Hi Tee, thanks very much for your reply. There’s no need to apologise about any delay in responding, I tend to take a while myself as I prefer replying when I have quiet stretches to do so without interruption.

No wonder you didn’t allow yourself to feel anger – because had you felt it, your father would have probably punished you. Aggressive, misogyinist men don’t take well when a woman opposes them. He might have even become physically violent if you hadn’t done as he told you?

That’s great btw that you finally managed to stand up to your father, even if later in your life!

Oh definitely. My father wasn’t heavy on physical violence, but the threat of being slapped or prodded really hard in the ribs was enough. Bad enough to really hurt, but not bad enough to leave a mark and incriminate him. He would use psychological punishment too, recording some perceived slight against him in his memory and finding a way to punish me via humiliation months down the line. Not a nice man. Thank you, distancing myself from him was the hardest thing I ever had to do as an adult but to allow the psychological assaults to continue would have been just as bad.

I agree that my mother set a bad example in not showing me how to protect myself. I have a lot of compassion for her and know that she was in an extremely difficult situation, but if only she had known how much damage it would all cause years down the line.

It seems to be that you were afraid of being completely honest with your husband – maybe projecting some of your father’s criticism into him – and so you didn’t really tell him when you started taking anti-depressants (you were still dating at that time). And you didn’t tell him later either that you were weening off. Do you think that the reason could be the fear of judgment?

Please don’t think that I am judging you or anything, I am just trying to understand the dynamic in your relationship. You said you had communication problems. It could be that a part of it was your fear of being judged by your husband? Even though he might not have been judgmental, or at least not as judgmental as your father (you said he would probably support you in doing what you believe is right for you)?

Yes, I think I’ve been projecting my father’s actions on to my husband a lot! It makes me feel a bit sick because as people they’re nothing alike. I was fearful of being judged, that makes a lot of sense. I think I was worried that I would come across as being hysterical and off the rails if weaning off anti-depressants didn’t work out.

And hmm, I’ve just realised that being “off the rails” was the image my father tried to portray of me to other people when I was a teenager. He would play the victim and pretend that I was uncontrollable and rebellious, when the reality was that I was a quiet, well-meaning girl who liked reading and walking her dog. I think it probably harks back to experiencing that kind of treatment. There was the whole element of being stuck in the house for months over the pandemic too, which mirrored my experiences as a teenager where I was unable to leave. It all seems trauma related.

Right. So for the majority of your marriage, until about 2 years ago, you couldn’t feel fully because you were on anti-depressants and you were only going through the motions, a little bit like being on an auto-pilot, right? You worked a lot, felt exhausted most of the time and in your spare time you just wanted to sleep. You didn’t feel resentment towards your husband, mostly because you didn’t feel much anyway, you didn’t pay attention to your feelings, nor to his feelings too much, I guess?

Your marriage survived this “auto-pilot” phase, and only started shaking when you started weening off anti-depressants. I might have an idea why is that, but I don’t want to jump into conclusions. If you feel it’s relevant, and want to share some more about that phase of your marriage, please do so.

Yes, this is exactly how it was. There were good times in there too of course and I’ve always loved him and enjoyed his company. I’d never had any practice in setting boundaries or expressing problems though and I think they all culminated into a bigger issue. Also, fear of my father was always the biggest issue in my life and I spent many years being afraid of him showing up on my doorstep or workplace and creating a scene, so anything else seemed insignificant in comparison. The first time I had truly felt safe in years was when the pandemic happened and we were forced to stay home for months as it meant that my father couldn’t turn up out of the blue and harass me. With that, the seemingly more insignificant issues in my life which I hadn’t paid much attention to came into my awareness a lot more. I think it was only with feeling safe that I could really reflect on how my life looked in the present moment rather than being in fight or flight constantly.

What is important is that now, after a rough patch, you started opening up towards your husband and that he reciprocates, and that you can laugh together and talk more sincerely with each other. If your emotional intimacy is growing, that’s fantastic!

Has he reduced his Discord dependence? Because based on what you’ve shared, it did become an addiction already, with him spending every single moment using the app…

Absolutely, we seem to be reaching a far better place. I think we needed to endure the discomfort of conflict in order to develop more emotional intimacy. I certainly couldn’t keep quiet about the things that were bothering me anymore, regardless of how silly they might or might not have been. I was feeling so insecure about it.

Yes, his online game actually no longer exists as of a couple of weeks ago, but even prior to that he had greatly reduced the time he was spending on there and was spending far less time on Discord. I think it was an addiction and that some of the habits I was witnessing daily were similar to those that you might see if someone were having an online affair, so I’m giving myself some compassion for jumping to that conclusion. Living and breathing a computer game and the related online social scene just didn’t make sense to me, so that’s how my brain rationalised it. He did confide recently that he misses his friends and I think as an extrovert he missed going out and seeing people over the pandemic, so without many other distractions I can see why it took such a hold. I’m aiming to forgive both of us for any dysfunctional behaviour over the last couple of years, it was such a stressful time for everyone.