I (33M) got married 1.5 months ago to my wife (31F) after a very short engagment of 6 months.
It was not exactly an arranged marriage, but it was hasty due to cultural reasons, I can confidently say that we did not have enough time to really get to know eachother and more importantly get to know ourselves and what we think about eachother.
Our honeymoon was a full of arguments and fights during which my wife showed behaviour in responding to fights that is very strange to me, my family and the way I was raised.
During any big fight, she would go through three stages, the first stage is the aggressive one, where she would freely say anything abusive and insulting without any restraint, verbal abuse would reach unfathomable levela and within our cultural norms are considered disastrous.
The second stage is breakdown, during which she would collapse crying and repetadly say “I want my father”, her father died couple of years ago.
The third stage is an egotistic stage, during which she plays calm and as if she doesnt care about me or that I am not worthy of her, and that my entire existence will not even bother her a bit.
I have never replied to her insults or abuse and always kept my mouth shut as I was in shock.
She did not show true remorse for those actions,she is however trying to make it look as if things are normal.
Thats the issue from her side, as for me, since honeymoon, I have been very depressed, anxious, have supressed anger and just cant live a normal married life with her, intimacy and physical relationships are virtually non existant, add to that that I am currently always nostalgic to single days, regret marriage and even have growing feelings that I was better off single.
To be fair though, I have lived 33 years without any romantic relationship, so that may not be totally on her, but she aggrevated those feelings.
I just cant get over the insults and verbal abuse, I feel this marriage is a lost cause
.
When we discuss those matter, she only says that I hold a grudge over nothing and my heart is not clean.
“tl;dr” is there any hope for a marriage that managed to generate all those bad feeling on honeymoon?
8 comments
You’ve already acknowledged that you guys married too soon. I don’t know about these “cultural reasons” but everyone, no matter what culture, can benefit from some counselling.
Take you and your wife to marriage counselling, see if there is something that can be worked on/ worked out. You haven’t elaborated on why the fights are happening. Perhaps you’re also not meeting her expectations as a husband ;as she is clearly not meeting yours as a wife).
Don’t give up on it so quickly, every marriage has its troubles, it’s how you handle them that makes/breaks a marriage
You should go to counselling. Counselling will help you both learn to communicate effectively.
Couples therapy is so great my guy. My wife suggested it. It’s covered through my work. BAM. Happy couple. Times are tough again? Go back! You got to put the effort in. Marriage is fucking hard.
My wife and I married after knowing each other only three months. We fought hard and bad before and after the court house ceremony. We had two kids quickly. We went through some bad shit including a short separation but stuck it out, mainly for the kids I suppose. We didn’t have cultural issues but were just broken people who learned to love each other, and our kids today are highly successful adults who have no idea what we went through in order to help them get to where they are. We have been married 39 years this year. As others have said, counseling might help but damn brother, I feel your pain and wish you the best.
This is not a reflection on your marriage, but I just wanted to acknowledge that arranged marriages do happen. Having a friend of the family who went through with that, I know the family pressure and ultimately divorce was best – before kids. For you, you can see the fit is not there. It will not appear magically. It seems you were happy, not married. It is sad this is viewed as not ok by so many. Think about how you can get out without blaming others. Be as respectful as you can.
Her verbal abuse is horrible for you, for her, and for the health of the marriage. It is also a signpost. Where you stay quiet and secretly think negative thoughts about the marriage, she says them out loud. It’s worse, but it’s not THAT different. Your feelings are conveyed too, just more quietly.
Getting to the root of what she is angry about would be helpful. So instead of not responding to her anger and just waiting it out. What if you said, “hey, when you calm down, I’d like to talk about this and figure out what can help both of us feel better about x next time”.
Don’t expect a mature response from her. She may not be that mature yet. But it doesn’t sound like you are mature with relationships either. You are just more respectful/quiet. But doesn’t mean you’re skilled. You both have to WANT to become more skilled and work as a team. But when either of you think, “I don’t want to be on her team” it causes the other person to get triggered and act the same.
But if you go TOWARDS the person instead and say essentially, “I like you, I want to be on your team, let’s figure this out.” Then that person can start using their prefrontal cortex (not their amygdala). When the person is using their amygdala, their intelligence level can go down 20 points! They are not their usual self. You can help her (and yourself) calm the amygdala.
Divorce.
This coming from a guy married forty-six years to the same wonderful women, it sounds like you two need to see about going to both individual and couples counseling. The first years of marriage are always the toughest, as that is when you really start to know about the person you married. As much as we try to be open and honest when we are dating, we are always presenting our best side to the other person, even when you had disagreements. It’s not until we are married and get to be with that person 24/7 that we see all facets of each other. That is when our marriage vows/commitment is tested. To see if we are willing to put in the work to make the marriage last. The following number (855-382-5433) is to an organization that should be able to provide the necessary counseling resources in your area if you don’t have or know of any.