Anony098765
Fewer than 3 Posts
 Offline
What is your sexual orientation: Straight
Who in your life has "personality" issues: Romantic partner
Relationship status: Wife
Posts: 1
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« on: April 22, 2020, 06:28:23 AM » |
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I am in desperate need of help from the members here as I am at wits end about what to do. My situation is as follows (sorry for a very long post):
I am 41 year male from India who had quite a normal childhood albeit an overbearing and dominating father. As a result, I believe I became quite a docile individual and don’t want to get into confrontational situations. Even if I face a difficult situation, I would rather talk through it politely rather than shout to get the work done.
I qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 2003 and then went to London to do my Masters in Insurance & Risk Management. I got married in 2007 in India and it was an arranged marriage with an Indian girl. When I say arranged, it means that we were introduced by our parents, then communicated with each other for a few months before we decided to get married.
My wife moved to London, where I was working.
Things started going downhill shortly after marriage as I wasn’t able to perform sexually which I believe was due to her very controlling and overbearing nature. She thinks I am a gay but I know I am not. I tried to seek help professionally a number of times but when the professionals wanted to speak to my wife, she would go for one appointment then stop going after that.
I don’t believe that I am perfect in any way and have made fair share of my mistakes during the relationship. There are still a lot of things which I can improve as far as I am concerned.
I believe that my wife has BPD, a term which I didn’t even know till a few years back. Although, she has not been professionally diagnosed because she wouldn’t go a doctor and seek any help with regard to her mental health. My reason for believing that she has BPD is due to a number of things that have happened in our relationship over the past 13 years (11 years in London and 2 years in India):
1. She has always had problem with my brother and parents (who have always been in India) and whenever she spoke to them over the phone from London or met them while visiting India, we have ended up fighting because almost every time my parents say something to her which she doesn’t like and I am not able to say anything to my parents. She feels that I should have stood by her and said something to my parents to defend her (even though she was wrong), so that we can project a strong relationship. This way her respect in my family would increase.
We now live very close to my parents (less than a minute’s walk), although separately in different flats, but the scenario continues – whenever she interacts with them, we fight.
2. She has told me that she was physically beaten by her father and mother when she was young as this is they way she was disciplined by them. She also believes that because they were living in a joint family (2 of my wife’s aunts and uncles lived together with their children – a total of almost 13 members in a fairly large bunglow), her parents were probably under a lot of stress and hence beating her was probably an outlet of their frustrations. She was also regularly made fun of by her other aunts and uncles. Further, my wife told me that when she grew older, she use to beat her younger sister and brother.
3. Also, she was neglected by her parents as a child as they would go out for social occasions multiple times during the week, leaving the children alone at home. Whenever, her father would sit with her to teach / explain her anything, he would end up shouting at her or hitting her.
4. My wife hit me for the first time in July 2009 because I was not able to deal with my parents and because I don’t have any respect in my family, she would never have one either. Since then, I have been beaten with hands, legs, shoes and various other objects, bitten, scratched, spat at, locked out in the balcony in rain, plates being thrown at me, etc for seemingly small things to me but are very important to her. On asking why does she have this reaction, she has always told me that her behaviour is in response to the mistakes I make and rather than questioning her, I should change my behaviour and her response would be different.
5. I believe I have changed myself a lot over these years but her behaviour hasn’t changed. In fact, when I have improved in respect to a particular point she wanted to work upon, there is always something new that comes up and seeming I am never good enough to deserve a better behaviour. All the faults and wrong in relationship are attributed to me.
6. Apart from the physical abuse, there is ongoing verbal abuse and shouting on an ongoing basis daily where I am called with names for not being good enough for anything and destroying her life. I am called stupid, demented, lazy, good for nothing and even nastier things multiple times during the day.
7. I wouldn’t know how a day would start or end. A seemingly small thing will set her off for hours and everything in the past that I have done will come out. An example for this, early on in our relationship was when we both were having a conversation and my brother called on my mobile from India, I spoke to him for 2 minutes – this set her off. She was of the opinion that when I was talking to her, there was no need to take another call, that meant that I was ignoring her and don’t respect her enough. That lead to a huge argument which lasted for hours. This is just one example. Even now, any small thing about how I performed a task or anything from the past and how I have destroyed her life can trigger her. The arguments are circular in nature with no end and are based on the questions that I don’t have any answers to. We generally go to sleep when she is tired enough not to continue or has hit me to cool herself off.
8. As mentioned above, we were in London for 11 years out of which she only worked for 2.5 years. The first job in a bank she left after 1 year because she was more qualified for the job and was being racially abused and the second job in the HR department of an IT company was a contract job which came to its natural conclusion after 1.5 years. However, despite knowing that job would end, she never applied for another job. She did a few courses in the field that she had interest in such as mortgage advising and make-up but never pursued those fields despite my encouraging her and trying to find out various avenues to do so. I even told her that if she didn’t want to be professionally employed, she should get out of the house and do some charitable work but she never did that either.
9. Her typical routine when we were in London was to sleep at 3 or 4 am in the morning and get up at 12 or 1 pm in the afternoon and then sit in front of the television all day long. She became obese and diabetic which was blamed on me. She said that she was depressed but never sought any help despite I asking her on a number of occasions. Even though she was at home all the time, she never gave any importance to her health or doing any household chores. We would eat out or get takeaways half the month and mostly ate ready to eat food on other days. There was rarely fresh made food except during the first few years on marriage. I did all the household chores including cleaning, laundry, dishwashing, grocery shopping, etc and felt like I was treated like a servant than a husband. On being asked why she didn’t want to help, her reason was that she was abroad because of me and hence I should be doing all the work. She was used to having many servants at home in India.
10. She has threatened divorce a number of times (and continues to do so regularly) during the relationship but never followed through with that.
11. We moved back to India in late 2017 and adopted a baby girl but nothing has changed in terms of our relationship. All her complaints and daily routine are mostly the same. She seems to love the baby but gets irritated as well with her. Her arguments with me haven’t changed and frequently have them in front of the baby who is 2.5 years old now. Even when I say that let’s talk about things when the baby is asleep, she says that she cannot find a perfect time to discuss things and then has the argument in front of the baby, who I definitely feel is getting adversely impacted by this. She says that I have never been a good husband and will also not be a good father, as I am not taking any responsibility towards her or the baby. When I ask her that she is home with the baby more than I am, then she reflects the things back on me by saying that forget about her, what I am doing to discharge the duty of a father?
12. We have a full time maid at home who does the cooking and daily chores. My wife shouts at her almost daily for the things that she hasn’t done or not done properly enough. She tells me that she also wants to hit the maid when she does a bad / incomplete job but is somehow resisting that at the moment. All that shouting happens in front of the child and I believe it is impacting the child as she is seeing all this when she is growing up,
13. Over the course of the years, I was fewer and fewer friends. When I was in London, I wanted to rush home after office as she was alone at home and used to get very angry even if I was few minutes late even due to work rather than any social fun. Now in India, I only have a few good friends but interact with them very infrequently as they are busy in their lives and I have to get back to my wife and the baby. I also feel I have become angrier in life but I just don’t let it out and internalise everything.
14. On very few occasions, countable on both my hands, have we had any decent relationship over the past 13 years. A few good days makes me feel better but then she would fall back into her usual behaviour.
15. We purchased 4 properties and made some decent saving while we were in London but to this date she questions why were we in London at all as I haven’t achieved anything in life either personally or professionally. I was in a job in India till June last year but left it to start my own venture. This should have seen light of the day in the next few months but I feel it would be delayed due to economic environment we will face after the Covid-19 pandemic. She has started telling me that I am lazy, good for nothing guy, who would always rely on father to feed us.
I often wonder, what a normal relationship would be like. I also wonder, whether getting married meant taking complete responsibility of another individual without even getting basic affection or respect in return.
My and her parents know that we don’t have a good relationship but don’t the extent to which it is bad – in terms of physical and verbal above. A few days ago, my mom heard us arguing and then a few days later my parents spoke to me about the incident. They want me to stand upto her and tell her that her behaviour is unacceptable. But all this has been going on for so long, I just don’t know what to do? What is the right way out – for both of us and the child. I don’t want to leave the child with her because I am not sure what upbringing will she get.
I question myself why have I been so stupid not to realise what was happening with me and why didn’t I put a stop to this in the first few years but honestly I don’t have an answer to that. Now I feel that I have also become depressed and stopped enjoying life. When I get into bed everyday, I pray that I don’t get up the next morning. I feel a good way to get peace would be to commit suicide but can’t muster enough courage to go through that either. And anyway, I don’t want to do anything silly because of the child.
I have no clue what to do – please help.
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