Notwendy thats a very interesting article. Thank you. Goateeki its only just coming clear whats been happening. I often get statements like " you dont care about me" at totally random times. Just thrown out there. Another is " i cant cope with the kids im going out" and just leaving so again i have to stay in to do bedtime etc. This is also used as a threat cause she knows I'll go and sort the kids out etc to keep the peace. At other times she'll put her vunerable mask on and give me a deep hug and say " sort it out for me" and then walk off.
Realisation is a crappy thing sometimes. I wish I'd found this sight yrs ago.
Foody, I have to say, reading again what you wrote, that I really do understand what you've been experiencing. For me, the combination of "stiff arming" -- outright refusal to discuss the substance of any problem we had -- and faulting me for every imagined slight (even, as I said, when I'd done something like compliment her) made me feel over time that she just did not care about me. We were married for 19 years and have two young children.
She has a history of real physical and emotional trauma, but something I've learned in therapy is that it's irrelevant. I never believed I could ask anything of her, given her history. I came to resent our relationship. I honestly believe that though she could have done better, it would have taken a decade of therapy.
It got so that whenever she got upset about something (which was often, and included such meaningless things as the way I slid clean dishes onto other clean dishes stacked in the cupboard), I could predict her response to my effort to try and work it out. If, for example, I said something like "It's hard for me to understand why the way I stack plates is so important to you or why it bothers you so much" she could only respond with something like "I'm a terrible person. Don't listen to me." Or she would withdraw some thing that I cared about, like telling me that I'd better not touch her or that she no longer wanted to go to a film we'd planned to go to, etc. Once I said to her that she had so many very specific expectations of me that she was bound to be unhappy with me. This drove her crazy. She was relentlessly focused on others and their shortcomings. Me in particular.
I'll pass along one critical thing that my T has told me. He has said that the hardest thing for people in my position to do is to see the behavior and believe it. Believe that yes, this is who she is. And refrain from explaining it or excusing it. I mention this to you because of what you say about realization being a terrible thing. It's terrible, but you're also getting in touch with the reality of the situation. Maybe there is an unending sense of need in this woman that no one will ever be able to fill. For me, I saw this in the way my ex would fixate on one person after another (usually a female friend), idealize them, stay on the phone with them until midnight, and when her friend finally couldn't take it anymore and would cut her off, she would be devastated.
I've been with my girlfriend for a year and a half now. She isn't perfect, she's human, and sometimes things happen that upset her. But she responds in such a healthy, productive way. She works things out, reconciles herself, and moves on. She is at her core a happy person. For me, life has gone from being something like a prison, or monochromatic, to freedom and vivid color. I feel so much more alive than I once did.
