Physical & Emotional Abuse Support Group
Abuse is a general term for the treatment of someone that causes some kind of harm (to the abused person, to the abusers themselves, or to someone else) that is unlawful or wrongful. No one deserves abuse, period. Abuse can be emotional, physical, or sexual.
Well, tomorrow I start the ball rolling on divorce. I'm making that my default course of action until I am convinced otherwise.
My wife contacted my friend. My friend had said, in no uncertain terms, that any attempts by me to contact her in any would result in further deterioration of our relationship. My wife, after considering my accusation that she had lied, manipulated, and behaved in a treacherous fashion, took to heart my advice that if she truly, deeply regretted it, that she would take steps to set things right.
So she contacted my friend. And told her 'Aaron wanted me to apologize to you. He thinks I lied and manipulated you.' My old friend naturally responded with 'You said what you should have at the time. He is out of line. Don't contact me asking me to talk to him. We're done.'
I told my wife 'You did the OPPOSITE of apologizing. You blamed me for you contacting her, and in such a manner that the only possible outcome would be continued anger at me!' She said 'Well, I now see the difference between saying He wants me to say I'm sorry, and I'm sorry. I could have worded it better. I'm sorry about that.'
She also said 'I just don't see any way that me advising her to change her mind and come over while you were drunk instead of waiting for you to sober up could be seen as manipulative. I told her that you were sobering up, not that you were sober, and that she could come on over. You may have been leaning over the toilet, and unable to stand up, and still drunk 12 hours later... but I see nothing manipulative. And I want a second opinion from a disinterested outsider before I begin to even consider that I may have been out of line.'
I swore up and down that if this was a trick, hoovering, or further abusive... I was done. I'm done denying God. Until he convinces me to change my mind, I'm pursuing divorce.
I drove the conversation hard, and she was super frustrated at my determination and unwillingness to yield control to her. She only tried to blame me a few times, and they were old, tired accusations, and I shut them down hard, and drove back to my point. I don't know what good any of it did, but I was heard. She asked for time to do some soul-searching. I said 'Search fast.'
My wife contacted my friend. My friend had said, in no uncertain terms, that any attempts by me to contact her in any would result in further deterioration of our relationship. My wife, after considering my accusation that she had lied, manipulated, and behaved in a treacherous fashion, took to heart my advice that if she truly, deeply regretted it, that she would take steps to set things right.
So she contacted my friend. And told her 'Aaron wanted me to apologize to you. He thinks I lied and manipulated you.' My old friend naturally responded with 'You said what you should have at the time. He is out of line. Don't contact me asking me to talk to him. We're done.'
I told my wife 'You did the OPPOSITE of apologizing. You blamed me for you contacting her, and in such a manner that the only possible outcome would be continued anger at me!' She said 'Well, I now see the difference between saying He wants me to say I'm sorry, and I'm sorry. I could have worded it better. I'm sorry about that.'
She also said 'I just don't see any way that me advising her to change her mind and come over while you were drunk instead of waiting for you to sober up could be seen as manipulative. I told her that you were sobering up, not that you were sober, and that she could come on over. You may have been leaning over the toilet, and unable to stand up, and still drunk 12 hours later... but I see nothing manipulative. And I want a second opinion from a disinterested outsider before I begin to even consider that I may have been out of line.'
I swore up and down that if this was a trick, hoovering, or further abusive... I was done. I'm done denying God. Until he convinces me to change my mind, I'm pursuing divorce.
I drove the conversation hard, and she was super frustrated at my determination and unwillingness to yield control to her. She only tried to blame me a few times, and they were old, tired accusations, and I shut them down hard, and drove back to my point. I don't know what good any of it did, but I was heard. She asked for time to do some soul-searching. I said 'Search fast.'
I am sorry that you are going through this, but also impressed that you are able to stand firm.
Good for you!
The worst pat is, she's not a psychopath. She honestly does not want to make me feel like she has. It breaks her heart that she has. But stopping requires trusting me, respecting me, and treating me like a human being, and she's just too afraid to.
Session yesterday, she told me that she 'felt that our relationship and my depression could not be cured while both women were in my life' and that 'since she was married to me, and my friend was young, she should be the one that stayed with me. So she told my friend J what she did, so that J would remove the hope of me ever repairing the friendship.
She also asked me if I planned on coming over to the house after session - it was my daughter's first day of third grade. I said it depended on how our meeting went, how I waas feeling afterward. She told me 'Well, I'm really sorry, and I don't know how to phrase this properly, but I feel it's not right that if I don't behave and say what you want me to, you'll punish the children by refusing to spend time with them.'
I told her in no uncertain terms that hearing that made me absolutely enraged. That it was phrased as an accusation, and a horrific, irrational one, at that. She said 'I know it's not true, but I'm not afraid of the term irrational like you, and it is a fear that I have.'
I told her that she needed to fix it right away, and that I could not be married to someone who had that fear - that my wife should not fear that about me. She agreed. She has until Halloween. We're talking about it next week.