Dear Helena:

First I will retell your story in my own words (the italicized are your exact words with adjusted pronouns), then I will give you my thoughts:

You’ve been in a relationship with this man for 18 years, married for the last 11 years. You are from Europe, he is from a western country oversees, and the two of you met in Europe. In the early stage of dating, you had studies to complete and career to launch and the two of you were getting to know each other. Early on he broke up with you because, he said, he was afraid that you will not want to live in his home country. (But he never asked you if you will move to his country at that point, nor did he ask if you will consider moving to his country later on). While dating, he left you several times.

The two of you dated for two years, he broke up with you and dated someone else very soon after. After six months of separation he came back to you. A year and a half afterwards, he told you that he left to his home country to see what’s there for him, but did not state that he was breaking up with you, and there was no discussion of a future with you. And so, you assumed you were broken up. 

During his absence, he kept calling and keeping in touch the whole time. At one point you told him that you accepted a six month internship in another country. His response was getting really upset. You didn’t really understand why he was upset.

A few months after you started your internship, he was fired from his new job and moved back to Europe to be with you. Your career in the new country took off, you were offered a permanent position and you accepted it. In this  country (not your home country, not his home country), the two of you bought an apartment together. A year later he proposed to you, and two years later, you married. His found a good job but it involved lots of traveling and therefore he spent a lot of time away.

While he was away traveling, your mother lost her own mother, retired from her job and you invited her over for Christmas to recover. During her visit, she decided that she doesn’t want to return to the home where she took care of her own mother. And so, you and your mother decided to rent out her old home. You had a friend that was willing to rent a place for your mother in the new country when your mother was ready to do so.

You were on a business trip while your mother was staying at your apartment and your husband returned home from his travels. In the apartment with your mother, he found out from her that the two of you rented out her house in the home country. He figured that it meant that you decided behind his back, without discussing it with him, to move your mother permanently, or without an end date, to your shared apartment, that you planned and executed a plan to move your mother to your shared apartment, purposefully hiding it from him.  He went absolutely crazy over it…. exploded. First at her and then at you as soon as you came back; caused a huge scene and basically threw your mother out of your shared apartment. He also  told you that he wanted to leave you as you betrayed him.

You tried to explain to him that there was no such hidden plan and execution, that there was a place for your mother to live at when needed, but he wouldn’t listen not for a long time. Eventually he calmed down and didn’t leave.

Later you suggested that you will find another job and relocate to the UK where he spent a lot of time working, and you did.  In the UK, you got promoted several times and got a big pay rise. The two of you split all the bills but put your bonuses into a joint saving account. Your bonuses of the last years are several times higher than his.

Some time later, his father got very sick, and even though his  mother took care of his father, your husband chose to travel back to his home country for several months at the time, to take care of his father. You supported him, booking his flights, paying for them at times while he used your joint savings (where your contributions/ bonuses are several time greater than his) while he stayed with his parents. At the same time, you found out that your mother was severely depressed. This time you discussed the situation with your husband who was with his parents a the time, and the two of you agreed that you bring your mother over to stay in your home.

Later on, his father died and he returned to your shared apartment where your mother was and still is living. Your mother, feeling better, wanted to leave your apartment so to not be in the way. You suggested that she stays longer with the two of you so that she will experience a gradual return to normality. His reaction: he again explodes, saying he doesn’t want her around. This time you just lose it and you have an argument. You told him that you will have your mother thrown out of your home again and risk her getting depressed again, that you want her staying in your shared apartment for two months longer. His response: he won’t have it and says he’s had enough and that she should just get a grip.. because of her, he doesn’t want to spend time with you etc… Many mean horrible things. You then told him that maybe he should leave you again and he takes that and just runs with it. Starts sending agents to your house/ flat etc. In the end you literally beg him to stop and calm down and suggested counseling.

You attended two sessions with a therapist, where he keeps repeating how betrayed he feels by me and sees no fault or selfishness of his behavior.. keeps talking about your betrayal and your mother’s ridiculous behavior.

At one point he has been treating your mother kindly in her presence and she is not aware that outside her presence he expresses dissatisfaction with her living in your shared home. But she is not always living with the two of you because you and your husband have three properties in two different countries and she stays in one or more of those properties at times.

He feels betrayed because your mother moved to your shared apartment while he was traveling, because he didn’t really want to buy an apartment with you later (not thrilled by it but he agrees, goes to notary with you and signs the papers, but does so unhappily), and because he wanted you to co-sign a loan for an expensive boat but you refused.

And now my thoughts at this point: in your two long and detailed posts, there has been

1. Not a single expression of the following, past or present, on his part toward you, or on your part toward him: affection, emotional closeness, shared values, shared interests, trust, appreciation, enjoyment being in the other person’s company.

2. Lots of financial details, as if finances is and has been what hold the two of you together, as if there is nothing else but financial details and considerations.

3. Lots of fast buildups and explosions of aggressive anger on his part, and a slow and persistent, mostly silent buildup of passive anger on your part. He “goes absolutely crazy over” this or that, “explodes”, throws your mother out.. quite aggressive. You on the other hand were “a little taken aback and hurt by his coming and going”, an understated kind of anger, “a little”, “taken back”.

You were angry that he broke up with you repeatedly and then decided to come back to you, that he dated another woman very soon after one of the breakups, suspecting he cheated on you with that woman (“they must have met when we were together”), angry that he got fired yet again (“he got fired from his new job,second time this has happened”), angry that he didn’t learn or cared to learn a new language and as a result traveled away for work (“as he never learned a foreign language and didn’t even try, his company was using him for all international dealings”).

And angry that he kicked your depressed mother out and then traveled repeatedly to visit and stay with his sick father (and mother) for months at a time, that he exploded at your mother and at you for her staying in your place, while you supported his stay with his parents (“He wants to be round his parents at that time and I am ok with that”), going as far as booking his flights to his parents, paying for those at times, and while during those stays he was using your joint savings account that included your bonuses that were several times higher than his bonuses.

Eventually you “just lost it” and had an argument with him, but ended up begging him to calm down (“In the end I literally beg him to stop and calm down”).

In summary, the anger dynamic is: he is repeatedly aggressive and loud and you step back, give in, pacify him until the next time he explodes, then repeat. He is aggressive, you are passive, he gets his way, you give in, but your anger builds.

4. Very poor communication between the two of you. You dated for two years and he broke up with you “for no particular reason”- he didn’t say his reason and you didn’t ask? He left the country and you assumed he broke up with you, you didn’t ask, he didn’t say. You told him about the internship, he got upset, you didn’t know why.  Poor communication ever since and all through, it seems.

But the communication was poor not only between the two of you, but between you and.. you: you allowed him early on back to your life because “I wasn’t seeing anyone at that time and thought why not”-

– but why yes? (Why take him back?)

In summary: reads to me like a very poor quality relationship and marriage that results in what you described here: “I am alone with an overwhelming job (that I however really enjoy) and the rest of my life really was a disaster.. I felt very alone and just burdened with everyone else’s problems but I held it together and tried my best to be there for everyone whilst not losing my job as I feared my husband might stop working any day and we have bills. mortgages to pay… I’ve spent a lot of time and effort trying to help everyone, whilst no one was there for me“.

Your husband was not there for you and you didn’t mention a single time that he was there for you. Reads like the marriage is of no benefit to you and never was.

Was it? Is it?

anita