Hi Anita –

Thank you for replying. My daughter is 7, and her 11 year old son does live with us. Her son is fairly oblivious to the situation, or so he leads on however my daughter is absolutely in tune with the current situation and is being affected.

I love my wife, but I am not in love with her. She is a terrific mother, very giving and outgoing. She is a very giving partner in the sense that she provides cooking and cleans regularly as well as takes care of the household. The issue is that she tends to treat that as my emotional support. If I bring up criticism or neglect of my feelings, her rebuttal is that she does so much for me. Quite often this is why I would shut down cause I would see I was hurting her by not properly showing her I appreciated the things she did for me.

She sees the micro managing as being my fault, because I became submissive/passive. She is having a hard time seeing that it was due to her rather actions, her anger, criticism. It became easier to obide to keep her happy than to go against the grain. I fully admit this was not the right approach however to keep the peace and not rock the boat, I chose to roll with ‘happy wife happy life’.

I obviously didn’t realize the emotional and physical toll this would eventually have on me. The hard part about not discussing with friends or family is that when the meltdown happens, they have trouble supporting because to them the marriage has been picture perfect. It makes it look like I’m habing a single bout, and overexhaggerating. This has left me feeling even more isolated and because I’ve relied completely on my wife’s opinions and choices, I feel powerless and the cycle will just continue.