Feeling Trapped

"I guess I'm just preparing myself now for what could occur in the future, and see what happens."



"I know things can still change in my thinking. I guess I'm just preparing myself now for what could occur in the future, and see what happens."



"do I just say the heck with it and leave, not knowing what's ahead but having the possibility of happiness? It just gets me angry that I even have to make that choice, but here I am. We'll see what happens."

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You're bending over backwards to stay on your wife's better side and elevate her mood and seeing what happens.

She's twisting knives into your gut and seeing what happens.

One of you has got to do something different. It's possible this stalemate is making both of you miserable and you keep waiting for the other one to pull the pin on the grenade.

You may be able to remove her capacity for action if you avoid her entirely (you say you've been doing that)... unless she keeps a civil tongue. It would be best for her to practice this skill for after the divorce if that's what she wants. I've been wondering if this isn't her considering divorce. It's a matter of convincing herself she's right to get one. You're not good in any way. There's no way anyone could have expected her to stick it out with you. That kind of thing. When you do anything right or thoughtful, it undermines the singular goal. She doesn't even want it, believe it, or enjoy it. It's not conscious thought. It's a procedure. It's all momentum and habit.

Are you in separate bedrooms yet? That's eight hours of peace you can enjoy. Depriving her of opportunities to be unkind removes her primary tool/weapon and she may be forced to be more direct (and by consequence, mutually compassionate) about her wish to divorce and stop this passive aggressive chickenspit.

While I don't suspect you see no reason to celebrate Valentine's Day, migrating towards family-centered activities may make sense. Maybe northstarmom has suggestions. If you eat out, maybe a less romantic venue and bring the young uns'. If you eat in, maybe a buffet of everyone's favorite? An obligatory rose for the Mrs.? A box of Bloopers for the entire family? A cherry pie with heart cut out of the center? Shirley Temple cocktails? The kids may well provide the gratitude you've been seeking fruitlessly from the wife with the misery agenda. (This de-emphasis may be yet another source of complaints, but no good result was forthcoming. May as well get a good day out of it for the kids?)

Dang, that sounds kind of awesome, actually. 

I think you hit the nail on the head with us kind of being in a stalemate. What drives me nuts is knowing this, but not having the courage to change anything with the fear that will "pull the pin on the grenade" as you say. While one part of me is like "what the hell are you doing staying in this situation?" the other part of me fears losing a lot of what I have currently (i.e. not being with my kids, fearing someone else will help raise them, losing financial stability, impact on family and friends, etc.). The end result is that I just try to avoid her most times, and get super involved with my kids' lives and with my hobbies and work. 

We actually are in separate bedrooms when she is off of work and we're both home, and that happened fairly recently. There's no point really when I know nothing will happen. It's kind of peaceful being able to sleep by myself and not getting rejected.

Valentine's Day was nothing special, as expected. We ended up both getting each other something small, and there was the obligatory "Thank you," but that was about it. I had to work that day anyway, and we just had a relaxing night with the kids. What's interesting is that she also had off of work for about a week or so, and while nothing changed with intimacy, she was generally nicer to me than normal. Got me thinking that if she would just stop working nights, life would be at least tolerable. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening. 

While I can't say for sure if she is considering divorce herself, I do agree when you say that she thinks of me as "not good in any way." It's like she goes out of her way to make herself feel like she is better than me, putting me down at every opportunity. Nothing I do is good enough because I think she wants it to be that way, whether or not I do it well. It's like she has to be in control and be in a position to win every argument. There was a marriage book I read a couple of years ago (the title escapes me), and it talked about when a spouse has a superiority complex, and that is her to a T. One example of this the other day is that I was driving her and the kids to my daughter's soccer game, and when I parked she shrugged and said "give me the keys" and when we got out of the car, she got in to fix the parking job I had done (which btw was perfectly fine). I was like "you've got to be kidding me" but then just ignored me. On another occasion she came home from work and I was giving the kids breakfast. She walked in the kitchen without saying anything and immediately cleaned anything I haven't yet cleaned up from cooking. It's like she has to prove that I leave stuff for her to do when she is tired, and that I'm a bad husband, even though I was going to clean it up. This leaves me either being anxious or just not caring at all because what's the point? I get so tired of being put down that I just get to the point where I'm like fine, she can just do everything then. I know that's wrong and I should just do it anyway, but it just gets really frustrating. 

The more you divulge in your posts Brother mike38 , the worse it looks.

If it were possible, "Zipcode Therapy" would be a great idea ... just to get you away from this toxic environment (for a while) so you could take a long and critical look at it from a wider perspective.

What I make up from your comments about "her superiority complex" is that you are still doing the most common thing people do in this situation, which is fixing on the person's feeling and treatment toward you as some kind of psychological pathology that she suffers. This allows you to step outside of the dynamic that is being directed at you and gives you a way to sort of "look at it" like it's some kind of external disease affecting you both, and you especially.

It feels constructive to look at it this way, because it becomes less about the obvious sneering contempt she holds you in, and instead becomes some sort of mysterious madness that has befallen her. It helps you to somehow be "onside" with her even when she hates you and shows you. I did the same thing - and most people do.

I later found benefits to shift in my perception framework, in which I stopped pathologizing her obvious disdain for me and took a more reasonable, practical view - treating it as a non-married relationship. In those cases, prior to marriage, I'd never think someone was out of their mind if they didn't want me; I'd view it as a matter of preference. It's not psychotic to be turned off of someone to the extent that you don't consider them to be a viable sex partner. Most people in your life exist in this state for one reason or another. A wedding is no insurance that it won't happen in a long term relationship nearly as easily as any other non-married relationship. Some people get married when they really don't want to, and then they find themselves in life sentence and resent the face of their jailor. If I married someone I didn't want that way, and endured that grind for a decade or more, maybe I wouldn't present my best self either.  It's not a crime to not love me - I do my best but I'm likely no picnic, nor to everyone's taste over the long term.

Your story about the breakfast hit me hard. I remember one of the most absurd fights Mrs Apocrypha picked with me, which was that I had dirtied half the dishes in the kitchen. I had dirtied them in preparing an epic grand gesture chef-quality, fine dining meal for us, and mainly for her.  It was ridiculous enough that she later on copped to it.

And then a few months later, she copped to the affair that she'd been having when she had picked this fight with me.

I later learned that, contrary to my intuition with affairs, apparently people don't try to keep a low profile and enhance their agreeability when having an affair. Instead they turn their aggro level up to 11 --> women in particular.   

I've read hundreds, if not thousands of accounts on this board and its predecessor, but few of them have left me feeling as dire and unsettled as yours. Perhaps you are just a good writer and excellent at selecting the perfect details to convey a visceral experience. But every word I real makes me feel that it is urgent to prepare yourself for the situation you are in. It's coming to you whether you want it or not. You are in the penumbra of the moon that's about to smack your planet. She's existing in a state of open contempt. If you you are able - try to imagine someone anywhere in your life that you would try so hard to display your contempt with. Try to imagine how much you'd have to not want to be beholden to someone else, to intentionally buy the same groceries you were growing in the garden, or to toss a kitchen when you were in the process of feeding the kids and breakfast not over (on the other hand, what if she thought she was helping by cleaning and YOU interpret it as contempt?).

I highly recommend - mid term - that you make a list of everything you'd need to do to blunt the damage of a split, if she was to inform you tomorrow that she's leaving, or an affair. To point yourself toward a more successful singledom.  And in the short term, I agree with Baz -- I'd advise some time away if you are able, a few days in a row to get outside of this and see how you feel about it when it's not actively happening to you. A fresh perspective.

"Contempt is the worst of the four horsemen. It is the most destructive negative behavior in relationships. In Dr. John Gottman’s four decades of research, he has found it to be the number one predictor of divorce. According to Malcolm Gladwell in his bestselling book, Blink:

“If Gottman observes one or both partners in a marriage showing contempt toward the other, he considers it the most important sign that a marriage is in trouble.” He also predicts the marriage will end within 5 years. When I read that, it was about 4 years before I divorced, and about 4 years into being completely sexless. I knew I felt contempt for my husband, but, since I had no plans to divorce, i thought Gottman's theory was bunk. But 3 years later,  I filed for divorce. Do get your ducks in a row: legal advice, support system, strengthening ties with your kids so you can be prepared for what may be coming down the road.

www.gottman.com/blog/the-four-horsemen-contempt/

I haven’t read as many stories about this as Apocrypha but I’ve read quite a few and I agree this is one of the worst situations I’ve read about. I really don’t know how you can take it really. I will say there was a time many years ago where I worked second shift and she first and our relationship got drastically worse. I was so annoyed with my wife. Mostly it had to do with the house. I’d take care of the kids all day then clean the house before I left for my second shift job. I’d come home tired and the house would be a mess. I’d ask my wife, “why isn’t the house picked up when I get home”? She’d say she was tired from working all day then watching the kids…. I was like Wtf you don’t think I’m tired? I got back to first shift eventually and decided then that working opposite shifts is horrible for a marriage. We were good for awhile after that although the no sex or intimacy thing plagues my marriage. I really don’t believe it can get better if libidos are so different, or at least her lack of interest in me.

I really appreciate your advice. I've really tried to shift to a mindset of just caring for myself more and sort of disengaging with the marriage. It's honestly taken so much out of me for too long. 

When I read your post it really got me thinking about my health too. I've been someone that was a runner for years, even ran many half-marathon's and a few marathons and was very much in shape. Over the last 2-3 years, the marriage (along with the pandemic) has just made me completely unmotivated to do much of anything. I've gained a good amount of weight, to the point where it's really affecting my mood and overall well-being. I've told myself this week that I totally need to change my thinking and just get back into it again. I've ran a couple of times for the first time in a couple of months this week and it felt great. Going to also crack down on my diet and just put a lot of focus on my body's needs and staying healthy.

I'm also really getting into all of my hobbies and just doing the things that make me happy. Really trying to engage even more with my kids, and cherishing the time I have with them. I'm also trying to not let my wife affect what I do - I want to live more free in a sense, and not be weighed down by what she thinks of it. 

I have thought about the complaining too, and I agree with you that it's just not worth it. Better just to let it go and focus what I need to focus on. In some ways it's very liberating.