We've been together for over ten years, married for six of them. She left her last job when we got married to go to college (with my full support). Since then I've been the only one who's working, so money is tight and lockdown has been hard on us both.
Last year as I was coming home about ten at night, I was mugged. The man who attacked me was a young guy who'd been in trouble with the police before (domestic violence) and from my description of him when I reported it and because they found my phone and some other items in his apartment and did a DNA test - he hit me in the mouth, broke a tooth and I bled a lot - he was convicted of assault and robbery. He threatened to kill me at the time. I got through it by curling up and letting him hit at my arms and head. I still can't talk about what happened without crying about it. I'm a big guy but I'm not a fighter, and he was younger and stronger and fitter than me.
I tried to talk about it to my wife and found her reactions unhelpful - she kept talking about fighting back, and when I said that because I hadn't fought back he would get a tougher sentence, she said she thought that wasn't fair, people should be able to fight back. I later told her that was hurtful and she said she hadn't been thinking and apologized for hurting me and I accepted her apology but I still didn't want to talk to her about it. Eventually I braced myself and contacted some mental health services and got an appointment with a therapist earlier this year.
We live in a small apartment and I am the only one of us in work, so I have been using our bedroom as an office, My wife has never complained about being able to hear me through the wall when I'm talking on the phone, so I just assumed it was reasonably soundproof. After the first therapy session, she told me she'd been able to hear me but she'd put her headphones on immediately and she would do that in future.
Some of the things I was talking to the therapist about were about my relationship with my wife, and how I was resenting her because things would be so much easier financially and mentally for me if she was also working, and about what she'd said after the mugging, and some other things - I laid a lot of it out to the therapist, and in the last session, I said I wanted to talk about these things with my wife but it was difficult because I didn't want to hurt her feelings, but I did want things to change.
After the session, I was still upset, so I stayed in our bedroom playing a game to unwind, and when I came out, thinking I'd make lunch, my wife confronted me, and said if I wanted to talk, we should talk. She said her music had stopped and she hadn't meant to listen but as she had, we should talk. I told her that this was a private conversation, not meant to be overheard, and I didn't want to talk and I would have to have the next therapy session somewhere else if I couldn't trust her not to listen in, and she said she would go for a walk next time but as she had listened, let's talk.
The talk turned into a discussion of the ways in which she feels I don't do enough around the house, much of which is fair - when I take a break from work to use the bathroom or fix myself a snack or a hot drink, my mind tends to be on work, not on neatness, so I have got messier in lockdown. She wanted to be assured I loved her and didn't want a divorce.
But I still feel weird and uncertain about the fact that she listened to this therapy session, and I think now may have listened to previous therapy sessions too. I wouldn't have done this. I would literally have left the apartment rather than listen in, if I felt headsets weren't enough. I also feel that even though she said "let's talk" about what was bothering me, I noticed the talk got steered into what was bothering her - things she'd never brought up before. It seemed, now I look back on it, very petty - like she was negging me.
Tl:Dr - My wife has listened to at least one and perhaps more of my therapy sessions, initially without my knowledge, and I feel she's trying to make me feel bad about myself because I talked to the therapist about how she'd made me feel bad.
Submitted April 29, 2021 at 05:41PM by ComfortableMechanic9 https://ift.tt/3gRsZ8s
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