I am writing this out of pure humiliation over the current state of my marriage. Though this will inherently be biased, I’ll try my best to present both sides of the story in an attempt to get better feedback from neutral sources.
I got married 5 months ago after 7 months of dating. While the past seven years certainly had its ups and downs, my husband and I managed those obstacles and loved each other enough to get married. The wedding planning process was awful, and we both looked forward to getting it over with and settling down as a married couple.
Two months after we got married was our first major holiday together: Thanksgiving. My parents hosted Thanksgiving lunch and invited my in-laws as part of a compromise. Later, I found out that my in-laws had complained to multiple family members about the messiness of our house. My husband is Chinese and I am Filipino. In my in-law’s interpretation of Chinese culture, housework is the responsibility of the male. In my family, the belief is housework is the responsibility of the female. I was later told that my in-law’s complaints were interpreted as complaints about me being a lousy wife.
When we got married, I moved into a house my husband already owned. While I’m thankful for having a house, I’m not thankful for the boxes making the living room look like a hoarder house. Since these are my husband’s belongings, I’m not allowed to toss anything, and I have to ask permission before I move or even touch anything. This is increasingly frustrating, especially when my mother-in-laws starts complaining about “losing sleep” over something I feel I have no control over. Her Thanksgiving complaints essentially served as a catalyst for one month of fighting.
Despite our house being a mess, my husband is a clean person, to the point I feel like he has cleaning OCD. Examples of his cleanliness include the following:
- He doesn’t like to hold my hand if he thinks it’s dirty
- Anything that touches the ground/carpet immediately gets washed, including pillows that fall off the bed
- If feet touch the top half of a blanket, it gets washed
- I’m not allowed to put my phone on his side of the bed
- I can’t stand too close to his desk because I might brush up against it and get it dirty
- If a newly laundered shirt touches the ground while getting folded, it gets washed again
- I get in trouble if I accidentally drop something on the ground (which has been happening more often despite my best efforts not to be so clumsy)
While my husband is clean, there are certain things I find contradictory to his cleanliness:
- He is willing to eat food that has been sitting in the fridge for over a week and doesn’t believe in throwing away anything. As someone with a sensitive stomach, I’ve tried my best to cook portions that can be eaten in a day or two. I get anxious over an overly stocked refrigerator fearing getting food poisoning from eating something over a week old.
- He’s had me cook a frozen chicken his mom left in the freezer three years ago. Yes, my stomach felt funny after eating it.
- We don’t have a clothes dryer and hang dry all our clothes in the garage. He works as an engineer and wears casual clothes to work. I work as a social worker and have to wear business casual/labcoat. He continues to refuse to get a clothes dryer and insists on doing my laundry for me. I don’t mind this, and I don’t mind ironing my clothes as a result. However, there have been instances in these cold rainy months where I’ve gone to work with smelly clothes because they simply took too long to dry.
- Our house is a mess. It’s so messy we don’t have people over (and he’s forbidden his parents from coming inside). I try to clean, but I don’t see the point when his stuff is everywhere.
Anyway, between Thanksgiving and Christmas was filled with constant fighting. Topics that resulted in arguments included the following:
- My refusal to tell my parents to downgrade their TV cable service to save them money
- My husband’s criticism of my parent’s spending habits (they are not as frugal as my in-laws who don’t have cable and rarely purchase luxury goods like clothes)
- Comments that I would have gotten into a better college if my parents did their research and sent me to a school district with higher rankings
- My delay in getting an IUD due to fear of side-effects
- Not finishing a glass of water, therefore wasting water
- Closing the dishwasher all the way after doing dishes, therefore preventing evaporation of water (we use the dishwasher as a drying rack to save money)
- Leaving a light on
- Forgetting to turn off the downstairs internet router
- Accidentally not closing the door to our bedroom, allowing heat to escape (we use a space heater instead of central heating to save money)
- Leaving soap bottles taller than 3 inches on the left side of sink, which gets in the way of his hand towel
- Putting a BP gift card in the wrong card reader at an Arco gas station, preventing a glitch that lets us use it
- Using the wrong credit card to pay for something, preventing us from getting a 2 to 5% cashback bonus
- Missing the Black Friday sale on contact lenses, when they were 10% off
- Not washing my hands promptly after vacuuming the house because I touched the dirty vacuum cord
- Complaints about my parents gift giving habits (“They give random trinkets for no reason at all”) because it’s a waste of money
- My frequent complaints about my in-laws, their meddling, and their constant criticism of my husband
- My complaints that we don’t have a clothes dryer (due to my smelly clothes and my mom’s constant complaints that we don’t have a clothes dryer)
After the holidays, things settled down a little bit. I was hoping we had finally gotten our “first year issues” out of the way and things would finally improve. Unfortunately, since then my mood has progressively worsened, with contributing factors including:
- My dad turning 65 years old and realizing that my time with my parents is limited
- My up and down relationship with my sometimes histrionic Tiger Mom (I had a rough childhood)
- Feeling trapped in a job I hate
- Trying to start a blog to provide supplementary income/leverage so I could switch careers, but having it epically fail as expected
- The cold and rainy weather
- Being close to my mid-thirties and feeling like I don’t have my life figured out
I’m pretty familiar with mental illness, and not just because I’m a social worker. In college, I struggled with depression, anxiety, self-injury, suicidal thoughts, and a one-sided codependent relationship. I was on meds for years, but weaned off due to weight gain. Somehow, I pulled myself together despite everyone’s doubts and finished a masters degree. In retrospect, it was probably the happiest and most empowered I felt until I slowly found out that a social work degree is pretty laughable and doesn’t mean much in my area saturated with engineers and other STEM majors. I think it’s safe to say that I haven’t felt this awful about myself since those college days, except I wouldn’t say I’m suicidal, and I don’t care to add more scars to my wrists.
In the past few weeks, the nitpicks and arguments over “little things” have returned and include the following:
- Being told I have OCD because I find the need to finish my thoughts despite him telling me, “I don’t want to hear it anymore”.
- Keeping my money in the wrong savings account (poor interest rate returns)
- Breaking the steam mop while cleaning the house
- Dropping my phone on the ground
- Twisting my cellphone cord and risking damage to the connection
- Leaving a rebate card at my parents’ house
Phrases I hear with regularity are that I’m “irresponsible”, “don’t take care of my stuff”, and “don’t keep track of things”. When I tell him not to make such sweeping statements about me, I’m told that I’m being “too sensitive” and that I am “often” those things (as evidenced by the points above). I feel that as much as I try to be more responsible, it seems as if I’m getting more forgetful and clumsy every day. When I mentioned to my husband that I didn’t seem to have these problems in the past, he stated, “Maybe you just didn’t have someone telling you what you were doing wrong because you weren’t responsible for anyone else.” Nowadays, I feel like I can’t do anything right, and each inevitable mistake I make just makes me feel worse.
Last night, my husband complained that I haven’t used my gym membership lately. I haven’t gone because with the exception of work, I’m generally too depressed to leave the house or spend time with friends. I cited going to the gym 4-5 times a week before our wedding. He responded by saying, “It didn’t make much of a difference.” He later stated, “You looked fine before the wedding, and you looked fine during the wedding.” This is an example of the emotional flatness he has towards me. While I know my husband loves me, he (admittedly) does a very bad job at telling me. In the past he’s said things like, “You’re cute, but not the cutest thing in the world” or “You’re special to me, but in the end we’re all insignificant in the grand scheme of the universe”. I’ve had friends tell me he is being verbally abuse to me. I don’t know if he is being abusive, if he has undiagnosed Asperger’s, or if his engineering oriented mind does indeed make him struggle with emotions.
I’ve lost a number of friends over the course of my relationship with my husband, all due to complaints that they found him “socially awkward”, “cold”, and “condescending”. My husband is generally a lot more open with me than in social situations (where he rarely speaks), so I picked him over my friends. Now, I can’t help but wonder if my friends saw something I didn’t, and am completely ashamed that less than 6 months into our marriage it seems to be falling apart. I haven’t even finished thank you cards yet. Part of me keeps thinking back over the past 7 years and any red flags, and kicking myself.
Thanks to losing a number of college friends and being branded a “drama queen” due to my mental health issues, I limit who I talk to about my personal issues. My family and my bridesmaids don’t know what’s going on. I’ve pretty much socially withdrawn from most people under the guise that I’m busy with work, despite having cut back on my days due to burnout/depression. However, the people I’ve disclosed to (on a private twitter account, which gives them an option to block me if they get tired of my ramblings) have recommended that I go to marriage counseling or leave my husband. I’m terrified that these people will stop talking to me if I don’t follow their advice. I’ve lost friends due to “not wanting to help myself” in the past.
When I brought it up several months ago, my husband stated that I should go to counseling alone because I’m the one with the problems. Haven’t brought it up since. However, in the past few days I’ve managed to educate my husband about gaslighting and have tried to be very open about how his actions are affecting my mood. Since then he has admitted that he feels like he is mildly autistic and generally is bad with emotions/phrasing things. He encouraged me to go to a therapist because he “is a lousy one”. Now to figure out the therapy situation because we downgraded health insurance coverage this year to save money.
Other than the issues I’ve described above, I live a life others would love to have. I have a house. Money is not an issue thanks to my husband’s salary. I’m in a position to change jobs/careers, or become a stay-at-home mother if I choose someday. I shop, go out to eat, and occasionally travel. I SHOULD be happy, and maybe it’s possible the problem is with me.
Yesterday, I had a dream I was getting married again. Instead of "vows", my husband listed off everything that was wrong with me and needed to be fixed over the course of our marriage.
This morning, my husband woke up to me sobbing next to him. He gave me a hug and told me that he loved me and that he hoped I would feel better soon. Not sure if was he was even aware I was pondering the state of our marriage. I just so confused.
Well, that’s as detailed as I can get right now. Feel free to ask me questions. I appreciate any and all input.
tl;dr: Husband who is emotionally lacking/possibly has Asperger’s is causing my mental health issues to resurface. Or I might be the problem with my forgetfulness, irresponsibility, and moodiness. Any advice appreciated.
Submitted March 10, 2017 at 01:57AM by anonymous32132132 http://ift.tt/2mocF0y relationships
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