Posted by zinya on September 12, 2003, at 9:52:54
In reply to AT MY WITS END!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, posted by J9 on September 11, 2003, at 20:51:31
Gosh, Janine and soccermom (mary? i think),
My heart absolutely goes out to you. While every situation is unique, my husband -- eons ago, marriage itself ended eons ago too -- used to threaten me with having an affair, and when i read of someone else going through that very perverse and awful hell, i just die a little inside in empathetic grief from what it means you're going through.
Whether your husbands will go or not (mine refused to go to therapy for years - til it was too late and i finally left the marriage, after realizing i'd been dreaming of him dying, and realized divorce was better than that - but i had no kids ... Yet, even with kids, i urge you to find a therapist who can be an inner voice for the side of you that is buried -- the same one that is mired under depression -- which KNOWS that the disrespect and lack of understanding from your husband is compounding if not creating your depression itself. There are big problems in a marriage where that kind of response to a spouse's crisis occurs. Yes, men are more prone to a kind of macho attitude toward depression ("Get off your duff" stuff) that is not just irrelevant and impossible but even counterproductive (big time) in serious depression...
If he won't seek counseling/therapy help, i hope you'll go on your own... You first and foremost ... and for the sake of your kids if you can't yet fully see it for your own sake ... need to know that such talk is a sign of your husband's own limited understanding of marriage -- most men in this culture (and others) have totally unrealistic expectations of wives -- to be some ever-resilient combo of both madonna and whore ... and I would guess your husbands had or have fathers who gave poor models of what it means to be an ally and constant support as a spouse... But they're adults now and responsible for what they perpetuate and don't...And you too - probably had or have moms who took a fair amount of cr*p in stride... Know that there is the possibility of true alliance ... that it has a lot if not almost entirely to do with learning new and better communication.. For you, probably learning to voice boundaries, to say when something hurts and draw a line in the sand at garbage like threatened affairs -- which is only intended to bribe you into something you don't fully control yet - but he thinks you do ... cuz his notion is that everything is or should be controllable... And meanwhile his response is making you feel less and less in control, being threatened makes you just more vulnerable and unable to remotely start seeing your own light. It means that ideally you'd both be in a counseling/therapy situation, but if he refuses, don't let that control your own efforts to find new ways and means of finding yourself again ... In even the tiniest of ways, try to do something every day that gives you a sense of having control over something in your life - a way that doesn't involve another person - not asserting over another but just over yourself... That can be a first key step toward building back to a sense of being in control of your daily destiny instead of it being in control of you (through such nightmares as "Is today the day my husband carries out his threat?" That is verbal abuse. Blackmail. He needs to realize that, and i urge you to work toward being able to tell him that.)
sending hugs and the best of vibes, deep breathing, and growing strength day by day,
zinya
poster:zinya
thread:13781
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030912/msgs/259346.html