I'm 38 yrs old male. married for 7 yrs (incl. this yr). my
marriage has been rough right from the start. i ve no children till
now (but also mainly at certain point in our marraige, i decide i
should not ve any) on the 1st 2 yrs of my marriage, she had
constantly been having a bad temper scolding or critizing me on my
untidiness, my hobbies, my habits, my family and so on.
i think i'm a soft-spoken and thoughful person and so i often
self-reflected on her comments and start to change for her. i know
i'm not an untidy person, just not as tidy as her. she likes things
to be exactly the way she wanted e.g. towel folded in a certain
manner, cups place at a certain position, carpet laid out flat and
straight (i.e no flipped corners) etc.so, every time the house's
tidinees is not up to her expectations, she will flare up and start
scolding and critizing me. also,
i'm a gamer and love to diy my PC too. I also love to read books
too. i often spend 5 days a week playing PC games 2-3 hrs. she knew
about these before we marry but as soon as we were married, she
clam down on it. again she will flare up the moment i start up my
PC, saying i don't give her any attention, i wasting too much time,
etc. i tried to negiotate with her to play only 1-2 hrs for 3-4
times a week but she won't have it. so i gave it up almost
completely. i still play when she is out with her frens or when she
is working late (which is not very often).
so i start spending more time reading. once again, she was very
angry saying i spent too much money buying the books and comic and
again wasting too much time. i was a little pissed off by now but
still loved her, so again i compromised and cut down on all my
hobbies to almost zero time or none at all.
i don't have many friends but we still meet occasionally. some
of them are female. again she knew about them before marriage but
won't let me go out with them at all after marriage, saying i
should spend my time with her only. again, i thought maybe she is
not feeling comfortable with marriage life, so i stop seeing my
friends and stay with her at home most of the time or visit her
parents and relatives.
by the 3rd and 4th yrs, i became depressed. i became very tired
easily since i'm always tense, always checking the house are in
order (tidy). always checking if i'm giving her enough attention.
somehow i still couldn't meet up to her expectations...so, i was
also always tense..readying for her next scolding. it was also this
year that we talked about divorce, we had 3 major quarrels and i
mentioned about divorce. initally she would agreed...but then she
would back out, saying she can't live without me. she even threaten
suicide. we went to marriage counseling but she coulldn't accept
the counsellor's comments, got angry and said i caused the problems
that make her always getting angry. so, our counselling sessions
ended without any results.
by this time, i lost interest in the marriage life or life in
general and was in a depression. i seeked help for my condition and
start taking medication. She knew about it but thought it was just
for my tiredness. I also didn't bother to explain to her anymore
'cos it was getting so hard just to live another day. naturally,
during these few yrs, we didn't have any sex. in the 1st 2 yrs, she
was always angry. in the next 3-4 yrs, i was always tired and i
started having many different problems with my health. by now, she
sensed something was wrong, we talked and she agreed to change, be
less controlling, less anger.
however, from the 5th yrs onwards, i found i don't love her
anymore. i don't know when i stop loving her. i couldn't find back
the feeling i had for her before we got married. i'm not angry with
her or anything, i just don't ve any feeling for her. i still take
care of her like any husband, celebrate her birthday, anniversay,
valentine days, go holiday, etc. i believe she knew about it too
'cos she told me she don't want me to care for her but to love her.
i tried to love her but i can't. i tried telling her it's not
working but she started ignoring the problems. she rarely throw
temper now but she also not facing the fact that we are both
unhappy.She also start asking to have a baby.
This was when i realised i cannot continue with the marriage
life. i totally think she is immature, insecure and making the
situation worse if we have baby. i'm unsure how to break the
problems to her 'cos each time i tried to talk about it, she will
flare up again and telling me to shutup.
also, my depression is getting worse and i've visited various
psychologists and psychatrists without any good. the doctors told
me to talk to her parents but her parents are supportive of her to
have a baby (in between there are many stories/issues at her
parents side that complicate the problem of talking to them) . i'm
too tired to fight her temper and ignorance now. i wish somebody
can help me to solve my problem.
Why even bother having to analysis so
much? Or listen to so much opinions and viewpoints?
You have probably been through and hear enough
analysis to paint all dimensions and perspectives
on yourself - but ironically (from my angle) that has only
served to cripple your attempt to move along in life.
Why? I will break down the following:
(1) You are clear in what you want - you want a divorce
(2) You kept wondering what's stopping you - I
will tell you: you actually fear
making the divorce choice, albeit this is what you
want. Your meek personality interestingly strengthened this
fear.
(3) All the perspectives/opinion/viewpoint/angles
are nothing but a red herring to disguise your
fear in making choices. Every time when someone fed you an
opinion, you have conditioned yourself to a series of
perspectives from your angle to 'convince' yourself that this is
going to be difficult and hence not attempting
anything is indeed the
safest route.
(4) In simple, although you are suffering in your
marriage - the notion of getting out of your comfort zone in
reality (to you) seemed more arduous than remaining in misery.
Because - although you are miserable - your subconscious
prefers a familiar misery than to charter unknown
territory. The truth is that you are looking for the
safest route - an utopia that doesn't exist, hence you always
remained at where you are - hindered by your
incessant consideration
of perspectives/angles/opinions/etc in a
circular motions that goes back to square one at the end
of the day and repeat cycle.
(5) You even made used of external circumstances
to corroborate your stance in maintaining status quo
(family issues, etc). Surely, these are negative
circumstances, but they are separate
issues. Seeing them together are blatant signs of using these
circumstances to prevent yourself from gaining
the ability to make choices.
An example to illustrate my point on your flow of
fallacy:
i) I am living in poverty (a negative situation)
ii) I felt down and cut myself (a negative situation)
iii) Living in poverty has caused me to fall down and cut myself
(using two illogical premises to conclude an outcome).
(6) Your result is therefore status quo.
***
Your situation is worsen by two facts:
(1) You have little social contact with anyone else, hence you
are pretty much isolated. There is
a direct relationship of people living in
social isolation and feeling trapped by adverse negative
environment - because they have learned that this is the only
way of life and felt the inability to flee.
(2) From a behaviourist perspective, you have already
conditioned yourself to her verbal trashing (which
includes even your decision to divorce her), which
trigger your compliance. I will show you with the
illustration:
Untidy > Scold > Submit (to become tidy)
Playing Game > Scold > Submit (to quit
gaming)
Reading Book > Scold > Submit (to quit
reading books)
Going out with friends > Scold > Submit (abandon
circle of friends)
Scold > Submit (pay more attention to her)
- noticed how the premises have reduced, yet the effect
remains.
Scold > Submit (anything)
Hence: Want to divorce > Scold >
Submit (suppress action)
Your idea of a safe, best of all worlds decision is impossible.
The equation would mean:
Want to divorce > no scolding/reaction > succeed
in action.
Therefore, what's hindering you greatly is your inability to
gain immunity to her reaction (as well as your environment)
and your perservence to substain this long enough to
initiate a change that you seek.
Want to divorce > immune to wife's response >
insist/persist > succeed in action.
***
You have too much considerations -
if you want to seek new islands, you got to first lose
sight of the shores.
Think about it.
Cheers