Throwaway for obviosu reasons.
We’re both 42 and have been married for 12 years.
We’re currently separated — I’m staying with friends — because we were fighting so much, due to his absolute belief that I was going to leave him, a belief he’s had as long as we’ve been together.
To be clear he’s a lovely human being, and I love him very much. We’ve got a lot in common and he can make me laugh more than anyone I know. He’s kind and considerate, and would do anything to help anyone. But when he gets anxious it’s as though he becomes someone else.
Usually his anxiety kicks off at night, and he’ll start asking me questions. Sometimes it’s something liek “are you having an affair” but sometimes he’d ask something like “*why* are you having an affair?” and if I then told him that I wasn’t (I’ve never cheated) he’d say “you are or you will, I know that you will” or something like that.
The questions could go on for hours and hours:
* Him: Why are you cheating?
* Me: I’m not
* H: Are you planning to?
* M: No
* H: Have you thought about it?
* M: No
* H: Have you even fantasised about it?
* M: No
* H: What kind of person would make you think about cheating…
… etc.
I moved out because these conversations/arguments were happening every night, and it was breaking me. I was getting 4 hours of sleep a night some nights, and it was affecting my mental health quite severely.
After I left he finally started seeing a therapist — I’d been asking him for 5 years to see one, but he’d never been to one for more than a few sessions, and more recently when I requested he get therapy, he’d refuse. He’d also refuse couples therapy, saying “you only go to couple’s therapy if your marriage is already dead”).
But now he’s been seeing a therapist for a while (he’s had about 5 sessions, 3 with the therapist he’s decided is a good fit) and he tells me his behaviour has changed, that he’s aware of the anxiety, and working hard at dealing with it better. He tells me that those arguments wouldn’t happen anymore.
He’s desperate for me to move home. At first, he wasn’t happy about me staying in a hotel, trying to persuade me to move into an apartment to save money on the hotel room. But more recently when it’s come up he’s completely reversed that position: he wants to know that I can come home at the drop of a hat.
We’ve been seeing a couple’s therapist, finally, and things seem to have gone well there, though she’s now told us that we’re better off working with our indivudal therapists and only seeing her occasionally.
Here’s the problem: I’ve been seeing my therapist since December, because my mental health was bad and I was having suicidal ideations.
A couple of weeks ago I was telling my therapist a story about some argument from the past and she said “Oh <name>, that’s abuse.” And it stopped me in my tracks.
I’ve had friends say that my husband’s behaviour was abusive, and I’ve not listened to them, or stopped talking to them, because I didn’t agree. I’ve had friends just sort of give me a look when I’ve been talking about some argument that we’d had (in broad strokes because I don’t want to share all our dirty laundry but I’ve been obviously upset at work or something) and tell me “listen, if you ever need a place to crash…”
But now my therapist has said it and I don’t know what to do. My husband wants me to come home, promising he’s changed, and I don’t know how to say that what’s stopping me is that my therapist called something he did abusive and I don’t know how to process it.
Should I tell him what my therapist said? Should I go back and trust that he’s changed, but set some boundaries? He says that the only way he can feel safe with me moving back is if he can be sure I won’t leave again — he’s worried that if he gets it wrong, or falls back to his old behaviour, if he’s not absolutely perfect, then I’ll leave, and that basically we can never be happy.
He’s a good man and he deserves happiness and love. I just don’t know how to get myself out of this mess that I’m in.
13 comments
You should discuss it in marriage counseling.
That the marriage counselor says you both need to focus on individual therapy means you are very far away from being a couple again.
You should get your own place.
And continue therapy.
This is absolutely abuse, and it’s the kind of abuse that that can relatively easily escalate to a level that puts your safety in jeopardy. When you couple unregulated emotions with an insistence that you have cheated (or will cheat) on him, it is not too difficult to conceive of a scenario where he does something to ensure that doesn’t ever happen and/or that you can never leave.
To your initial question – I would not tell him that your therapist called it “abuse” if you have any plans to stay with him, because your therapist (and any other similar outside input) will become another threat to him and he may try to limit your access to those options.
Really, though, this sounds like a very dangerous situation to me. I would not go back to live with someone who already telling you that his anxiety is worse, not better, after therapy. My advice is to get even further away, not go back closer.
He doesnt sound ready to be in a relationship. Do NOT move back in. Let his therapist address his behaviors with him. He is still being controlled by his anxiety and he needs more time to stabalize the changes he needs to make in his life. How long have you been seperated and how long has he been seeing an individual therapist?
I think it’s something you should raise in couples therapy before moving back home.
Why do you think he’s changed? Is it because he told you he changed? Change = actions. Where are the actions of change? Just his pestering about you moving back in tells me he hasn’t changed.
He’s abusive. Avoid marriage counseling until you get a lot more individual therapy. And I would absolutely not disclose anything to him. It’s not his business and will only give him fuel to abuse you further. He’s emotionally blackmailing you and trying to control you by saying if you come back you can’t leave.
He’ll be a better man when he matures, and will deserve happiness and love when he treats his next partner with respect.
You already have gotten out of this mess by moving out. You stay out of this mess by getting divorced.
So he was terrified that you would cheat and now he has shifted it to terrified that you will leave again.
He’s got his own issues of anxiety and he is using you to get that validation to soothe his anxiety, at your expense.
That’s the abuse. Instead of learning to cope with his fears, he attacks you till you make him feel better.
Do NOT move back in with ANY kind of promise to stay. In fact I would only move back it with the opposite. The promise to leave forever if he pushes you away ONE MORE TIME.
He NEEDS to see his own therapist and work on this HIMSELF. It’s not something you can do for him.
Honestly for how long you have already accepted this, brushed it off, and enabled him, I doubt he will ever take you seriously.
You taught him how to treat you. Even choosing your abuser over your friends who saw what’s what.
I would just file for divorce. Reach out to those friends you pushed away. Start a new life. A learn what boundaries actually are.
But at the very least, tell him you can move back when he understands this is not going to fly anymore and you WILL leave for good if he tries it again.
He’s only had a few therapy appointments. His behavior has only changed because you aren’t there for him to question you.
Give it some more time and get yourself straight before thinking of going back into that situation if you want to stay married at all.
He hasn’t changed after three sessions of therapy. I promise you that.
And you have no idea whether this therapy is actually going to address his issues. For some people, a therapist who is a “good fit” is one who does not make them uncomfortable by holding them accountable and being honest about their behavior or prognosis.
It will take MONTHS for you to know whether his therapy is doing him any good. And he needs to be working on himself, for himself, not as a means to get you back. Would he continue insidiously therapy if reconciliation wasn’t on the table? If not, the effort isn’t real.
But to answer your question — if you are going to speak to him, do it within the context of your couples therapy. It might be helpful for him to hear. But you’re also not obligated to tell him.
This is abuse. His pestering caused you to be severely shortchanged on sleep– that’s a combo of emotional and physical abuse. He’s allowed to have anxiety, but he’s not allowed to assume his anxiety is correct, and to essentially torture you while he asks a million unnecessary questions which are all just variations of one question.
The only way for him to get you to come back was for him to go to therapy (which he’d rarely done while you were still with him and had pestered him for years) and for him to change his behavior. He likely has changed his behavior, but it won’t stick.
He likely knows his behavior was abusive; I don’t see how a good therapist could avoid breaking it to him. If you go back to him, he’ll eventually go back to his old habits, and he’ll defend his actions like “this is how I am, you’ll just have to deal with it”. Or “Please just answer my questions.”
Honey, his abuse was bad enough that multiple friends immediately offered you a way to escape, even without being told details. This ain’t gonna get fixed.
Every human deserves the opportunity to seek love, yes. But this man is not entitled to receiving your love. He’s proven that he can’t properly take care of his “things”, if you’ll excuse my referring to you as property.
He is not a good man. Being wonderful 90% of the time doesn’t excuse literally torturing you– forcible sleep deprivation is torture– and whatever he does that makes y’alls “arguments” abusive. Even the most evil people to ever have existed, aren’t evil every second of every day.
He may not ever hit or kill you, but your life is clearly in danger if you go back– I’m sure your therapist will agree that your husband is the primary trigger for your current mental health issues.
Ten bucks says he’s having an affair. He’s worried you behave like he does or think the ways he does.
He’s projecting.
Telling him your therapist thinks it’s abuse is pointless. Abusers are not self aware and it will serve no purpose other than to make him angry.
No…do not tell him that if he is truley working on getting better. It could get him to just quit trying to improve.
There *will* be a time to bring it up…in love. But picking the wrong time could backfire.
You do realize there are tons of divorced women on this sub giving advice because they subconsciously want you to join their club. You must be listening to ppl who desperately want your marriage to thrive…like me.
I’d go with how much this hurts you. Meet for coffee only. Go slow. Tell him you want to move back with him and make love. But he has to figure out his inner demons of self doubt.
Maybe tell him that after X number of IC appointments you’d like to meet with him and his counselor so they both can explain what the heck is going on.
What books has his therapist recommended? Read those yourself. The point being he must be able to articulate his assessment of his issues before you move back. Remind him you want to! Remind him you really do love him.
Patience and love are difficult. Hopefully at the meeting he might admit it was abusive on his own. That might be the time to bring it up if he doesn’t.
Throwing that word in his face in anger might backfire.