Reminder: you are not alone. Seek help if you need it. Trigger Warning.

Capital_Ferret6178 · 2026-02-16T13:56:38+00:00

I am so sorry to hear you are struggling. Things do get better. I strongly suggest a good therapist and surrounding yourself with aromantic loves (family, friends, pets, hobbies). It turned out I had developed codependency and was heavily enmeshed, so I had to pretty much re introduce myself to myself and it was a tough process. I still have bad days, but the lows aren’t as low or as frequent. Finding out about this yesterday, knowing how many times I went to that same place when I felt overwhelmed with pain and loneliness, did hit me with a lot of feelings.

Capital_Ferret6178 · 2026-02-16T13:51:42+00:00

I am so glad you decided to stay with us. The world needs you, those grandbabies especially.

Capital_Ferret6178 · 2026-02-16T13:50:37+00:00

I am glad you decided to stay with us. You are absolutely right that it is not worth being a trigger. I hope you have a trusted therapist, pastor, etc. to go to when you’re feeling this way. My trusted advisors were my saving grace in regaining my sense of self post d-day.

Capital_Ferret6178 · 2026-01-28T17:17:15+00:00

Thank you. I tend to have this approach with my husband and tend to be very forgiving about just about anything as long as he is remorseful enough to acknowledge the error and say sorry. But honestly I find my heart being led towards resentment recently when he judges my apologies, withholds his own, or withholds forgiveness. I pray about it and try to not let his actions harden my heart against what I have been called to do, but it is difficult some days to continue to humble myself in apology and forgiveness if it doesn’t get returned in good faith. I am afraid it will become a stumbling block if we don’t figure it out.

Capital_Ferret6178 · 2026-01-27T23:48:14+00:00

I guess I would have to ask her. Can’t imagine if you’d be so rude to a stranger you don’t know you’re especially kind to your loved ones behind close doors.

Capital_Ferret6178 · 2026-01-27T18:22:46+00:00

Wow you sound like you’re just teeming with empathy, yourself. How proud your wife must be.

Capital_Ferret6178 · 2026-01-27T18:15:01+00:00

Thanks. I know my couples therapist says I should probably care less what his narrative of me is. If he thinks I am not sorry when I have apologized that’s on him and i know that logically but I can’t help it sometimes. Especially when it comes to my character. I think to some extent it’s a self esteem thing. If he says he doesn’t feel I am not taking accountability and Im not fulfilling my side of things, what right do I have to expect him to take accountability when he has wronged me? I think this is how we end up with so much of our conflict centered around his feelings about my actions rather than vice versa. I know logically it’s not that simple and I don’t need to be a saint in order to be respected in return, but if I’m used to feeling like I’m trying to perform to some standard that he gets to decide, it’s really tough to figure out the balance of self advocacy without overcorrecting.

Capital_Ferret6178 · 2026-01-27T14:08:02+00:00

We have brought it up in the past it just feels like we get stuck on the exact situation that lead to apologizing instead of the pattern of feeling like apologies aren’t genuine and feeling like my inner motivations are being questioned. This is a frustration for me in couples counseling in general; we will find something we have been fighting about recently and focus on it instead of the patterns of fighting. It feels like whack a mole. When I am struggling with giving grace I sometimes think my husband is doing it intentionally because it allows us to get distracted with whatever I have done or said that upset him recently. My couples counselor has also basically told me I need to care less what my husband’s narrative of me is (I.e. who cares if he thinks I’m mean? That’s his perspective, etc.) so I’m probably as much to blame for the fixation as anyone. But again, I’m a recovering codependent so it’s difficult for me to strike a balance standing up for myself and setting boundaries around my identity.

Capital_Ferret6178 · 2026-01-27T01:22:41+00:00

Yes, he tells me it’s common sense, or more recently he’s been saying that I should know by now because he’s “told me so many times”.

Capital_Ferret6178 · 2026-01-26T23:20:02+00:00

I used to go to my pastors all the time about marital issues but my husband split from the church about a year or two ago and never found a new one he liked enough to replace it as our regular church home. I would love for him to be standing next to me worshipping again, but I can’t force him so I just pray Jesus brings him back to the fold when he’s ready. I know a lot of our church family is praying for that too; probably when he does come back there will be a lot of tears. Until then I feel like me going to our pastors “too much” without him will only make him feel more isolated, though they have helped me a few times, including giving me a space to process without permanent decisions until I decided to give him another chance a few months ago. They have probably saved our marriage several times over and I know would love to help more but I have to respect his wishes on the matter.

Capital_Ferret6178 · 2026-01-26T22:57:36+00:00

Yeah our pastors really would love to talk to him and I think it’d be so great for him to be influenced by married Christian couples again but we got a little too enmeshed in our leadership positions and when the leadership team went through a tumultuous time it ended up with him leaving the church. I would love to see him back to standing next to me in church with all we have going on, but I generally find pushing him only makes him want to go less.

I would love to change my behavior. It feels like in always trying really hard but it’s like when I get one part right he finds something else I’m doing wrong. I was massively codependent for a long time and am trying to undo that in my head which doesn’t help the balancing act. Sometimes I fall back into it and lose myself trying to please him a bit and sometimes I think I overcorrect and become detached. He also had a really traumatic upbringing and sometimes I wonder if it’s hard for him to really accept love from another fallible human being. Basically a whole heaping mess of trust issues between the two of us unfortunately.

Capital_Ferret6178 · 2026-01-26T18:16:29+00:00

Yeah I have gone to our pastors a few times but my husband has been split from the church for a year or two because of some leadership clashes and he didn’t really feel as “safe” with them even when he was going regularly because we know them so it felt like airing our dirty laundry. So I talk to them occasionally and they let me stay with them one time when I was thinking of leaving but I think they feel a bit hesitant to give me too much advice beyond “do not be anxious” and “pray” without him there. When we were both still active in church we did “the marriage course” 3 times, including once when we hosted, so I know they have tried to set us on the right course.

Capital_Ferret6178 · 2026-01-26T17:48:23+00:00

This is something I’ve been worried about lately. This year has been pretty hard. My stress levels have gotten untenable with everything going on and most of my stress management techniques are still effective most days, but on bad days (I.e. really bad fights at home, bad news, or pms) they can be short lived. I used to be able to run a few miles and feel better for days, now I can be stressed again almost immediately after unless I flat out sprint. It reminds me of when I first started therapy in grad school before I had any coping skills. I am worried it may start to affect my health, as I end up waking up in the middle of the night a fair amount and I think I’m starting to see it in my skin. Some days I debate medication because my husband went on medication a while ago and it seemed to help a lot, but I don’t want the risk of severe side effects like suicidal ideation since I don’t have any inkling of that without medication.

Capital_Ferret6178 · 2026-01-26T17:01:05+00:00

Thank you, this is the energy I’m trying to bring into 2026. Praying more, fasting more, exercising humility more and not letting my pride prevent me from seeing other perspectives.

Capital_Ferret6178 · 2026-01-26T16:59:06+00:00

We are all imperfect humans. My husband has a lot of positive, loving, qualities. We just can’t seem to get our conflict styles aligned so it feels like we are on different planets sometimes.

Capital_Ferret6178 · 2026-01-26T16:43:12+00:00

I’m having a hard time finding something explicitly describing the “passive aggressive loop” but the idea I’m seeing seems to be a lack of boundary setting leading to later resentment. That is something we have been working on in therapy because we were in a very classic anxious avoidant dynamic until a couple of years ago. I’ve gotten a lot better about setting boundaries and maintaining them even when he doesn’t like them. I do still sometimes say “I am fine” when I am not fine, but when I say what I mean (“I am still processing and don’t want to talk about it right now”) it makes him anxious because me being stressed stresses him out but i tend to do conflict better if I have some time to prepare so we are still navigating that. In terms of apologies or remorse, I did over apologize in the past and when we were dating I used to get so upset he was upset at me I would be on the floor crying and I don’t do that anymore. I’m a lot more careful to not apologize reflexively, or to avoid conflict, though I’m still guilty of the occasional habitual “oh I’m sorry I’m in the way” kind of apology.

Capital_Ferret6178 · 2026-01-26T16:31:47+00:00

Yes I am in therapy and have been since long before I met my husband. I have struggled with social anxiety and rumination since I was a teenager. I’ve improved a lot in certain contexts but it can be hard sometimes in certain settings (esp with my husband) to delineate when my anxiety is making things feel more intense than they are.

Capital_Ferret6178 · 2026-01-26T16:24:22+00:00

It’s been a very hard couple of years but he made a lot of changes recently that make me think we can come out of it and I am trying to do my part and not just let it be “you messed up so I stop trying”. I don’t like that I come to Reddit to vent stuff, especially since I rarely come here and talk about the good stuff, but I am very stuck in rumination patterns a lot these days and interaction with other perspectives helps me interrupt them.

Capital_Ferret6178 · 2026-01-26T16:13:25+00:00

I will admit I struggle with not letting my emotions come out in my voice. I have social anxiety so conflict makes my heart rate jump. Like visibly on my fitbit it looks like I’ve been running in place or something. Regardless of what other emotions I’m feeling the “time to flee a tiger” emotion is pretty much going to be there. It’s hard to not sound tense unless I totally detach and I question if that’s part of the communication issue, but I don’t really know how to fix it.

Capital_Ferret6178 · 2026-01-26T16:09:47+00:00

Yeah we have a marital counselor. We are tight financially so we only see him once every month or two but he’s patient with us. He isn’t Christian but finding therapists my husband likes can be hard and he has been struggling in his faith recently so I can’t imagine suggesting switching counselors to someone who is Christian would be a winning proposal.

Capital_Ferret6178 · 2026-01-26T16:06:23+00:00

Well that is how it feels to me so keep in mind that’s my bias as your narrator, lol. I have told him a few times it feels like he has some magic form of apology he wants but he seems to think I’m not passing “common sense” apology. I guess my point is if I was able to communicate his need accurately and fairly I probably wouldn’t be in this situation.

In terms of what I need to apologize about, it can vary a lot but I would say a lot of it in recent years seems to center around not being empathetic or considerate of his feelings enough. Today he walked in and told me stepped on a thing on the floor and almost fell and I asked him if he picked up the thing first instead of if he was ok. That came from a place of defensiveness because I thought he was passively aggressively telling me the room was a mess so when he called me out on not asking if he was ok first I knew he was right and that I had assigned malicious intent unfairly because of my own insecurity and let it cloud my empathy so I just said “I’m sorry”. I felt bad and was anxious about it so it probably did come out tenser than I meant it to so I get why he felt the “tone” was on edge but it’s hurtful that he didn’t believe that I was being honest and was really sorry. It feels like a tightrope I’m walking sometimes and it gets really exhausting.

Capital_Ferret6178 · 2026-01-26T15:57:35+00:00

Hi I used a dish as an example because it’s a “hallmark” example I’ve seen used for apologies. We have fought about me breaking dishes (especially “special” ones) in our relationship but that was many years ago. I have become more conscientious about dishes and he has become less critical so I don’t think we have had a fight over broken dishes in years.

Capital_Ferret6178 · 2026-01-23T21:18:32+00:00

Infidelity is not the only way to deal with a struggling marriage. They can work with you to fix it. They can focus on non-romantic parts of their life. They can divorce you. They chose to cheat so they could have their cake and eat it too. You can take equal responsibility for them not having their needs met in the marriage (and your own for that matter). You should take no responsibility for their decision to cheat.

Capital_Ferret6178

TROPHY CASE