I don't recognize my wife anymore
I don't recognize my wife anymore.
We've been together since 2017 and married since 2020.
When we first got together I was doing ok. A year out of college, working a lot but happy enough because I liked my job. Living alone, 1br 1ba, healthy habits, sang in a local choir for fun and competition. She wasn't doing good at all. Moving a lot because of conflict with her family and exes, working a job she hated, spending all her free time daydreaming about making a universal aid service for the poor or mentally unwell. She also had just had an abortion not long before we met because an ex had lied about being sterile. I fell in love because I thought I had met someone else from a high control religious environment like the one I had grown up in who just needed a chance to thrive.
For several years things went great. We moved in together fast and she went back to school, finished her degree with some help from me editing papers and stuff. She got a good job out of college and we managed to buy a small house at the height of the pandemic.
Throughout our relationship we both have been in therapy and we have gone to each others appointments occasionally just to check in and make sure we can be on each other's team. She has a problem with words sometimes and I come from a household with a lot of yelling so we worked with our therapists to develop a way to manage conflict and de escalate things. It worked great for years.
Right about the time we bought the house I was taken off work for disability. I have a genetic heart disease that has been bad my whole life and getting worse. It's literally like a switch flipped then. Now every little thing is a battle.
I used to cook all our meals and she ate whatever I made happily. She's so bad at feeding herself she had low iron and was vitamin deficient in a few things when we met. Now she just starves unless I make or buy *** food that's both expensive and bad for me.. Or worse, she will say she will eat something and then let it go bad. I grew up rather poor and the waste makes me very sad and angry.
When I was working she would go to bed and wake up daily at the alarm we shared at regular times. And it just happened. Now she stays up late constantly and whines about being too tired to do regular ***. And fights with me when I try and encourage her to keep a regular schedule.
She had few friends of her own and ditched them once we got together despite my repeated attempts to help her maintain a social life. And now she's poisoned all of my friends against me by calling them when we are fighting and letting them listen, or framing our every fight as me being an unreasonable hard *** because I dare ask her to do something she said she would do. Literally two of my best friends whose wedding we were in no longer talk to me because she called them when we were fighting instead of talking to me to work things out.
I genuinely don't recognize the woman I fell in love with. I picked her up from work today after I went to physical therapy. She asked how physical therapy was, I said it was fine but feels kind of fruitless and she interrupted me to ask me "Why are you trying to start a fight?"
Me trying to say "my physical therapy feels fruitless because I don't eat right " is me starting a fight.
I think I'm ***. I'm 32, my parents aren't in a position to give me a better day to day life than I have right now. And if we divorce I will certainly end up even sicker than I am now faster due to lack of the healthy routines I need to stave off my heart disease.
My spouse genuinely doesn't seem to want things to change. Any time we fight and I express any emotion she threatens to call someone to what, have them listen I guess as if I have something to lose. We have gone to couples counseling and she says all the right stuff to the counselor then when it comes time to put it into practice at home it's like we never went.
She claims her autism/ adhd is why she changes what I say when she's talking to my friends or a therapist. Or why she accuses me of starting ***. And then I'm unreasonable for feeling upset she accused me of trying to start a fight because that's not what she meant. She literally gaslights herself and re arranges her memories to make sure she always acted appropriately and never said anything hurtful or provocative.
I really feel like becoming disabled to the point of not being able to work made it so she cannot respect anything I say. Never mind that my disability insurance income is more than she made working a full 40hr a week job And it covers all her insurance needs which are abundant.
I cant imagine someone supporting me as much as I have her then turning around and treating them like *** because they asked me to go to the gym with them or go to bed at a reasonable hour.
Honestly I think about self end constantly these days because people with my diagnosis rarely get transplants these days and I don't really have any friends anymore except toxic internet *** I play video games with.
@BoldestGumbo
In situations like this sounds like things are deeper then you see... it is not about the things you may think.
As for your "friends " ...listening to the fights .... may be awkward and even they may not want to get involved SO they have the ability to hang up and not participate... If they dropped you ...maybe they were not the friends you thought they were.
i can tell you from experience people change we are constantly changing. Have you considered any alternatives for her behavior? I was talking to a co-worker yesterday... He was telling me all things about his now EX......... i looked at him and he said ... "all people change and she was NOT the person i married ....who she ended up being ......i would not have even dated"
So this seems like a usual occurrence and we should always tell people at the wedding instead of thinking all will always be the same at the same day.
I will say that when my spouse had a serious heart health issue....... i felt like life was closing in .... he could not do some things anymore... I felt it would only get worse... i worried about being a caretaker etc.... and then be alone...
I almost wanted it to fail so I could leave over "he changed" to not have to feel the way I did.
we fought about food/ never leaving the house or doing things as he shut himself down due to his health. .... he could not do this or that ...and every day he had new idea of what we should eat. but my ideas were all garbage.
We are on different wave lengths .......fought a lot........... until we told each other our deeper feelings... and understood where we are coming from. If she changed... get to know the new her ...maybe date this "new " person.