Day 3 of taking back my life: I did something I never had done before. I didn’t let myself feel hopeful. My husband was still mad about the soup incident from the night before, he didn’t even go to bed with me. I woke up and tried to act normal but he was still not really engaging. I said I didn’t really sleep well and I was tired and he gave the sarcastic “I feel so bad for you” comment. He has the extremely frustrating thinking pattern where he can say something in a joking way so it’s not being mean, he was just joking. So he did it again, “Why don’t you just do your womanly duty and make me some coffee, I didn’t sleep.”… God I hate that! It makes me want to throw the coffee in his lap. I just kept thinking to myself, don’t show that it bothers you. Well we drank some coffee than I told him I need to get ready because I’m going to church. Apparently something clicked in his mind and he looked at me for the first time all morning and said “well that’s why you are acting all weird, you’re being religious again, go do what you want”. This sounds horrible but it’s not like I want to go to church. I have become extremely dependent on my husband being with me everywhere I go and I’m already a pretty quiet person with a good amount of social anxiety. I do not want to go and put myself in another vulnerable position with a bunch of people I don’t know. I can’t show that I’m extremely nervous to my own husband though, because I know he will use that against me whenever it’s useful to him. So I get ready and say goodbye to my husband, he ignore me because he’s playing a video game so I put my hand on his shoulder, he looks up and says “Go have fun doing whatever you are actually doing”. Why do I do this to myself?!
The church I went to wasn’t really what I was looking for. It was like everyone was there because they didn’t want to go to hell so they were just going through the motions of Christianity. I’m not about to move into another fake situation. When I came home, my husband wasn’t on the couch and that’s actually pretty concerning. What’s more concerning is that he was ripping up all the drywall out of the downstairs. He had found mold that the previous owner had tried to hide. I know this is bad, but I also know his reaction to this is going to be worse so I don’t really care about the mold and this made him even more mad! This is the sad part, I knew about the mold in the basement which is why I bought a dehumidifier. I am so worried these days about telling him anything bad that I was hiding mold in my own house! I just cleaned up a little bit and went to my office because I knew this was about to get bad. For the next two hours he stormed around the house in rage just ripping crap apart, at one point he even left and I had a moment of peace. He was constantly coming into my office demanding me to tell him where I hid his tools or why I wasn’t helping him. Well eventually he calms down and sits on the couch, leaving everything completely torn apart and then he had the audacity to ask what my problem was. I just told him that nothing was wrong, this is me not being emotional like you wanted.
These are the little things that he does to make me go crazy: I just got out some chips and ate them at counter. Eventually he looks up and asks if I was going to hog them all or if I was going to bring them over to him. Whatever, I bring them to him and I start juggling (don’t judge) and he throws the chips on the ground and said he wanted me to eat them with him on the couch. I live with a child. Well eventually I had to leave again to take my dog to the vet for some shots and of course, my husband acts like I’m going to go cheat on him. I come back, he was like well that took forever, I thought she was just getting “shots”. At this point, he seems to have actually calmed down and said that I’m acting like I’m going to leave him again. I just told him I was changing my expectations of our relationship and I’m going to start being who I want to be and I’m not going to worry about what you think anymore. You know what he said? That he was glad that I wasn’t going to leave him because he thinks he’s now prepared to have children! and that if I just wasted all his time with our relationship he was going to be very upset because he’s getting to old to have kids (he’s 32, not that old). He said that he knows his anger is an issue and a friend at work said kids would calm him down. I just looked at him told him that I will not be having children anytime soon, I’m still in my 20s.
Then he did another thing that was unexpected. He talked to me about it, why he wants them, how he will help me with them. He actually told me, having a baby is just like having a puppy, just feed them, clean them and pay attention to them and he was dead serious. I then explained that we have 4 dogs and 5 cats and he has never ever helped me with them, why would I expect help when I have a child. His excuse: The animals don’t even like him, he wanted them to be his animals also but that I am too loving and they will always love me instead of him. I’m sorry? What if the child seems to love me more than him, then what? This talk about kids led to a huge talk about our relationship in general but this time there was no anger, he was calm. So I used this time to try to explain how his actions have been hurting me and why I think throwing a child into this would be cruel. I calmly used exact situations and used a lot of detail so he couldn’t say I was being vague. This is a very shortened version of how a narcissist can act when they are called out, we’ve moved past anger and now we’re on to the quiet and calm manipulation:
Me: “You told me that all you wanted was to own your own home and have a garage, that’s when things would get better”
Him: “They are better, I’m so much more happy. Haven’t I gotten better with my anger? I mean the last month has been bad, but before that, they were better, right?”
Me: “We got a garage so that you could go out there when you are angry, but you haven’t fixed it up”
Him: “I know, I really want to but I’m so tired. The insomnia is getting better but I’m still tired. Maybe you could clean up and organize all of your stuff out there and put all my stuff to the side so it would be easier for me” (I’ve already done that, good try)
Me: “When you get mad, you become extremely condescending. Last week you told me that if I would stop acting like a child you wouldn’t have to treat me like one and that wasn’t even bad compared to what you have said before. When you say things like this, it destroys my self confidence”
Him: “I know, I don’t mean to hurt you. You know that my parent’s were abusive and that is what they do when they are mad. I will never be as bad as them but I can’t control it when I get upset. I build your self confidence all the time though. Remember when I first met you? You couldn’t even talk to people and now you are an awesome and confident person. You shouldn’t take what I say personally when I get mad. I will try though- what are your major soft spots that you don’t like me poking when I’m made and I will stay away from them?”(Nice try!)
This banter back and forth went on for a long time and he was very nice the entire time. I used to get sucked into this, I would get hopeful and think maybe he could change. This time I didn’t, I took my emotional self completely out of this conversation. I watched his facial expressions, I looked him in the eyes the entire time and paid attention to the little things. His facial expressions didn’t change, I could see his eyes light up when I said something that would typically make him mad but the rest of the time, his eyes were dead cold. I was talking to machine that was spitting out whatever I wanted to hear. I honestly think, that he did this to suck me back in. Whenever we have these talks, it’s before I agree to something major. Every time, he wants me to feel loved and understood. Let me know that he’s trying so hard to change, if I would just give him another chance. He know’s he’s broken, he needs my help to fix himself and he can’t do it without me. I then feel happy because he’s playing on my instinct to want to help and fix people- then I’m all primed to do what he wants me to. This time he wants me to have a child. I don’t know if he actually wants a child or not. I think some people have the inner sense that they need something to nurture and take care of, it’s biology telling you that you should be carrying on your genes. I’ve been through it, I’ve had some major baby fever but something has always held me back from pursuing it.
He has used every little thing in the past to try and control me in whatever ways suits him at the time. I have no doubt that he will use a child to suck me further into his control. So yes, I will be hiding my birth control in the future. I know this all sounds so pessimistic and cold on my part. I still feel sorry for my husband, I know that he was extremely abused as a child and I know that he’s hurting because of it. Every bone in my body wants to try and help him, but I can’t. It’s so sad to say that I don’t believe one thing that my husband told me last night. What’s worse is I also know that he’s going to use this conversation. When he inevitability becomes mad and condescending, and I say something about it, he’s going to bring up something I said in our talk and use it against me. It has happened every single time we have a good “heart to heart”.
What confirmed my feelings that he was being manipulative in this talk was later that night- he felt like he should get sex for being nice. He didn’t demand it though, he just said “You don’t have to do it, I don’t think that you love me but I do love you with all my heart. I wish that you knew that.” He kept telling me that he didn’t think I loved him, all night long. He wished that I could see all the love that he has for me. Then at the end of the night he said something that I don’t remember and then said “Oh I’m sorry, was that condescending?”.
The Tired Wife 