@Brokenman- no advice form me as I am experiencing the same thing and struggling despite being very emotionally aware and smart, that what is happening to me is emotional/verbal abuse. I think it is because I cannot deal with the heartbreak of knowing the man I love, doesn’t feel the same despite telling me he does (infact telling me I am his world).

I am trying to leave, I have a house lined up to go to with the kids. But he keeps drawing me back in. because a lot of the events are isolated incidents, and also I have become immune to it a little bit, its hard to see it as a cummulative effect. But I know I am a shell of the person i could be, despite all my friends and family thinking I am full of confidence. i smile all the time, I act happy, inside I’m dying.

Keep strong.

Dear Broken Man:

I copied and pasted your most recent post so to print for my own keep because it describes my childhood so well. Your description is so clear, sensible, simple and thorough, it amazes me. In my effort to get yet more insight into my own childhood and my own complex PTSD symptoms, I would like to ask you a few questions. If you are willing, please consider sharing the following with me:

1. Have you been hoping, through your history with her, that she will change? Are you hoping that she will become a calm, happy woman?

2. If you hoped or hope that she will change, did you try to – other than walking on eggshells- to make her calm and happy? How?

anita

Dear Broken Man:

Thank you for answering my questions; I appreciate it.

By nature, you wrote, you never get into confrontations with anyone. Were you like that before you met her, as a child and onward, non confrontational, so much so that you would give in to anyone aggressive?

anita

Dear Broken Man:

In your original post you wrote: “I cannot work out why her anger makes me feel so bad. I do not have problems dealing with others who show similarly aggressive characteristics.. With others, it’s like water off a duck’s back. With my wife it’s very different and completely the opposite as I take things deeply to heart.
It really is as if I am under her hurtful spell….” In your last post you gave more detail: ” For the last 20 years I have been working in a what is often a very difficult industrial environment dealing with customer complaints involving large sums of money…I have no problems dealing with these difficult people and situations and can always maintain a cool head. Very different with dealings with my wife.”

Your wife is at home, your home. The customers are outside your home. Because your wife is at home, you have no way to escape her and so, you are trapped with her. When you visit your customers, you only visit them. Living with your wife, you go to bed at night knowing you will be asleep in the presence of the-enemy, unable to protect yourself. Living with the enemy, you cannot always pay attention to her moves, too many hours, too many minutes every hour to always be alert.

It is being TRAPPED that makes the fear escalate inside and interrupt the cool headedness you experience otherwise at work.

anita