Expert: Kriss Mitchell, M.Ed, CRC, CNHP - 1/5/2011

Question
I have been married for 14 years to a man I loved deeply.  It was love at first sight and we are deeply connected. However, we were also drawn to one another through a past rooted in our respective depressions. My upbringing was tough (I was recently diagnosed with PTSD). My husband likely has some form of PTSD himself, having grown up around regular abuse that occurred in his boarding school.  We have one young son.  Life was pretty happy and full of humor, for the most part, until recently.

We’ve both worked hard at our careers in creative environments. We don’t live beyond our means but have a really nice life with a beautiful son. There is much to be grateful for.  Unfortunately, as my husband has become more successful as an author, he has become increasingly more aggressive at home.   About three years ago, his temper started to flare into rages, mainly after a day of working. He’d come out of his office and hardly speak to us, and then he would head back into his office. This went on for many months. His drinking increased. He’s always been sensitive to any criticism – no matter how constructive – taking things very personally.  Parenting became a trigger for the worst fights we had. If I questioned his authority on a particular decision – which only usually happened if I thought he was putting unreasonable pressure on our child – he would become livid. He has punched walls, broken objects. During a date he and I had – which are rare because he is working all the time – he swore at me when I told him I wasn’t feeling well and wanted to go home. He has pushed himself  into my face during an argument and his whole body seems three times its size when he's angry. He has never hit me, but he looks around for things to hit.  After a fight he feels terrific, and has admitted what a great release it offers him, whereas I feel knocked down for days.  While I can take a lot of aggression I will no longer subject my son to it.

When we’ve tried to discuss the behavior during calmer times he has said he likes fighting. After three years of walking on egg shells, I asked him to attend therapy with me, which he agreed to. During that session he admitted that he knew he scared me with his anger. Since that time, he has refused to go to any more therapy sessions. He says I’m the one who can help him. But I am worn out.  After our most recent fight I told him that I couldn’t take it anymore and that I thought we might need to separate. He said he would stop getting angry.  

It has been about six months since our last fight. He has been attentive and considerate, saying nice things and participating a little more in family activities. He would like things to be back to how they were when we were happy, more than three years ago. Unfortunately, this makes me furious. It seems that, if he can make a choice to “be nice” why did  he choose to be so horrible to us at all, if he knew how much it hurt us? He says he loves us, but it feels more like a need than a true understanding of what love is. Needless to say, it has ruined my wish to be intimate with him.  I would like peace and kindness to reign in our house, and not feel that my son and I are learning how to navigate around his very dominating personality.  

I don’t think I like my husband anymore, therefore, I don’t know if I have the energy to fight for our marriage.  Do I give up?  Can I trust him? After trust is broken like this, is it possible for us to regain our bond, or are we doomed?  The stress is taking a toll on me.  I have been getting terrible migraines.  I cannot afford therapy any longer –  and I don’t know if it will help me without his participation anyway.  I feel I’m at a breaking point.

Answer
Dear Linnea,
Living with someone who uses aggression towards you as a means of emotional release eventually brings such destruction that the victim is found asking the questions that you are asking.  It makes me wonder what your husband's definition of love is and if he is truly as deeply connected as you believe.

It does seem as though there are a lot of triggers that he has from his past with regard to how he sees your son treated.  If there is PTSD, there will need to be treatment in order to help him move past those emotional trigger points.  However, the way you are describing him makes him sound very calculating and your question about how he can turn his feelings on and off is quite valid.  Just from what you have said, it makes me wonder if the happy times that you described were happy because you both were happy or because you, yourself were not opposing him.  If you have for the most part gone along with what he has wanted to do, you may not have had occasion to see what it is like for him when he is opposed.  He sounds a little narcissistic and the behavior you describe would fit into that profile.

If you can't afford therapy, you may need to look at a separation so you can figure out what to do next.  Unless he chooses to participate in some healing therapy for your marriage, or you are able to talk to him about how you feel and what you would need for the marriage to heal and he agrees to work towards those things, there isn't a lot of forward motion that you are going to see.  It sounds like you can trust him to behave respectably in the marriage until he chooses not to and that is always tenuous territory.

The reason that you are having trouble with trust is because your husband has not done restitution for the damage that he created in the marriage.  You're right, you just can't go back to square one as if nothing happened.  In the old testament, we read all the way through Deuteronomy and Leviticus where when someone did offense to another, they had to repair the damage or replace what they had taken and on top of that, they were required to do more.  I often use the example of letting someone borrow your lawn mower to bring this concept out.  Say your neighbor asks to borrow your lawn mower and you let him.  The next day, he brings it back and says, "I'm sorry, here is your mower back but I wanted to let you know that I broke it.  It doesn't look like it would take too much to fix it.  Again, I'm very sorry."  Would you let that man borrow anything from you?  Probably not.  Ok, same scenario but the man says, "I'm sorry, as I was using your mower I broke it.  I fixed it as best I could and it works fine."  If he asked to borrow it again, you might consider it, but you'd remember that when he used it before he broke it and now you have a mower that is less reliable because it isn't "whole".  Last scenario, the man returns your mower and says, "I'm sorry, when i was using your mower I broke it so I went out and bought you a new mower.  Please accept my apologies and I hope this makes it OK for you."  Would you have any problem lending your mower to this man again?  No, you'd probably offer it to him!  Do you see how restitution works?  The person not only makes the problem right, but they go over and above what is expected to compensate you for your loss.  Your husband is not doing that so therefore your heart is left to wonder if he really gets it.  

Another thing that a woman needs is to know that the man she loves understands how much she hurts.  He hasn't done that either.  If he really understood, he would be able to verbalize the pain you feel, he would be able to feel what you felt and when the abuser can do that, that is the point when healing can happen.  It's the difference between understanding that you feel hurt and knowing what it feels like to have been the object of his aggression.  Because of his past abuse, he may not be able to or may not want to put himself in your place....however if he would ever be able to feel what it was like to be you, then you may have an opportunity to trust him again.  Anything short of that and you will probably always be in doubt.  You have touched on what I'm saying when you said that saying he loves you feels more like a need than a true understanding of what love is.

I would encourage you to do some research on borderline and narcissistic personality disorder and see if either of these apply.  They aren't the only things that explain his emotional behavior, but it may be a place to start.  www.bpdcentral.org is a good website for borderline and there are several books out there that describe narcissism/anti-social like The Sociopath Next Door, Malignant Self Love or Why Is It Always About You?  Personality Disorders come out of abusive childhoods and are life long so you may need to evaluate your relationship with him in light of any new evidence that you find.

Bottom line, you may be at a place where the relationship is irretrievably broken.  Often these type of individuals change when they have to and it is often after the woman in their life has reached her breaking point.  There is no shame in admitting that and repairing a relationship is more complex than just changing behavior.  If you want to save your marriage, you may want to try the therapy route again, just to put yourself back together before you make any final decisions but if finances are an issue, it may be easier to separate.  Just be advised that when you make that decision you will evoke a lot of manipulative behavior from him if he is a manipulator.  That is why you will need a support network around you when you make this decision.  You may not be able to see what is going because you are too close to the situation.  Your support network will be able to help you through the hard places.  

I hope this has helped you to find some answers.  There is more information on my blog at www.livingwellcc.blogspot.com   Take a look at some of the archived articles as they will help you see why you may have responded in the ways you have throughout the relationship.  If I can be of any further assistance, please feel free to contact me again.

Blessings,  Kriss Mitchell
www.livingwellcc.com
www.livingwellcc.blogspot.com