner. cold, distant, always the victim, always responding to issues I bring up with defensive avoidance tactics, blaming, redirecting, or using tit-for-tat “well you do that too” or “I know what you mean because you used to do that” sort of response. NEVER apologizes or truly sees from my perspective. so no empathy. but acts as though or says she does apologize or does see things from my pov. (that being of course when she uses it to diminish or invalidate my concerns by saying she has felt the same before.)
I’ve literally felt like I’m losing my mind lately. fights over nothing. criticism. feeling isolated. nothing I do is right or enough. triangulation with my friends and family. like my dad is always on her side now and I lost my best friend recently after my wife brought her up in a fight we had and lied to me about a Convo they had behind my back. just everything is a mess. I’ve slowly list all control over our finances and found out about insane spending habits which my money was used to pay off literally tens of thousands of dollars in ridiculous Amazon purchases for which I just simply don’t see evidence of in the home. we just simply don’t have that much new stuff and her Amazon account history does not match the credit card purchase totals.
unexplained Google location “mishaps” at very particular times when I feel something is up and request her location stay on and be shared. she will agree and be understanding but then go offline for an hour and not answer my texts then say she never touched her location settings. come up with nonsensical excuses like “I was using my friends home wifi or hotspot” but these locations will be places she’s been a number of times before with no issues to gps.
I’ve found Snapchat accounts she said didn’t exist with only one friend on it who she never mentioned before and said had moved away. the account was wiped clean despite me finding it and saying I need to see what is in there after she said it was nothing.
she flat out and sincerely says she’s never cheated and seems sincere but the evidence says otherwise and the more I dig the more I find. but nothing concrete. just evidence that she is not as forthcoming as she made herself out to be. she’s since deleted that snap account and related email. she has lied about her locked folder in Google files saying she didn’t know what was in it and didn’t know the pin. go back in her phone a week later and the folder isn’t set up anymore.
I think she’s a full blown narcissist and I don’t know how to combat this sort of thing. the whole idea is I’m made to look and feel insane when I challenge her on anything. I’m always the bad guy, always controlling, always the one at fault or not trying. meanwhile she has worked on herself and made career moves with my extra help. she’s made huge changes to her physical appearance too. there’s other evidence like when she tries to kick me out and I oblige and say we’re done, shell Hoover or bring me back in quickly knowing that they’re still something that I can offer IE help watching the kids because she has a week of training or whatever it is. she’ll realize that I am still in some use to her and social take back all the horrible things that she just did or said like threatening to call the cops on me or getting a restraining order and doing just as little as she possibly can to make me feel like okay I can stay but not ever giving in as much as I asked her to to feel better about it.
I feel mind-fucked 24/7. what should I do? we have a house together but it’s her and my dad on it not me because of a bankruptcy that I had that she didn’t help me out of. meanwhile when she get all this credit card debt I was made to feel like I had to help her from going bankrupt. same thing with the family car meanwhile I have no transportation whatsoever for myself. we have two kids together as well. so this isn’t something I can just walk away from because she’ll destroy me in child support anyway.
tl;dr my wife is showing signs of being a legit narcissist and I’m not sure how to handle the situation now that I see it
3 comments
>so this isn’t something I can just walk away from because she’ll destroy me in child support anyway.
How do you know this is true though? Have you talked to a lawyer? Because leaving is your only option right now. Stay and you’ll be destroyed mentally, that’s a guarantee, because your wife doesn’t give a fuck. But automatically jumping to ‘I’m fucked if I leave because of the child support’ seems like your justification to yourself to stay…
There is no winning here. That’s the first thing you need to admit to yourself. There is no way back to a happy family.
She has found power in using your past against you and using your failings against you. And she enjoys that power. That also means she’s unlikely to ever want to give up that power unless forced to and you have no way to force that release. To do that, you’ll need proof.
So what are your options? I see by your comments that you’re relatively certain divorce now would be catastrophic for your future. The only option left is to find some way of balancing the story. The problem is, the only way to do that is to become an admittedly controlling spouse.
First, move to separate finances. Even if she doesn’t work, she can have a separate account that a set amount of money gets deposited to. Credit cards are split as well. You might say that you would lose your ability to track purchases, but you’re already having trouble in that area.
Second, freeze your credit and run a credit report. Wouldn’t surprise me in the least to find credit cards in your name that you don’t know about.
Third, interior and exterior cameras “for security”. Exterior to cover all areas and access to the home. Interior to watch the entrances only but with audio so they pick up activity around them.
And finally, look into a private investigator with the understanding that they are likely to give you answers that you really don’t want to hear.
The problem is, if you follow all of that, she will use it all to demonize you even more. And for anyone not seeing things the way you posted above, she’d come across as correct too. You’re in a tough spot. As I said at the beginning, I don’t think there is a chance for anyone to “win” here. I wish you the best of luck.
Gonna be real here and say that you both sound like absolute nightmares who have been consistently feeding each other’s worst impulses.
Depending on how old your children are, I would seriously consider looking at boarding school scholarships so you can take them ‘off the board’ so to speak in your fighting with your wife. That’s really all I have in terms of productive feedback on this clusterfuck.