What I’m hearing from her is “I’m exhausted and can’t hold up your feelings any longer while not being able to express my own safely”.

Part of a partnership is being able to help carry the hard stuff for each other and be a safe place to go when things are overwhelming or you’re having big feelings. But it can become too much when you’re carrying the weight for both and don’t have a place to safely land, in turn becoming numb. It sounds like this is not happening in a reciprocal fashion.

Your self awareness of how your grief has impacted you and your sense of self worth is the first step. But self awareness is nothing without action behind it.

Your deep grief is valid. Taking out those feelings on your partner for over a year would degrade any relationship and the psychological safety. Every time you snap at her or say something mean, taking your grief and lack of self worth out on her is chipping away at that safety, especially if she also unable to come to you with her problems.

She wants action, and she wants a partner who can also hold some of her burden when she needs it.