This will be long. I only recently started to realize that these cycles of love and hate characterize our marriage. There is no tension-building phase, our arguments usually erupt from the thin air. I would say that my husband starts all these arguments but he would of course disagree. Our cycles are super long, like 6-12 months. Otherwise, we live a happy life. All my guards are down when suddenly - bang, an emotional rollercoaster (my husband never hurt me physically (nor I hurt him)). We are together for 11 years and we have two children. Our relationship is characterized by long periods of stability interrupted by sudden, fierce arguments. I always thought that it takes two to argue and that if I refuse to argue the argument will go away. But then I always end up defending myself - if I don't then I risk of "admitting" to whatever the accusation is. One example for many - this happened many years ago but I still remember it because it characterizes my husband's relationship with reality. On a Sunday walk, I have suggested we call some of our friends and my husband erupted that I spend all my free time with my friends and don't spend any time with him. I was taken aback and tried to protest but to no avail. After a week of the silent treatment, I sat down with the email and calendar and I was able to backtrack our schedules for the last 28 days. Day by day, it turned out that for the last 28 days I have been either with him, sick or at work and I spent 0 evenings with friends or anyone else. His reaction: so what. You Always and You Never are my husband's favorite words. His other favorite technique is to claim that something I said during an argument is actually the reason that started the argument in the first place. Causality or facts are not important for my Husband.
Our last argument started one week ago, but I need to provide some background first. We become friends with Bob and Alice 2 years ago. They are much younger, vegan, idealistic, usually broke, unemployed, carefree and Alice is always stoned. My husband didn't really like Bob but I liked to get stoned with Alice, maybe I felt younger with her. Now, according to my husband, I am a great parent and I work my ass off in a high paying office job (I am the breadwinner). What I am trying to say is that I am no loser even though I smoke weed. Long story short, last fall Bob left Alice because she was acting batshit crazy and was stoned all the time (although she was the one with a job while Bob was "studying") and suddenly Bob and my husband become best buddies and me getting stoned with Alice become a problem. There was a long and painful fight, I found out that Bob was trying to get back at Alice by sabotaging our marriage. He told my husband everything discriminating he knew about me from Alice, which amounted to nothing (i.e. once we joked about fucking some guy or something), but they still managed to paint me a total loser, junkie, hobo, pothead, and whatnot (yes, I read his phone). Again, I worked my whole life and made a career. I was very angry that my husband said these hurtful things about me, he maintained that he didn't mean it and that I am overreacting. In the end, Bob moved away and I promised to cut all contact with Alice. It is true that I was smoking weed too much (2-3 times a week) and Alice was really a very irresponsible person. Things went slowly back to normal.
Fast forward to one week ago, I haven't talked with Alice since and I smoke weed maybe once in two weeks. My mum's breast cancer spiraled out of control and she is in the terminal phase confined in a hospice. She is in the neighboring country so because of the corona virus, I can not travel to see her. She cannot speak anymore. I will never see her again and I will probably not even be able to come to her funeral. It was evening, I had a large glass of vine and I would kill for a joint. I don't know many stoners and no dealers. I called Alice, her phone was off. I had more vine and forgot about it. Later that evening my husband was looking for his phone, he used mine to ring him up and he saw that I called Alice. All hell broke loose. I am a lying liar. I am doing this behind his back. He categorically refuses to have Alice back in our lives. I was totally unable to say anything, to defend myself. Apparently, this was a mistake as he told me later because it meant that I didn't care about what I did. So my husband continued, if I can call Alice, he can call Bob. If I can call Alice, he can call Eva G. Sidenote: My husband cheated on me with Eva G (apparently "several times") when our first baby was 1 year old. I found out 5 years later when our relationship was in a good phase, we had a second baby and I decided not to confront him - I forgave him. My husband is very jealous. Two years later he was hysterically jealous of our common friend, threatened to destroy his marriage and started another long and painful argument. I told him that I know about him and Eva G to shut him up. He properly apologized and I forgave him again. Now he threw her in my face because I called Alice. Nevertheless, I didn't have the mental energy for another long argument. He was giving me the silent treatment but I wouldn't let him, I wanted to talk. I explained that I only called Alice because I wanted some weed. He told me I am a lying liar and we didn't get anywhere. 3 days of silence treatment later I urged him to talk, I said I made a mistake, I broke my word. I apologized. He said that I should have admitted it immediately, not now, and that because I lied to him (by which he means that I broke my word) he cannot trust me anymore. My mum is dying somewhere and we are quarantined, working from home and pretending that everything is normal in front of our two kids who are at home as well. 3 more days of depression and silent treatment, I urged him to talk again. We argue uselessly. Then I told him that he didn't even ask about my dying mum for 6 days and doesn't consider how I feel. His dad died when he was 12 and it traumatized him for life. He suddenly realized that he should have maybe cut me some slack. Now he wants to be here for me. He kind of apologized and now is calling all his friends to get some weed for me! Like flowers for a beaten wife. I am totally mentally depleted, unable to work, eat, sleep, like always when we argue.
TL;DR: my mum is dying, I made a mistake and my husband is acting like it is the end of the world until he suddenly turns 180 degrees. This is happening regularly in long cycles of honeymoon and hell and I don't know what to do.
Submitted March 25, 2020 at 12:49PM by whyisthishappe https://ift.tt/3aob9DO
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