Post by bea on Sept 2, 2016 3:10:24 GMT
Hi there,
I am new to this, but feel that this forum can help me figure out what happened to my life and also help me grow as a person.
I was attracted to the familiar when I met my ex husband forty years ago. I basically married my father at the age of 19. My ex was an ACOA and his mother was emotionally unavailable when growing up. His parents fought constantly and talked about divorce many times. My newly wed husband told me that he was going to have a happy marriage and he was not ever going to argue with me. I realized something was wrong when I tried to have an innocent discussion with him during our first year of marriage. He said " I am not going to argue with you", turned around and went to sleep, leaving me hanging with all kinds of thoughts and emotions.
This sums up the next forty years of marriage.
I realize now that I was married to a functional alcoholic, a man who was extremely cold at times, held grudges, was passive agressive, sarcastic. He also had an arrogance about him and was very akward dealing with people in general. He was very rebellious and controlling. He did not want me to put up a Christmas tree, because he disdained Christianity. It would anger him if I tried to enlist his help getting ready for the holidays. He held a grudge towards his Mother and often acted childlike. He basically turned me into his Mother. I laid out his clothes, cooked and cleaned for him, helped him in his military career and created several companies with him.
Whenever I needed space, he couldn't handle me doing things on my own and when I had to leave town to take care of my older Mother, he would drown himself in hard liquor.
He often blamed me by saying that he would never do anything without me and couldn't understand why I was ok with doing things on my own. He only needed me. All he wanted was to make me happy. I often suggested he do things with a male friend, but he refused. The fact is, he only had one highschool friend.
Quite often he would criticize me. He was obsessed with maintaining an ideal weight and blamed me when he would put on half a pound. He weighed himself every morning. The weight gain was blamed on my cooking and my suggestion to use portion control and to cut back on alcohol was met with disdain.
The man I married turned more bitter and angry. I felt no attraction towards him in our last years of marriage, because as I told him " I don't feel in a safe place with you". The only time he mellowed out was when he had consumed a few drinks, but it was very hard to feel attraction towards a man who tried to be amourous while slurring his speech. It also bothered me that he started drinking from the moment he came home until he went to bed.
I had to walk on eggshells, because saying the wrong thing would set him off.
Last year he told me he wasn't happy over a Valentine's dinner at my favorate restaurant. He needed space and I helped him move out the day before my birthday, so he could get passed this so called phase. I thought he was going through a late life crises at 64. He denied an affair, which turned out to be false. He started an affair with a married woman, the woman I helped select to work with him in our business. She has extreme low self esteem and never contradicts him. He needed someone like that to work with, because he hated most women.
I divorced him this year. I could not handle the double betrayal. This woman blew up a 30 year marriage, because my ex so called rescued her from a bad marriage.
The thing that baffles me the most is that there has been no empathy whatsoever from either one of them. There only is a sense of entitlement.
The reason for his unhappiness was that I didn't do enough things with him and he needed more intimacy. Ironically, I was craving
more intimacy myself and often felt very lonely in this relationship. He also said that he saw me as a Mother figure, which is what he had turned me into by choice.
My ex did not want to go into counseling and he never allowed me to talk about him moving out. He wrote me letters instead of talking things out, which he handed me to read while still at home.
My question is... even though I tested Secure in my attachment style and he was labeled as avoidant dismissive and narcisssistic by a friend psychologist, am I perhaps somewhat avoidant in my attachment style, because I didn't feel safe being intimate with him?
Thank you
I am new to this, but feel that this forum can help me figure out what happened to my life and also help me grow as a person.
I was attracted to the familiar when I met my ex husband forty years ago. I basically married my father at the age of 19. My ex was an ACOA and his mother was emotionally unavailable when growing up. His parents fought constantly and talked about divorce many times. My newly wed husband told me that he was going to have a happy marriage and he was not ever going to argue with me. I realized something was wrong when I tried to have an innocent discussion with him during our first year of marriage. He said " I am not going to argue with you", turned around and went to sleep, leaving me hanging with all kinds of thoughts and emotions.
This sums up the next forty years of marriage.
I realize now that I was married to a functional alcoholic, a man who was extremely cold at times, held grudges, was passive agressive, sarcastic. He also had an arrogance about him and was very akward dealing with people in general. He was very rebellious and controlling. He did not want me to put up a Christmas tree, because he disdained Christianity. It would anger him if I tried to enlist his help getting ready for the holidays. He held a grudge towards his Mother and often acted childlike. He basically turned me into his Mother. I laid out his clothes, cooked and cleaned for him, helped him in his military career and created several companies with him.
Whenever I needed space, he couldn't handle me doing things on my own and when I had to leave town to take care of my older Mother, he would drown himself in hard liquor.
He often blamed me by saying that he would never do anything without me and couldn't understand why I was ok with doing things on my own. He only needed me. All he wanted was to make me happy. I often suggested he do things with a male friend, but he refused. The fact is, he only had one highschool friend.
Quite often he would criticize me. He was obsessed with maintaining an ideal weight and blamed me when he would put on half a pound. He weighed himself every morning. The weight gain was blamed on my cooking and my suggestion to use portion control and to cut back on alcohol was met with disdain.
The man I married turned more bitter and angry. I felt no attraction towards him in our last years of marriage, because as I told him " I don't feel in a safe place with you". The only time he mellowed out was when he had consumed a few drinks, but it was very hard to feel attraction towards a man who tried to be amourous while slurring his speech. It also bothered me that he started drinking from the moment he came home until he went to bed.
I had to walk on eggshells, because saying the wrong thing would set him off.
Last year he told me he wasn't happy over a Valentine's dinner at my favorate restaurant. He needed space and I helped him move out the day before my birthday, so he could get passed this so called phase. I thought he was going through a late life crises at 64. He denied an affair, which turned out to be false. He started an affair with a married woman, the woman I helped select to work with him in our business. She has extreme low self esteem and never contradicts him. He needed someone like that to work with, because he hated most women.
I divorced him this year. I could not handle the double betrayal. This woman blew up a 30 year marriage, because my ex so called rescued her from a bad marriage.
The thing that baffles me the most is that there has been no empathy whatsoever from either one of them. There only is a sense of entitlement.
The reason for his unhappiness was that I didn't do enough things with him and he needed more intimacy. Ironically, I was craving
more intimacy myself and often felt very lonely in this relationship. He also said that he saw me as a Mother figure, which is what he had turned me into by choice.
My ex did not want to go into counseling and he never allowed me to talk about him moving out. He wrote me letters instead of talking things out, which he handed me to read while still at home.
My question is... even though I tested Secure in my attachment style and he was labeled as avoidant dismissive and narcisssistic by a friend psychologist, am I perhaps somewhat avoidant in my attachment style, because I didn't feel safe being intimate with him?
Thank you