Bax, this is not your 'job'. I want to emphasise here that I am not slamming your dad, who sounds like he has been at least partly supportive towards you.

It's not your job because you cannot make other people be other than they are. And if your wife is indeed an abuser, then... she just is :/ To make it work would be to fit in with that, continue being abused, and let your kids SEE you being abused.

As a woman, I was fed this same message. Make things work. Even if you hate it. Even if it kills you. I look at my mother now, locked tight into a marriage with a man who has never struck her physically but who has treated her nothing like a partner. And all I think is, what good did it do? I saw through my dad and left anyway. It was not my job to make him happy or to keep the family together.

It's not your job because everybody has their part. What about your family's failure to do their parts in recognising and helping you with your abuse? You don't have to suck it up just because nobody else will. People often love these images of the 'father shouldering everything' or the 'mother being the only emotional wellspring' but the truth is that they can make people very unhappy if they don't fit that cardboard cutout. And nothing really says that they have to. Except made up rules... xx

Bax,
I am so sorry you are going through this. You said;

"I recognize that there are things which I have which I take great delight in, that I enjoy. But no one else seems to understand why I enjoy them, much less enjoy them themselves."

I think maybe for a little while it might help to just focus on yourself and what you enjoy doing. It really doesn't matter if anybody else approves, enjoys it, or not.
It is so hard to have a family when you are in an abusive relationship, that really know nothing about abuse. I have found, if they haven't been in one, there is no way you can make them understand what you are going through. As much as they think they get it, they don't.
I hope you will be able to put more importance on what is good for you rather than on what anybody else thinks.
Whenever you get a chance do something special with just you and the kids.
I really hope you start feeling better soon, this is really the pits.
Things will get better, I HATE saying this, but it does take time.

((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((HUGS)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

Bax, I'm very sorry that you're still struggling.

As far as the abuse is concerned, as long as YOU know in your heart that your wife is abusive, that's all that really matters. Yes, it feels good to be validated -- but as a general rule nobody ever WANTS to believe that someone they know is abusive. You have a lot of friends on this forum who understand abuse and can give you validation. But if you're looking for validation from your family -- or in any way thinking you need validation from your family to be happy -- then I think you're setting yourself up to be disappointed.

It also sounds to me like you're beating yourself up over not feeling happy because you "should" be. So you feel bad, and you berate yourself for feeling bad, which makes you feel even worse, so you beat yourself up ever more...talk about a vicious cycle.

Just keep taking good care of yourself, and keep trying to focus on the positives in your life. You'll feel happy again when you are ready.

I hope you feel better soon.

Bax-- I feel similar. I am not a parent, so I don't have to make it work for that reason--- we all have or had our reasons and outside pressures "to make it work ." I fight with the desire to make it work every day.
I am fortunate that my family and friends (although my strict, religious, and abusive 'to my mother- father does not know yet will tell me "do what the man of the house says.") are supportive and wonder why I think I should even try to stay/go back.
I too am miserable despite I have the freedom to do what I want.
A counselor told me this week that I am trained and now probably even like to be controlled so I have to untrain that part of me so that I can enjoy life without the control..... it is what I know and probably what you know.

I too wish I was someone else. I actually half jokingly asked a collegeu if he wanted to trade places with me today---- but I meant it-- I hate every aspect of my life except when i am teaching children who actually seem to get something I offer (even if it is a child who has deep behavioral issues and he calms for just 5 minutes because I am giving him attention by sitting and half force feeding his education--- as he calms and his eyes take a glint of interest despite the fact that he is nearly upside down in his seat....I like that challenge and the success)
I hate every other minute of my day.;
I hate the end of my work day......
I know I am telling you in your thread that I hate hate hate hate hate everything. I even day dreamedof death over the weekend to the point of telling this board of my welcoming death by Monday morning....
But Bax, you were one of the people who gave me insight as to what is good and worthwhile---- living without abuse-
You likely will need to remind me again..... and I will do the same for you.
You have choice that while you may not feel a strong need for it now, you did and you will. You have the power to say enough is enough and walk away when you are being criticized and put down. You can act and create and be all that you are because you want to be. You are a wonderful creative person who can nourish that part of self without being stomped upon.
I wasn't on the board when you started posting and before you left. I am going to look back at your early posts and I invite you to do the same to see what the driving forces were/are.
It doesn't matter though if you don't want to look back---- because you know in your heart what you would become if you didn't have the apartment to be yourself.....
Stay strong Bax! You have strength in you... you have shared it with us here. Use it to get through this tough patch.....

Thank you, Bunny, Gem, Mary, and Yellow.

There's a second verse to that song.

"Now I don't have a coat of silk
But still I have the sky.
Now I don't have a lady
but there goes a butterfly.
Now I don't have a house of stone
But I can see the sea.
Now most of all, I know that I
am happy to be me.

Therapists heard me in session yesterday. She went into martyr mode, and one of them noticed that the 'walls going up' and the 'getting defensive' actually looked a lot more like - in her words - a 'major disassociative anxiety attack.' Maybe because I bit through my bottom lip. They asked me what I was thinking. I said that her crying and martyr mode is very effective at grabbing control of the session and getting everyone to encourage her and calm her down. And then they asked why that would bother me. And I told them about the next step being violence. Not directed towards me, as they feared, but towards herself.

Oh, lord, I do not want to get divorced. There are times I think that I'd prefer the lifetime of prison over divorce.

I'm not at all impressed by your therapists. They are very manipulated by your wife's behavior. I'd like to see her pull that crap in front of my therapist (former police officer). She'd be asked to blow her nose and get about 30 seconds to get it under control or be invited to leave.

Which of course, brings to mind something to make you laugh:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfmVBmDKLZI

(((Hugs)))

Bax.......I'm rather new here and I'm wondering why you feel so strongly against divorcing.

now that is a very good question, fortress, and one I'm working through, myself.

All I've identified is that it's really caught up in fears of failure, of letting people down - especially my kids - of abandoning others, and of breaking promises.

There are days which all that keep me going are the promises which I made to a friend that I would not end my life. Sure, she hates me now, and would probably rejoice to see me gone, but she broke so many promises to me, and I've broken so many promises to my wife already... it doesn't make any sense, I know, but there's a feeling that making it ok to break one promise makes it ok to break any.

I hear ya bax. We fight so hard with ourselves and keep adding more to our justifications for divorce but still keep fighting it as well. I hope you can become more and more like the second verse soon.

Bax, although I don't have kids I feel similar about divorce. It is my own thought I know and I don't want to put it on others. What amazes me now is that a Catholic Priest is telling me it is okay since my vows were abandoned by my spouse when he began demeaning, disrespecting, and dishonoring, etc. and yet I still am hung up on those promises, being a failure, breaking spiritual/christian beliefs, etc.
I guess we just have to work through it at our own pace....
It is hard -----I wish you peace and luck in your journey.