Las Vegan
Fewer than 3 Posts
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What is your sexual orientation: Straight
Who in your life has "personality" issues: Romantic partner
Posts: 1
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« on: April 06, 2017, 11:19:29 AM » |
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My wife and I have been married three years. Much of the time our marriage appears to be fairly normal with all of life's normal ups and its downs. But then there are the other times, the times down the rabbit hole from hell, the times I've come to refer to as "incidents". Almost every incident seems to begin with some innocuous event: I ask my wife not to tell me how many calories are in the cup of soup I just ordered, I get into bed without taking the decorative pillows off of my wife's side, I take a wrong turn driving in a new area, I tell her I need to go while I'm talking to her on the phone, etc. There is always some one thing that happens, some thing I say or do. My wife will then respond to my action with sharpness. I, in turn, will usually respond in befuddlement or frustration, not understanding the origin of the sharpness. Then, it happens, something changes, a switch flips on inside my wife. I can almost hear it when it happens. My whole body responds, goes on high alert. My muscles tighten, the back of my neck begins to ache, and I just know; I'm in for a ride.
A fight soon breaks out. She snaps at me about the inciting incident but the fight soon moves to my response to the inciting incident, and then it moves to my response to my wife's response to my initial response, then to my response to my wife's response to that response. Soon we are arguing about our argument, moving back to the inciting incident, arguing over exactly what happened. Her recounting of events always differs drastically from my recounting. We find ourselves arguing over what words I used, my tone of voice in using those words, my body language, everything. On her side of the story, the incident started when she calmly mentioned something I did and I raged out in response thus causing the fight to occur. This shocks me every time. Her memory of what happened just 30 minutes in the past is so diametrically opposed to mine that I simply don't know what to believe. Is she gas-lighting me, am I the one that's crazy? Did this really begin when I lashed out. Up starts to become down. Down becomes up.
Eventually, the fights morph. I will eventually say some comment through the course of the argument that she will take and twist and make into some nasty sadistic insult that will become the focal point of the fight. I am always well aware of this possibility when the fight begins and try very hard to pick my words with care and attention throughout the fight to prevent this morphing, but it does not matter. I will always say something terrible she can run with. It allows her to take the fight to the next level, to argue about some greater flaw I have, some greater theme she creates. Usually the theme is along these lines: "This fight started because you can't ever admit you are wrong. You always have to be right."
After the argument goes on like this for a period of time ranging from and hour to days, a part of me starts to believe that the fight is my fault, that everything is my fault; I do always have to be right all the time. Another part of me thinks everything she is telling me is B.S., but I am so sick of fighting that I'm ready to say anything to get out of it. So, I begin to apologize. This is what she wants, but not just any apology. She has to judge it as completely genuine and completely unconditional. If I say, "I'm sorry I acted the way I did, but you ... ." the argument just gets all the more heated. So, I try to make my apology more genuine just to end it, just to get back. Sometimes, I hate to say it, but I literally find myself begging at her feet, asking for forgiveness.
Then, suddenly she accepts my apology, and her switch immediately turns off. She laughs, she smiles, she banters, and I am left a mess. She teases me about this, about how I can't let things go. Other people, friends and family, see this. They see my wife happy and normal and see me confused and disoriented. It's no fun. We had our last big fight two nights ago, and today you would think it had never happened for her.
Often times I'll supplement my apology with an act of service such as cleaning the house. I do it halfway because I believe I have wronged her and halfway because I want to ensure the fight does not come back. It's how I bring it back to normal.
When we first met and started dating and when we first got married these fights were very frequent. I look back at those times and it is like a roller coaster. She dumps me, she fights for me back, idolizing me. After a big fight had settled down she would often admit that it was her fault, that she was scared. She said she felt empty. She always said she had black spiderman inside of her speaking of the character venom in Spiderman 3. Now, the fights happen less often, but she is also much less self aware. I keep waiting for things to break, for her to admit something is wrong, but it is not coming.
I have, for a long time, wondered if our fights are normal. I hate our fights; they are among the worst moments of my life. When I tell my wife there is something not normal about our fights she just laughs. "All couples fight," she tells me. I must just be too afraid of fighting. I don't know if she is right. She is the only person I've been in a serious relationship with. Is this just what happens in marriage? Is this just the downside of all relationships? It doesn't feel normal to me. Even in the good times, I am always on edge, always. I don't think I'm ever really myself around my wife. A few weeks ago she visited her family and I went hiking with a friend. I never felt so free. I didn't have to watch what I was saying or how I was saying it. It was like I rediscovered a life that has been buried.
I don't know if my wife has BPD. we have a marriage counselor, and yesterday I went to see her by myself frustrated that all of our sessions before had taken my wife's distorted account of our fights as the truth. When I finally gave my side of the story, the counselor suggested I red "Stop Walking on Egg Shells." From the start the title resonated with me and much of what was inside has resinated with me so far. So many of our fights seem to be connected to a fear of abandonment: I spend too much time with friends without updating her, I take my family's side instead of hers when they offend her, I don't immediately follow her up to bed at night when she wants to sleep. The concepts of projection and the no-win situations etc. etc etc. all resonate. My fear on getting on this board is that we are just a normal couple with normal problems and I am just creating a diagnosis to deal with my own problems. I'm afraid I'm complaining about minuscule issues to people with real problems, but I do feel trapped and burdened. I often fantasize about just getting away completely. The thought breaks my heart because I love my wife and so much about her, but it's there, and I need help.
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