I married my wife 9 years ago. I didn't know this, but my wife had begun controlling various aspects of my life. It all occurred rather slowly. Over time I lost access to my friends, my family (unless it was through her approval), my gun (she took access of the gun lock key 7 years ago and never gave it back), my community (we moved to a location where she had friends and family but I didn't), my health (her controlling nature caused a depression which lasted 5 years), and now my children.
I had realized something was wrong about a year and a half ago. I had read the book "boundaries" and knew I needed to lay some boundaries down if I was ever going to rid myself of the depression I had been in for the last 5 years. I mentioned to my wife that I would begin putting down boundaries to hopefully soften the blow. Unfortunately this didn't occur.
The first boundary I developed was to stop sleeping in our bed. We had a twin size mattress and my wife consistently allowed both dogs and kids to climb in the bed as frequently as they would like. I had informed my wife on 3 occasions that I was consistently being pushed off the bed and I was consistently waking up with a sore back. I would also state that I felt it would be better for the children and the dogs to stay off the bed. My wife ignored each of these requests and continued to allow both dogs and children to join us while sleeping. I decided that I would no longer sleep in the bed until the dogs and the children were gone and began sleeping in another room. Within a week or two my wife decided that she would begin sleeping on the couch. Because the dogs and children were no longer on the bed I felt I could sleep in our room again. Unfortunately my wife didn't return.
She began singing break up songs loudly to the country radio, she began faking illness including coughs and headaches (including a trip to the emergency room to check on a brain tumor), she would wash all the clothes but mine, and wash all the dishes but mine. I decided that I would just need to clean my own clothes and dishes to prevent this from occurring. My wife then began telling each member of my family that she didn't think she could stay with me anymore. The only reason she gave was that I didn't help around the house. Family pictures no longer included me (On one occasion, when asked for a picture of his family, my three year old son was sent to school with a picture of only him, his two sisters and his mother).
Eventually, I decided to talk to my wife. Talking to my wife has always been hard for me. It's as if I've been conditioned to never tell her there is anything wrong with her. It became so bad that even thinking about talking to my wife about something being wrong would cause an absolute dread to come over me. However, I believed having a mother and father sleeping separately would be bad for both our relationship and our children's belief system of an appropriate marriage. I discussed my concerns with her and she agreed to join me again in the bed.
Unfortunately this only lasted one night. The very next night she had left the bedroom again. I became extremely upset and felt rather manipulated by this. Again, I was working on my own boundaries and decided it would be best to leave the home and sleep somewhere else. I slept in a rest stop that night and returned around 8:30 the next morning. The next night my wife joined me in bed again.
I began researching BPD and felt we needed to talk to a counselor to see if this could be causing the issues. Again, I was very afraid to talk to my wife. When I did I made sure to do so as caring, kindly, and politely as I could to increase the chances that she would go. When I first brought up the situation she reacted exactly as I thought she would, she became extremely offended and stated she refused to go. I explained that I was expecting that she would have that response and this could also be an indication of BPD. My wife did eventually agree to go.
Unfortunately, at the first session my wife quickly dismissed the idea of BPD and quickly influenced the counselor to do the same. These then became "marriage counseling sessions". I didn't mind, I felt at least we would get some help.
Our last session didn't go so well. I had given concerns of my wife continually blaming me for every move we had ever made stating they were all "my fault" for the loss of her friends after each move. When my wife gave her response she had included significant lies to prevent dealing with this. My wife was also able to influence our counselor. At the end of the session the counselor stated that "there are two sides of every story." However, I knew the lies that were given and became unable to talk to my wife as I now felt that these sessions had just become useless since she was manipulating information in order to avoid the truth.
Later that night I began wondering what was leading my wife to act so differently. As I was contemplating this, the idea of a potential affair she could have had with our pastor 3 years ago came to mind. More facts had come to the surface now as time had passed and the amount of evidence I had found lead me to believe without doubt that this affair occurred. Because my wife was lying and manipulating information I knew if I asked her there would be no chance of receiving an honest response. Unfortunately I also couldn't talk or look at my wife. I had literally become disgusted. I chose to avoid her as much as possible. I did know that I had to say something to try to let her know why I wasn't talking to her. I asked her to join me outside and I stated that I believed something had occurred in Arizona, but I couldn't talk to her about it because I couldn't trust her anymore. The conversation lasted about 30 seconds and I went back inside. Because of the escalated behaviors, and because my wife had been the only one with the gun lock key for the last 7 years, I decided to hide the gun to prevent its use.
My wife continually tried different techniques to get my attention. She attempted to give me the bed and she would sleep on the couch, which I refused. She cooked and called me for dinner, which I refused to attend. She cooked and called me for breakfast, which I refused to attend. She asked if I wanted to go to the store with her and the children, which I declined. She called me from the store and asked if I wanted to purchase an item I had been talking about, which I declined. There were other attempts as well.
I continued to ignore my wife through the day without talking to her or looking at her. However, I knew I had to talk to her. I also knew how angry I was about the situation and knew I had to be careful when talking to her. The kids had already been put to bed and I told my wife we needed to talk. I asked her if she had an affair with our pastor. She quickly replied "How could we. We were always in separate rooms" (ironically, this is the same line she had used when I had originally asked her about the affair two years earlier. I now believe this was a practiced line that could be used to avoid the question if it ever came up).
I then asked her why there were so many odd behaviors occurring recently. My wife immediately denied that the behaviors we had both experienced ever occurred. I knew these were lies and knew if she was lying about this she could very well be lying about the affair as well. My voice began to rise as I began to try to reason with her but it was going nowhere. Our entire conversation lasted about 3 minutes as I saw I had escalated to high and went outside. When I went outside I screamed, tipped over a patio chair, and called my wife a liar through the window. I then went on a 15-25 minute walk, came home, went upstairs to make a call for personal support, and then went to bed.
The next morning my wife came to me on the couch and asked for her charger. I told her it was upstairs. She increased the volume of her voice and asked me to get it, which I refused. The family was later going to the eye doctor and my wife asked if I wanted to join them, I also refused. My family came home around 11:00 from the eyedoctor. The kids came upstairs to say "hi" to me, and that was the last time I have seen them (a little over 1 month ago).
My wife had begun calling family and friends. She was continually telling others that she was deathly afraid and needed help. She told my sisters and mother that I had "just snapped", began throwing furniture everywhere and was screaming profusely for hours on end. She was telling everyone that I had taken the gun and was afraid of what I would do with it (again my wife had been the only one with a key for the last 7 years).
I was left in my house alone for the next week. I would go on walks to get through some time and I could tell everyone was treating me differently. I saw police following me, I had teachers ask me questions about my walking, I had people I didn't know call me by name.
A week after my family had left I was served an Order of Protection ex-parte with a hearing in another week. I was completely dumbfounded. I read through the claims and found only 18% of the entire document factual. There were lies upon lies. There was documentation of letters I had sent even though I hadn't sent them to her. There were pictures that were taken "as evidence" before she had even left the home. There were statements that were completely untrue. My wife was stating that I was severely mentally ill and needed significant help. She stated that I was emotionally abusive. She stated that I was sexually abusive.
When the court date came I explained that I had never taken advantage of my wife sexually. That every time she said, "no", I was always hands off. My wife was acting EXTREMELY terrified. I believed she was terrified of me, the judge believed she was terrified of me, the entire court room believed she was terrified of me. This, tied with the fact that I had stated that I had tipped over the patio chair, lead to a 90 day Order of Protection being granted.
The community immediately rallied around my wife for support. She received clothes, food, money, verbal support, anything my wife asked for.
As soon as this was granted I left the state to begin working on my business sales. I originally wasn't planning on leaving forever, only until the Order of Protection expired. Unfortunately, I had an inkling to access her text messages online.
Once I accessed her text messages my heart sunk. My wife had contacted a significant number of people discussing how I was mentally ill, how she needed to stay in the women's shelter, how she was filing for divorce, and how she intended to get full custody of the children.
The texts also showed teachers from two schools working with my wife to get them into school activities without me, neighbors who were too afraid to let their children outside if I was present, community members relaying my whereabouts and activities to her.
The community began believing I was crazy because the lights were on and I was crazy because the lights were off. The community began believing I was crazy because I stayed home and crazy because I went out. The community began believing that I was crazy if a car was home and crazy if there wasn't. She knew if I was walking down the road. She knew if I went to the chiropractor. She knew if I was walking in a community field.
Her texts also showed that she didn't know what to pin on me when she left. She originally was planning on filing charges for stalking (which she may have expected since she tore my family away from me), but I didn't stalk her. She then began planning on filing charges because of harassment, but I didn't harass her. She then settled on domestic abuse due to "emotional" turmoil, which she was eventually granted.
I began researching and found that this is a good example of a distortion campaign where the real purpose is to create a villain out of the victim and to make yourself a hero/martyr/victim.
I am still kind of at a loss of what to do. I do not believe I can ever return home because of the amount of damage my wife has caused and do not plan to. However, I still have three small children I am now afraid I may no longer see again.
I also don't know what to do about my marriage. Things were getting better through counseling. However, my wife lead me to a 5 year depression due to loss of control, had an affair with our pastor, stole my children from me, falsely filed domestic abuse charges against me which prevents me from using my degree as a teacher, had me ostracized from an entire community, refuses to admit something could be wrong, and is continually lying to me.
I have always been a strong advocate for marriage. Unfortunately this may be why she took it away from me. It was the only source of control she had left to manipulate me.
But again, I have always been a strong advocate for marriage. I don't think I can ever trust her to tell me the truth again. I don't think I can ever trust her to stay faithful to me again. I don't think I can ever allow myself to love her again as she uses this love against me.
But again, I have always been a strong advocate for marriage. I do feel it is better for parents to raise children together (but now realize she uses this against me). I've also realized my health's better away from her as I have decreased my medication dosage by nearly 30% and will probably be making another reduction soon (which is ironically a stimulant for ADD - The reduced dose substantially reduces my heart rate).
Ugh... .I know. You're thinking "The answers obvious idiot, look at everything you just wrote!" and I actually agree with you, but I have focused 9 years of my life making my marriage and my children's upbringing my top priority. This includes sticking through the 5 year depression that nearly lead me to death (Please note, the depression is completely over and has been for quite some time. Amazingly, even with the current ordeal I'm doing really good. I think it's because this situation is really bad, but the depression I went through was 1,000 times worse, which makes this situation a cake walk in comparison... ., lucky me, right
). I kind of feel like I'm just throwing all this hard work and dedication away.
I also worry about my children having to be raised by two separate families. I have never wanted this for them and have always striven to prevent it. I do feel I have enough information of my wife sabotaging my ability to be with my children at school to be able to have them for the school year, but still feel really uncomfortable tearing them away from their mother. However, I do feel that because she refuses to think about a potential issue she is like a time bomb waiting to go off. I also feel that she may be increasing the anxiety levels of our children. I also feel she may be unconsciously increasing their anxiety levels as she did to me. On her text messages she had stated to one of our daughter's teachers that she wanted to take our first grader to High Country Behavioral Health, and it was only her second day of school.
Ugh... .I think even though the answer is staring me directly in the face, it is so heavily against my personal values I feel like I'm losing a portion of who I am just from thinking about it.
Any help whatsoever from anyone would be appreciated.
-Just 60 days till the end of the protection order.
-stayingsteady
