Whew, where to start?
I've been married to the same woman for 24 years. We have children. I love her dearly and desire nothing more than for her to be happy.
I've worked for the same employer for 21 years but have promoted to upper management during that time.
Over the years I have had to travel and go out of town on trips. Sometimes my wife went with me, other times she didn't. Sometimes I traveled with females. None of this ever caused a problem.
So in the past three years I've realized I needed to change some things. I won't go into detail here because I don't know how relevant it is but will if necessary. I can summarize it with this. I was raised in a household that reacted to the "free love" thinking of my parents generation. This reaction worked out by maintaining complete separation between males and females. Unfortunately, that left me with the impression that females were for making children and nothing more. Not healthy. Today, I actually have a couple of females that I would consider friends. I almost feel like I'm bad for saying that :-(
Enter the problem. A young lady (YL) at work asked me some questions about my religious beliefs. Now, YL is young enough to be my daughter and frequently reminds me of her. She has her own family. I have no intentions or desires regarding YL. YL is good at her duties and I am her immediate supervisor. After a few conversations she began attending church.
My wife would hug her, she'd hug back, and they'd sit there talking. It
appeared as though there was a friendship developing. I had to take a trip out of town with YL to visit a meeting of a regulatory agency that oversees our operations.
After that trip, my life turned upside-down. I spent months being accused of being a liar, worthless, disgusting, a joke, loving YL more than my wife. I was slapped several times, mementos of affection were torn up or thrown at me. I finally sought counseling and told the counselor all I wanted was to be able to walk into my house and not feel like I was losing my mind.
I'd never seen this behavior out of my wife before but it was also the first time I'd ever told her no. Looking back, after my oldest child pointed it out, I'd always done anything to make wife happy. I had taken my mother's advice when I got married too seriously,
"The secret to a happy marriage is for the husband to always say he's sorry regardless of whether he is right or wrong." I think that may have exacerbated an otherwise mild issue.
I don't want to overload what is supposed to be an introduction with too much detail so a couple more things. A friend gave me "Stop Walking on Eggshells" which all sounded so familiar.
https://psychcentral.com/lib/stop-walking-on-eggshells-taking-your-life-back-when-someone-you-care-about-has-borderline-personality-disorder/I don't want to move forward in addressing the situation if my wife is not BP so I ask this: Is it possible to have a high-functioning BP in your life and not know it for this many years given that I always appeased? I love her dearly and will stay with her until I die but would love to not feel a though I am the source of all her troubles and nothing I can do/ever did is right.
