So taking time to write on here still hasn’t happened…. Talking to my husband this week has been very difficult. He called twice everyday but he had nothing to talk about and was incredibly apathetic the entire time. He was constantly making comments about me leaving him or that I didn’t love him. He was just very negative and depressed sounding and I didn’t know what to say to him. I had been reading about the Jezebel spirit and narcissism and I read that you really need to confront that spirit- maybe not tell him that I think he’s being influenced by a spirit but tell him that he can’t control me anymore. So that was my plan.
Speaking of evil spirits though, I could have sworn my dog was possessed by the way she was acting this week, which is partly why I haven’t been writing. My cattle dog tried to kill my little 15 year old beagle/dachshund dog twice in 3 days. This has happened once before in the 3-4 years we have had them but the little one snapped at her over a bone and I just thought it was retaliation. Both times this week was over nothing, she just snapped. Each time, it was like getting a snapping turtle off my dog, she just wouldn’t let go. Eventually I was punching her on the head (the only time I have ever hit her) and begging her to let go and each time, I thought for sure she was going to kill my other dog. luckily, I was able to get her into the vet office quickly and she’s fine except for like 15 puncture holes on top of her head. I’ve never seen anything like that before. All my dogs are extremely calm and loving with absolutely no aggressive behaviors other than the occasional snapping at each other over bones so I just separate them when they have treats. This was just insane and I was so distressed because I felt like I was causing too much stress for my dogs. It’s fine when I’m stressing out myself because of this but the last thing I wanted was to stress out my dogs. I talked to my husband about it because I can’t have my dogs acting that way around kids and he said I could bring her home and drop her off in the backyard so I didn’t have to come in…. very nice of him.
Well our first couples therapy was only a day and a half later so I decided to bring her then since it’s a long drive. The next day he called and asked if I could come early to bring the dog and also cut his hair- One day he doesn’t want me in the house, the next he wants a haircut…. I don’t get it. Well I brought her back and cut his hair that morning. We argued the whole time and it felt like he had just given up again. He was super passive aggressive and wouldn’t talk to me other than to tell me that I would be getting all of the dogs because they don’t love him. I finally just told him that he didn’t control me and I wasn’t going to let that happen anymore. I was nervous about saying that so I kind of said it out of the blue and it threw him off a little. Then he just told me that he wasn’t controlling me, I am just so easily influenced and persuaded by other people that he’s worried about me being around my family and going to church. Combined with being a person that goes off the “deep end” with all my hobbies, he was concerned that I would turn into a snake shaking, tongues speaking religious fanatic if I went to my brothers church. (side note, I do believe in speaking in tongues but the snake shaking thing will always be a no go for me) So I told him that I’m trying to really research everything so I don’t get into any false religion or become the typical judgmental and fake church goer- this is real to me. So he ended it with he’ll see how long he can put up with it. Side note though, I don’t really think it’s a bad thing to enjoy learning new hobbies, what I enjoy about a hobby is the learning process, not necessarily the hobby itself. I also think the reason that I jump from hobby to hobby is because I had no purpose in my life, no reason to do anything meaningful. Also, Christianity isn’t a hobby, it’s a way of life, so I’m handling it quite a bit differently. I don’t know why I felt the need to justify myself there…. Moving on…
He seemed to calm down while I was cutting his hair though and he asked what my plans were afterwards. Our plans were to go to this awesome international store and get some items to make fire cider and maybe do some hiking afterwards. Then he randomly asked if I wanted him to come and I didn’t really know. I hate making decisions for other people, I can barely make them for myself half the time. Well I finally decided some time together would be good as long as it was with other people and he seemed fine with that.
The therapy actually went pretty well for the most part… It started out bad though. He pretty much dominated the conversations but I was just glad he was talking. He did unfortunately make it out to seem like I have substance abuse problems and although I sort of struggled with that with alcohol, It’s not like I’m always begging for a drink. I haven’t drank in some time now and I don’t ever feel the need for a drink, a lot of times in the past, I drank because I was bored. We never left the house or did anything so drinking was the only thing that was fun. I don’t want to make excuses though, I did struggle with it and I don’t want to go down that road anymore.
Anyways, my husband was pretty honest about the anger and the lack of empathy which seemed to surprise the therapist. He then wanted to talk to each of us separately and I told my husband to go first. They were in there for like a half hour and when we switched, my husband gave me an odd smirk which kind of creeped me out to be honest. Well I only talked to the therapist for about five minutes. He first made sure that I felt safe and I wasn’t being physically abused. He then went on to explain what long term sleep deprivation does to a person. The kind of massive and long term insomnia that my husband has could very likely lead to hallucinations, psychopathy and paranoia and that I could be confusing narcissism with the mental problems associated with his lack of sleep on top of his abused history. I asked him how long I should put up with emotional abuse when he has an actual medical problem that we can’t seem to solve. He didn’t say much on this other than we need to work on his coping skills and his emotional knowledge. Even if he can’t experience empathy and he can’t control the sleeping, maybe he can learn to control his actions towards me by learning what I need emotionally. He also said that my emotional and mental health seems perfectly fine and normal and that maybe I should seek individual counselling just because of the situation that I am in.
Near the end of the session he handed my husband a book and he read this one section out of it that said almost all men have the ability to make or break a relationship. Most of the time, a marriage can be greatly improved if the man learns to become emotionally available to the wife. Not saying there isn’t other factors that are involved but research shows that this one thing has been the single largest problem in marriages. He was very blunt with my husband which was good. He told him that his emotions are a square block of wood and marriage is a round hole. He doesn’t need to change his personality, just sand down the rigid edges a little bit. I think up until this point, my husband thought that I was causing the issues in my head and this was a little but of a wake up call for him, I hope. I think this session wen’t really well but I also believe that it’s going to take a long time of regular therapy sessions for us to work this out but it did give us both a little bit of hope.
He did spend the entire day with me and it was a great time, for once he actually seemed genuine and I could tell he was really trying to have a little bit of fun. Having fun is not something that he thinks is important, it’s one of those things that other people have but he doesn’t feel like he deserves/needs it. He’s very focused on his outward actions around other people and he doesn’t like it when people see him “Goofing off”. The problem is that I never care about that, I don’t get embarrassed like that and I have no problems swinging off a rope swing in my jeans in the creak where we were hiking. He did admit though that he has problems having fun and he wants to work on it. Later on, I told that to my brother and sister and law, we decided that if we do work this out, our main focus is going to be teaching him to have fun and not care so much.
On the way back though, he was begging me to stay the night with him but I didn’t feel like that was the best idea. Jumping back into that could restart old habits. I’m so used to just complying with what he wants though and I kind of insinuated that I would stay. My gut was telling me no way but my mind kept thinking that he was being so nice and wouldn’t it be nice to spend more time with my dogs, or sleep in my bed, sit on my couch. I kept making excuses to stay and finally my brother texted and said that he really thinks that I would regret it if I stayed and that kind of reset my mind. This is where I went wrong though and caused unnecessary pain- I never should have said I would stay because now when I leave, I’m going back on my word and messing with his emotions. I still left but I apologized because I want him to learn to hope for our relationship and I felt like I screwed that up by giving him hope and then leaving. Then he cried, he wasn’t mad or anything just sad. I don’t know if this was real or not but he never cries and it was like ripping my heart out all over again. Leaving this time was harder than the first time because we weren’t fighting, I had to leave when things were going well and that freaking hurt.
Although executed poorly, I think leaving was the right thing to do. I had just told him that morning that I wasn’t going to let him control me anymore and I would have just shown him that he could if I would have stayed. It also would have really messed with both of our emotions and would have made this even more difficult. I’m not going to lie though, this is starting to wear me out and it’s still tempting to take the easy way out and just leave. The way he changes personalities on a daily basis is so hard to deal with and trying to discern genuine from fake is exhausting. I’m hopeful though, I haven’t had gut feelings in a long long time and I’m starting to have them again, I think God is starting to help me see things more clearly.
The Tired Wife 