This all possibly stems from a traumatic event my wife experienced. 10 years ago, me, my brother, and my wife (then girlfriend) were in rural Thailand, and her back was hurt from being on a motorcycle for too long. We stayed in a hotel, and she believed my brother and I were going to abandon her there. She overheard us talking about how to get her to a hospital, and misunderstood. Since then, she doesn’t like to be around my brother. When we got married, I promised her that she’d never have to see him again. Later, she amended that to be that our children will never see him either. I have a problem with that. I am very close to my brother. He is my identical twin. Often, when I bring up the issue, she gets very upset. For example, we were driving, and I mentioned the possibility of moving into the same neighborhood as him, so our children can grow up with their cousins. She got so upset that she started screaming, sped up the car to dangerous speeds, and started shaking the steering wheel, almost fishtailing. We were on a windy stretch of highway with a cliff on one side. I kept yelling at her to stop the car and pull over, but she wouldn’t. The end result of all this is that for a long time (with some recent exceptions) we didn’t see my brother’s family, and I would avoid mentioning him, and when I talked on the phone to him, I would do it out of earshot of her.
She has many other complaints about him, but they are mostly irrational. She says he’s an emotional abuser. She also says I’m an emotional abuser. And her brother, sister, father, and aunt are also abusers. I haven’t really met them, so I don’t know.
We saw a couple’s therapist, and the therapist agreed that I am an abuser. My wife would exaggerate things, make some things up, and say that I was lying. The therapist believed her. After several brutal sessions, I couldn’t take it, and stopped going. I had a personal therapist that I saw a few times. He became our couple’s therapist. The same thing happened with him. He believed her story, didn’t believe mine, and said that I was an abuser. He had me go to a batterer group for 3 hours a week (plus 2 hours driving). He had me read a book about abuse, with instructions to not consider my wife as an abuser when reading it. The book said that women can’t be abusers. He instructed me to have specific thoughts, every time I thought badly of my wife. Almost every waking hour of my life was spent thinking about abuse. I couldn’t concentrate on anything else. They had me convinced that I was an abuser. After all, two therapists in a row, and my wife, say so. I think part of what convinced me was it was a way to repair our marriage. If I’m an abuser, that’s something I can fix.
These are the points they made, that makes me an abuser:
* How I handled the previously mentioned back injury. In retrospect, I should have left the bike, and took a bus with her to the city. Instead, we stayed at the hotel for a few days until her back was better.
* During the same Thailand trip, one day I was upset that we had to walk so much. My brother was the one who suggested the hike, but I took my anger out on my wife, by saying something like “you made me do all this walking.”
* During the same trip, I sided with my brother over a discussion about who gets what bed at an AirBnb. He was ok with either bed, as long as you don’t walk by it in the middle of the night. My wife disagreed.
* For about 6 months, I slacked off on chores. My wife did about 15% more than me.
* I’m entitled. Since I worked during our relationship (until our daughter was born), and she didn’t, I feel like I deserve to work less now. I mentioned that I struggled with this to my therapist, when I was seeing him personally. He told my wife this, without my consent. Now it’s a “thing” that I’m entitled, even though I don’t act like it other than the previously mentioned slacking off on chores.
* I told my wife she had bad breath once, 8 years ago, and another time I said she smelled, after we got off a plane. The therapist said this was cruel, but my intentions were just to let her know.
* One weekend, visiting my brother’s family, she says I was passive aggressive to her, after I saw a photo that upset me. I am certain she is lying about some things that happened that weekend, and I don’t remember being angry.
* I gaslight her about the previously mentioned weekend, by saying I don’t remember being angry. (But I really don’t remember that, and I asked my brother, and he doesn’t either.)
* She says that often when I’m around my brother, I become passive aggressive towards her.
* I am unsafe around our daughter. For example, riding my electric bike around her. (The bike weighs 110 pounds)
* I wanted our daughter to have a later bedtime. She cries every single night when put to bed, and I hate hearing that.
* I wanted to go to a weekly storytime event with my daughter, but not with my wife. My goal was to make friends who are parents. I did, and my wife said I was emotionally cheating on her, and controlling by not wanting her to go with me.
* I couldn’t find my checkbook for a few weeks, and didn’t write my wife a check until I found it. She says this was financial abuse.
* Our baby (4 months old) was crying, while we were in the drive-thru. I became upset at my wife, because she wouldn’t take her out of the car seat, and comfort her.
I’m not a great person, but I don’t think the previous points are enough to brand me an abuser, although I understand that her behavior is in response to trauma that I caused, and I take responsibility for that.
In contrast, this is what she does to me:
* Yells, screams, and lectures at me all the time. There will be months where it happens every day, often for hours. She will call me names like retard, or tell me that I will be alone forever. She will sometimes wake me up to yell at me. A common theme in her lectures is that I’m an abuser, and then she will go over past grievances, like the above mentioned ones. There are things that I have apologized for over a hundred times, not exaggerating. In her mind, things are distorted so that I’m a monster. I.e. me asking “Can you get me a blanket?” becomes “Get me a blanket!” in a mean tone. In our “fights”, I rarely get a word in. There are often long pauses where she’s waiting for me to say something, but if I do, my point will be ignored and she will instantly change the subject or she will get angry.
* Sometimes, if I talk back to her too much, she will get so upset that she kind of snaps. I remember one time she repeated “I’m abused!” slowly over and over while crying hysterically. I think this is PTSD. It’s awful to see. I have panic attacks sometimes (unrelated to her), so I sort of understand.
* When she’s yelling at me, if I try to leave, she will chase me, or physically block me from leaving. I have given up trying to leave.
* Her screaming at me is sometimes in front of our daughter. She has also directly told our daughter negative things about me. I don’t recall exactly, but it was probably that I’m an abuser.
* Threatens to divorce me, and get full custody of our daughter. This happened weekly for about a year. This is used as a tactic to get me to do something, like to continue to go to the batterer group, or to continue to see the therapist, or to say something.
* She had me unlock my phone, and saw that I had two new contacts as of the day before. She made me leave the whatsapp group I just joined, and banned me from going to storytime at the library (where I met them), and I was banned from talking to one of them if I ever saw her around. Weeks later this was amended so that I can go if my wife also goes. She threatened to message them and tell them I’m an abuser. Making friends with parents who share kids the same age as mine was a goal I had. I don’t make friends easily, so this was a huge blow. I currently don’t have any real friends.
* I believe she tells some of our mutual acquaintances, my family, and our neighbors that I’m an abuser. She’s denied the latter, but I’m not sure.
* I am not allowed to take our daughter anywhere my brother is.
* She is angry often. For example, sitting in the car while I’m driving, I can tell she is stewing about something, which often means a talking-to later in the day. It’s stressful to be around.
* There are a myriad of rules that she has for me, that she doesn’t follow herself. I.e. giving our daughter sugar.
I want to stress how uncomfortable it is to be in a batterer group, surrounded by people who are court ordered to be there. Violent people. Week after week. Following the program. Our therapist said I am worse than them, because emotional abuse is worse than physical abuse, because it doesn’t leave marks.
I became so depressed a couple of months ago, that something had to give. She did her usual thing where she threatened to divorce me, and I said ok, let’s divorce. I had realized that my life would be significantly improved without her. I packed a bag and she realized I was serious. She convinced me to stay. Since then, things have changed a lot.
A lot of her rules have been lifted. Other rules I’ve decided not to follow. She is allowing us to see my brother’s family sometimes. I can see she is still angry sometimes, but far less often, and she doesn’t yell. There is still tension between us, but it feels like things are almost repaired.
Now, she says I have autism. Her belief is that my bad behavior is due to autism, so it’s forgivable. It feels really nice to finally be forgiven. She has us seeing a new couple’s therapist, who specializes in relationships with an autistic person. It’s unclear to me if this is real, or it’s just another way for her to manipulate me. This therapist says I have autism. But my wife is very adept at getting therapists on her side. She has a degree in psychology. I am trying to get independently diagnosed. I’ve talked to my PCP, a therapist, and a psychologist, and they all don’t believe I have autism. I’m waiting on another referral to someone who is more specialized in autism. I hope I have mild autism, and that is the cause, and solution to our relationship issues.
What do you all think about this whole situation? Am I an abuser? Sometimes I go back to thinking I am. Is my wife an abuser? How do I support my wife through her trauma, when her trauma is aimed at me? How do I know if I have autism? The referral to a new psychologist might not happen. It’s been weeks. Is going to this new autism-specific therapist a bad idea, if I don’t actually have autism? Even though things are better, I sometimes feel angry about what she’s put me through, and the fact that I’m angry at her makes me feel like a terrible partner. How do I get past this?
32 comments
Man I mean, your title says that your wife and her therapist both think you are an abuser, and your very first sentence is about deflecting blame onto your wife so like, idk what to tell you.
>I’m entitled. Since I worked during our relationship (until our daughter was born), and she didn’t, I feel like I deserve to work less now. I mentioned that I struggled with this to my therapist, when I was seeing him personally. He told my wife this, without my consent. Now it’s a “thing” that I’m entitled, even though I don’t act like it other than the previously mentioned slacking off on chores.
You mean that you “deserve” to work less now because you think that your pregnant wife wasn’t doing her fair share?
TBH all around it sounds like you guys both suck and have a horrible relationship and would be better off alone. You’re probably mutually abusive but the fact that two different therapists, including *your own therapist* said that you were abusive makes me think you’re not being fully candid here. A lot of what you said just doesn’t make any sense. For example:
>I couldn’t find my checkbook for a few weeks, and didn’t write my wife a check until I found it. She says this was financial abuse.
So you owed your wife money, and you didn’t give it to her for “a few weeks” because you “couldn’t find your checkbook?” Does venmo not exist? ACH? There was no other way to get her the money or try a little harder to look for your checkbook?
I am inclined to believe your wife, that this was in fact a power play and you are, years later, lying about what happened or at least intentionally hiding your motivations.
I feel terrible for your child, and what you are putting this poor kid through. This is a wildly dysfunctional environment, at the very least.
Jesus dude. This is a lot. From the therapist claiming that women can’t be abusers to you feeling like you just shouldn’t have to work as much anymore because you “already did,” with KIDS in the mix, this whole relationship sounds like a shitshow. She’s definitely waving more red flags than you but some of your attitudes are for sure concerning. Letting her isolate your kids from your family just because she misunderstood an interaction a decade ago, the “I feel entitled to work less even though we have kids to provide for” mindset, all not great. But the real abuser here sounds like it’s her. She badmouths you to anyone and everyone, INCLUDING your child, screams at you, turns people against you with manipulation tactics out the ass….. Like I don’t see why you’d still want to be married to her. It doesn’t sound like you are sharing the entire truth either so I’m not inclined to believe that you’ve never, ever been abusive or awful to her in similar ways, as *multiple therapists* have come to the conclusion that you’re abusive in some regard.
ETA: based on OP’s comments both of you sound like you are angry, unhappy, and mutually abusive and that divorce sounds like a great idea.
Wth kind of therapist you been seeing? I’m a therapist/couple counselor. Ik both men and women can be abuser and would never discredit the possibility of it.
Maybe you guys are just toxic together. Some people just aren’t meant to be together.
Is this how you want to live your life?
Are you getting any meaningful benefit from therapy (individual or marital)?
Are you truly making your best effort to make this marriage work, or you just over it?
Maybe you should just take some time alone to think these things through. Continue to work on improving yourself as a person. Even if this marriage doesn’t work you don’t want to continue to repeat this drama in the future. Figure out those thought/ behavior patterns that are negative and how to avoid that behavior in the future.
Neither one of you seem to be bringing the best out in each other. Could just be time to retire this marriage and work on being a better person.
Honestly OP this one is above Reddit’s pay grade. I feel there are too many nuances that we as readers would not understand and our biases would fill in the gap to take one side or the other based on our own life experiences and assumptions.
My suggestion to you is to move on. I believe this relationship has run its course and you both make each other miserable. You both have suffered and caused suffering and neither of you deserve this. You need to detach to fully heal from what you have done and also from what has been done to you. Also your child(ren) should not be subjected to all this and deserve(s) a peaceful and safe environment to grow up in.
As a child who was also subjected to very similar conditions (mom was abusive cause bipolar, dad did nothing which was arguably worse), I _still_ struggle so much, especially to form lasting relationships. I randomly hear my mom screaming in pin drop silence and spent a lot of my teenage years hoping they would both drop dead, which is a terrible thing to say but I just wanted it to _stop_. It has caused me life time trauma and I wish my parents had separated instead of sticking together and letting their issues fester and grow
Your child(ren) deserve(s) the best in both of you and not whatever this is.
The one thing that seems to be true is that both of you feel that you are a victim and abused by the other. There might never be a single truth here. Ultimately, it might not matter that much. Can you spend time apart? Live separately. Go to individual therapists who do not know or communicate with each other. Use a parenting app to manage child care. If this has to be divorce, then so be it. Otherwise, separation or something similar. Whatever is going on with you both will not be made better by continuing as you are and you have a kid.
Are we all just going to ignore that their baby is 4 months old?
Sir, treat your wife with respect, you are being entittled and spoiled. She is also being toxic.
This is a mess, you are leaving things out and really focusing on the bad of her. Maybe just let it go? Be happier alone.
Yeah, I’m getting wildly abusive vibes from this BS post.
I think y’all’s relationship sucks and you both resent and mistrust each other. I don’t think it matters whether you or her are abusive, whether you have autism, etc. If you want to pursue an autism diagnosis, go ahead, but that doesn’t have much to do with anything in the post. Regardless of the abuse claims, you and your wife are both unhappy, and if it were me, I’d at least pursue a trial separation.
You are coming across as an unrelible narrator, tbh, and the main thing I feel I can say for sertain from this post is that you two are clearly not good for each other and get the worst out of each other.
As a side note, your wife doesnt just dislike you spending time with your brother because of a silly little misunderstanding a decade ago. You yourself admit that you tend to be less nice to your wife when you’re around him, due to being more active and it affecting your blood sugar or something along those lines? Harping on about her overreacting over a misunderstanding 10 years ago might be *a* reason, while ignoring and not being up front about this other thing that seems to be *the* reason, seems a lot like missing missing reasons and it makes it hard to trust your narrative. I wouldnt want my partner to spend time around people who made him meaner to me either, tbh
Can you clarify the work thing? Your wife didn’t have a job and an income the whole duration of your relationship until after your daughter was born or was she just not working while pregnant?
OP,
No one can possibly give you the validation you are looking for, because it sounds like in this situation its not going to be clear to anyone on the outside if either one of you are being abusive. Quite frankly, from your post, my suspicion is you are both exhibiting abusive behaviours.
What I think it’s important here, is no matter which if either of you are the main perpetrator, normal therapy, couples or individual, is damaging when a truly abusive person is involved.
Honestly, I hate saying break up on here. But do. For the sake of your kid. I believe that separate peaceful homes/ parents are better than one angry & toxic one.
Everyone in the comments is trying to decide if you are the abuser or if your wife is. The truth, I suspect, is that both of you are incredibly abusive and toxic to each other. No counseling is going to be able to sort this out, especially since both of you are focused on blaming each other instead of fixing your own individual behavior. You know who the true victim is in all of this? Your daughter. For her sake, separate and divorce. Set up legal custody and visitation. Communicate with each other only through lawyers. Focus on being a good parent to your daughter. Counseling can help you with that.
Bro
You’re both toxic together.
Well, that’s a lot, and ur now playing the game of well they are worse than me because. It’s time to call it quits. u both sound bad, and ur probably making each other bad, part to get payback with each other and part to show the other they are the worst . Call it quits for the kids’ sake
Divorce. That’s the only answer needed for this. Just end it already. No kid needs to be raised in the middle of all this.
I think this story sounds fake as hell. Some bullshit to ragebait people.
There is so much to say about this post – but it sounds like you’re both toxic people. Individually, and to one another. I feel awful for your child who has to grow up in this dynamic. Y’all need to get the hell away from each other and focus on not messing up your kid.
I got a headache just from reading this clusterfuck.
Honestly, y’all both sound insufferable and miserable together. Assuming what you describe as true, you’re *both* being abusive to each other. I feel for the 4-month-old between y’all because that’s the primary victim here. Your household sounds chaotic as hell.
Are you potentially autistic? That’s certainly nothing no one here can determine; you’d need a formal assessment from a qualified clinician. You want an assessment? Sure, if you want? Don’t know how pertinent it is.
Having your own individual therapist is probably not a bad idea. Couples’ therapy at this point doesn’t seem to effective right now. Currently, you need to acknowledge *your* own biases and respective problems. You also need to consider for yourself if this marriage is something worth saving, cause it doesn’t look that way to me chief.
Your wife should probably have an individual therapist as well — preferably one trauma-informed — to best help her because she ostensibly has some shit to work out too.
That’s even assuming either of you would find individual counseling beneficial at this point. In any case, it’s a hell of lot better than being on this hellsite.
Not abusive but then describes all the ways he’s abusive.
This whole marriage is a shit show. You both need help. It’s awfully convenient that you “can’t remember” incidents she described as abusive but you can recall with clarity all the times you think she was.
For the sake of the child involved, divorce and learn to co-parent. And don’t get married or date. You are way too volatile for that.
Just get a divorce and be good parents to your daughter. That’s the best you can do in this situation.
There’s literally no chance your wife just over reacted and misheard a convo between you and your brother and solely blamed the brother and had banned him forever from your lives based on that. You’re missing a LOT of info out that validates her opinion but going very in depth in order to disprove her. You’re an unreliable narrator and there’s only one reason for that… when you know there’s truth to what she’s saying.
>The book said that women can’t be abusers
What the fuck book were you reading? That’s absolutely not part of the accepted understanding of abuse in the field of psychology.
So you promised your wife you wouldn’t be spending time together with your brother, but somehow, you have multiple anecdotes about times you were hateful to her after seeing your brother?
Why would you promise your wife that you would never see your twin brother again while at the same time saying, you are very close to your brother?
4 month old babies should not have anything but breast milk or formula. Yet your wife has a rule about not giving the baby sugar?? And she breaks it?? And you wanted your wife to take the baby out of the car seat in a moving vehicle, just because the baby was crying? Please give that baby to competent adults, leave your wife, and see an individual therapist.
I’ll be honest, neither of you sound good in this story and the story is 100% from your point of view. All the things you do that you are implicitly dismissing as not a big deal **do** sound like serious problems. I also get the feeling you’re leaving out a LOT about this Thailand trip for her to react the way she did to your brother. All your comments about how you “only occasionally” explode at her when you’re hanging out with him tell me there’s a ton you are leaving out here to try and make yourself sound better.
Reading between the lines it seems like you have a lot of negative interactions with your wife, and contrary to what you clearly think they are not all her fault. If you come off this badly in a story in your own words telling your side of things then I can only imagine how bad the actual truth is.
Does you wife sound emotionally stable? Not really, and the relationship sounds incredibly toxic in BOTH directions. I think you two would be better off apart. You will never change due to therapy because you’re (irrationally IMO) convinced that your wife is capable of manipulating every therapist on earth, and she won’t change because her POV keeps getting externally validated by professionals.
Just end this dumpster fire of a marriage and go your separate ways, the two of you do not work together.
OP, you are an extremely unreliable narrator based on your comments. When you’re with your brother you treat your wife horribly. Why would your wife want to move close to your brother when she’s going to have a bad time?
And you literally listed a whole bunch of abusive behaviors that you have done, but apparently it’s not abuse when *you* do it.
Something definitely feels off here. I am not buying OP’s version of events. I mean, the detailing of events from years ago feels really ick.
All I do know for sure is that if one person in a relationship is super toxic, then both become toxic.
“She has many other complaints…but they are mostly irrational.”
“I slacked off on chores…she did 15% more than me.”
Since she didn’t work while you did, you “deserve to work less now.”
You wanted to go to weekly story time without your wife and make friends with others, who would, I assume only be *your* friends.
You told her no contact with brother then suggested you move nearby to him.
Why would someone take a 4 mo old out a car seat in a drive through?
———
You seem to take no blame even when blame yourself. Something about this post strikes me as off. I just don’t trust your reading of events.
I don’t know if you an abuser, but you are definitely not blameless here.
INFO: what’s the title of the book that says women can’t be abusers?