My wife abuses me

[jetx]

I have been abused by my wife since I got married. I have to admit that I have made a couple of decisions in my life that my wife wasn't happy about it that has made our lifes from an economic point of view more difficult. As a result of those decisions I get abused on a daily basis. I don't know what to do anymore. I have been feeling guilty and put up with it for the longest time. We have three children and if it wasn't for them I could take some action but I don't want to risk my children. I know that if we got a divorce she would make sure my life is as misarable as it can be. We met in the USA and when I finished my degree I wanted to go back to my country but she didn't want to come. I was madly in love and I decided to stay. We got married and that's when the abuse started. I had kept a few things to myself about my past relationship's. She started a brutal interrogation that lasted for six months. Every detail, every action, everything she demanded to know and didn't stop till she got all the information through mental torture. What I mean about mental torture is that she would ask me the same questions for hours, days, weeks, months, non stop. She would argue with me till early morning hours  non stop. And the next day and the next. Finally we got through that stage and life went back to "normal". This abuse has continued for different reasons. There is always seems to be a reson for her to abuse me. She is not happy with her life and I get the blame. That's OK. But is that a normal person's behaviour? Today again from the minute i wake up she has been shouting at me. 9 hours in a row non stop. Always the same things over and over. If you had bought a house when I told you!!!!! etc... etc...

[Curls]

One more idea - get yourself and your wife checked out for depression and bipolar depression.  Both can lead to unreasonable anger.  Depression can have an odd effect on the family dynamics.

[Jaybay]

But you can't change them, and your wife is acting very childish expecting you to wave a magic wand and make her life all better.  She seems to have forgotten that her primary job right now is to be a Mommy.  When women have children, we have a choice: devote ourselves to being good mothers, or try to maintain a career while being a mother.  

Your wife is baiting you, and you're taking that bait and running with it.  She put her life in your hands and now isn't happy with the outcome.  Completely unfair.  Stop jumping through her hoops and start making your own decisions about what is right for your family.  Certainly ask for her input, but criticism isn't constructive input.  If that is all she can offer, you can choose to ignore it.  Again, she needs to get herself into some kind of therapy.  It sounds like she has a whole lot of issues to deal with and she can't do it alone.  Will she go?  Will you?

[Curls]

Boy is this unbalanced.  You make decisions.  She participates.  You and she hold only you responsible for them.  It doesn't sound like you work well together as a team and that's something counseling can help.  It's hard to tell whether what she's doing is abuse or not from here.  Again a counseler just for you can help you tell.  Abuse is manipulative, put downs, and disproportionate, and actively isolating.  It's not just crazy-high levels of anger.

Sounds like you make decisions without working out the possibilities with her and persist until she gives in.  You take too much control, out of your own worries about how to care for a family.  Probably also out of an outdated  somewhat controlling view of male-female relationships.  Sounds like she blames you and takes no responsiblity for the decisions nor for the families well being herself.  She probably feels complete lack of control over the choices.

Staying together for kids in an unhealthy situation makes no sense.  Then they grow up with that as their model and meanwhile have to live with all the stress.

Your choices from here are any of
1. get counseling for yourself
2. invite her to join you
3. talk with your wife and actively ask her to help you figure out how to fix things and how to plan for your futures.  If she feels like she has more control, she might be much calmer.  Don't just apolgize or kowtow to her now...figure out how to work together.  You acknowledge here how upsetting all this has been for her.  Make sure you are acknowledging it to her too.  Ask her to acknowledge how much pressure you feel to keep the family cared for even beyond when she asks you too.
4. if you can't get to a calm healthy place, do what's best for your kids, leave.  If she can't get past where she's out given a good chance and some changes from you, sometimes you have to give up.

Hope something in here helps.

[jetx]

It's a long story. When we lived in the USA I worked in the airline industry. My roster was very unstable. I would be gone for an average of four days followed by two or three days off at home. My wife worked in the airline industry as well. When our first child was born we had no family around and because it was almost an impossible task to coordinate rosters so someone could be at home I suggested her to quit her job. Wrong decision.She would have liked to continue to work. The only solution was to go back to her parents and for me to commute. At the time I didn't think that was a good idea. I had left my home country in the first place to be with her and now I would have to commute crosscountry on my days off to get to see my family. We were struggling to make ends meet. Then I get this call from my mother telling me that a friend of mine that I hadn't seen for years had called and wanted to talk to me. I gave my friend a call and he said that his company was hiring and if I was interested. I had a talk with my wife and she was not interested because she thought we would be better off staying in the US even if the money wasn't that good. I should have followed her advise. The problem is that she would always complain about our economic situation so I thought even though she thinks is not agood idea she will change her mind as soon as she sees what kind of life I can offer her in my country. By the way my mother should have never got involved but unfortunately she called too many times trying to convince us. And in a moment of weakness my wife agreed so I took the job. We had a good time. My second child was born. I was home every night. But something was missing in her life. Her job and her family. A year later the company run into trouble and I was laid off. We decided to head back to the USA to my inlaws. That was very humiliating for my wife since we had to stay with my inlaws and I was unemployed. That's when all her fury brokeout. I was to blame for the situation because after all it was my idea. For six months I worked with my father inlaw. She was furious with me. She called me every bad thing you can think of. I worked very hard to make up for my mistake but airlines were not hiring and my wife was always upset because I couldn't afford a place of my own and because she didn't have a job thanks to me. I felt guilty and put up with it as best as I could. Out of the blue I got a call from Europe and I was offered a great job. Needless to say this time my wife was very happy because we would be able to have a life again. We moved to Europe, bought a house, had another baby but again something was missing. She wanted to go back to the US with her family and she wanted to go back to work. I wish that it would be so easy. Raising three children is very expensive. Housing in the US is very expensive. Before we left the US my wife suggested buying a house. I wasn't in the mood. I was working for my father in law and though I was doing OK I didn't see that as a job that would allow me to pay for a mortgage. Now that we want to go back the houses are twice as expensive as they were before we left which makes moving back more difficult. 90% of our fights or her fights are related to my decisions in the past. She needs a house close to her family and she needs her job back and not until I can get that for her she will stop. And as times goes by she gets more and more upset. I am trying to correct things. At the moment I can not meet her needs. In my industry good jobs are very competitive. And that's what I need to meet her housing standards. It's not that simple. The other 10% of the issues are related to my family not meeeting her standards as they are according to her responsible for us being in this situation. It's true that I was influenced by them but my decision was based on giving my wife a better life from my point of view of course. Wrong decision again. I wish I could go back and change things.

[Jaybay]

No, this behavior is not normal.  You and your wife are the only people in the world who know what your issues are, and you are the only people who can change this behavior.  I don't mean to say that YOU can change HER behavior (you can't), but if you are both willing to salvage your marriage, it can be done.  With small children involved, some kind of therapy would be useful - if for nothing else than proving to a judge that you tried to fix the relationship before heading to divorce court.  Who knows?  It might actually restore your marriage.  Can't hurt.  If your wife refuses to go, there isn't much you can do but try to make things as normal as possible for your children.  Can you at least get her to agree to stop the screaming in front of the kids?  Will she give you that much cooperation?

Successful counseling depends a great deal on how open you are to it, and the individual counselor.  If you end up going alone, a good therapist can help you learn how to deal better with the constant arguing without losing your mind.  I suggest a PhD psychologist for talk therapy rather than someone who is just graduated with a psychology degree and set up a counseling clinic.  An MD Pychiatrist will typically just push medications on you and not focus on talk therapy.  You may have to try several different ones before you find one you click with.  Your children deserve to have at least one stable parent, right?

[layne2000]

Your wife sounds very unhappy to me.
Are we getting the whole story? or are you not the angel you appear to be? lol
Sorry got to ask this as sometimes things are not  as they seem.