Dear Carly,

to answer your question right off the bat: no, you haven’t ruined your life. You did make a mistake marrying your husband, but you don’t have children together, and so with some juggling, you can separate from him never to have to meet him again.

It appears you never had support from your parents, they didn’t believe you when you complained about being bullied and people spreading rumors about you. They invalidated you and your experience. And I guess it’s been happening your entire life. That’s why you were attracted to this man, who was “the only person who would listen to you”.

He sounds narcissistic, by the way, because you say he’s charismatic, he has a fake persona and easily manipulates people, and he’s selfish and controlling. Perhaps he was “love bombing” you in the beginning of your relationship – showering you with praise and attention? If so, that would be a typical narcissistic behavior.

It seems you first wanted to escape from your parents and ended up with your husband, and then you wanted to escape from your husband back to your parents, but they didn’t let you come back. It seems both your parents and your husband are abusive and don’t care about you. The only way to help yourself is not to seek their help but separate yourself from both and start your life anew.

I’ve been applying for jobs for over a year now and no one will get back to me. I’ve more than lost hope of ever getting out of this mess. I feel like no matter what I do, no matter how hard I reach for something, I’ll always be met with disappointment and failure.

You were indeed met with rejection and disappointment whenever you reached to your parents. That’s why you formed a belief that it can never be different for you, and perhaps that you are a failure too. The experience with you husband “proved” the same. But it’s a false belief, based on your so-far negative experiences.

The truth is that you deserve love and understanding and compassion and success in life, but you’d need to let go of the childhood programming and start loving and trusting yourself. You’re only 24, the whole life is in front of you, and you can make it a better, different experience than you had so far.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by Tee.

Hi Carly,

Wow, parents who underestimate your achievements – how familiar.

First, no matter how hard you’d tried to find compassion in them, that wouldn’t work out. They even accused the priest gave you the “wrong” advice. So, they think there’s no other point of view than their “right” one. That happens because parents are afraid to admit mistakes they made when you first asked for help. Imagine a situation when person A tells person B what to do but then realizes those actions lead to a collapse. Person A had better say sorry and help person B to get out of this. But that could have been seen as a defeat (even if we all know this is not). So, person A chooses to turn it into a giant snowball of wrong pieces of advice. Now both person A and person B need to get qualified therapy. But you’re not a therapist, so you can’t help your parents to admit their wrongs. That’s the truth you need to learn to live with.

Your parents seem to be those people who consider having a husband as the only purpose in life. Could you tell us more about the family model you saw when you were a child?

And to your thread topic: you didn’t ruin your life. Your marriage wasn’t a mistake. You did what you did. Yes, this now seems like an insoluble problem. The thing is, the only insoluble problem is death. Immortality is impossible. All the rest has the resolution. You just take your time to find it. Care for your health, pick up the pieces, and start from there. Maybe there are some centers for women in difficult situations near you.

Dear Carly:

You are welcome.

You shared about your husband: “He started to show these unexplainable facial expressions that were just… terrifying”- do you mean that he purposefully contorted his face so to appear menacing and scary? If so, in what circumstances did he do that?

You shared: “mom cares a great deal for women’s rights and women’s issues.. her idea of marriage is to endure anything and everything no matter what… she said even if he was hitting me, that’s just what men do when they’re angry, and I need to accept it”-

– do you mean that she used to care a great deal for women’s right but has recently changed her position 180 degrees?

If so, has she expressed extreme changes in her views on other topics, and perhaps in her behaviors recently?

anita

Dear Carly,

you’re very welcome. I’ve taken a look at your previous thread, where you shared about your husband’s family and how unsupportive and mean they were. Back then, you and your husband were a team – it was the two of you against his family. His mother and sister tried everything to stop him from marrying you, but it appears he wouldn’t budge – you still ended up getting married. So before the wedding, it seems he was your hero, and then after the wedding he completely changed and became cold and mean.

You said:

He’s the kind of fake person who molds himself into what you want him to be just so he can check off freaky goal boxes like “have a house” and “get a wife.”

So could it be that he married you out of spite to his mother and sister? To prove he can do it? You say they were mocking him while you were still dating:

they always gave these little jabs at him, or only told stories that would make him look bad.

His mom started cornering him and screaming at him, calling him in the middle of the night to ask whether he ever thinks Ill want to have sex with him, if he thinks he’ll be my hero,

It seems he did behave like your hero back then:

he conformed to everything he thought I wanted him to be. Going out of his way to be helpful and kind to others, and pretending to be a thoughtful hard worker, and to like the same media I like. He seemed like a perfectly wonderful person up until the point I married him.

But it wasn’t because he loved you, it seems, but because he needed to prove that he can be successful. Perhaps he was mocked that he’d never get a wife, or be materially successful (e.g. have a house of his own), and you served to prove the opposite?

After you got married, “He stopped trying to help others and became lazy too, always whining about money and jobs.’

So after you got married, he became his true self, or rather, his more honest self: lazy, self-centered, not really wanting to work and be successful in his career, perhaps not even interested in material success (or perhaps relying on you to provide it, so he can keep a façade of success towards his family)?

Anyway, he seems like trouble and best is to divorce him, even if your parents believe it’s a “failure”. Much bigger failure would be to stay married to him, even have children together, and then get stuck with him for a really long time…

I love your plan – to get a better job (rooting for you, you’re definitely able to do it!) and be able to pay for the divorce and live separately from him.

Your mother’s support for women’s rights is indeed strange, if she also believes you should tolerate even physical violence, because men are simply like that? Then why didn’t she marry such a guy, instead of a softy who agrees with everything she says? Or perhaps she supports women’s rights in theory, but not her own daughter’s rights?