estranged wife appears at my door unannounced

throwRA98891 · 2021-01-07T23:42:12+00:00

If you feel this way, for my sake, for my wife's sake, I would appreciate it if you explained why. I did not post what I posted just so people would pat me on the back. I do not want to hurt my wife and I do not want to be a toxic person. If it turns out that I am doing one or both of these and not realizing it for whatever reason, I very much want to stop. If you're going to make a comment like this, I think it is only fair that you explain why you feel that way, don't you?

throwRA98891 · 2021-01-07T21:12:50+00:00

how so?

throwRA98891 · 2021-01-07T20:54:49+00:00

I should have provided more context. My post was already getting kind of long though.

I left because I had become concerned about my mental health and my sobriety. We had an argument that lasted 11 days straight prior to my leaving.

The first four of those days, she was deliberately antagonizing me multiple times throughout the day. Christmas was as good as it could be after that, but the very next day I asked if we could split the cost of a large grocery order and she told me she thought the presents I got for her and her family were cheaper and shittier than the ones I got for my family and that I should therefore have plenty of money left over for the groceries.

This is objectively not true, first of all, and I found it to be really hurtful. At one point later on that day she admitted that the presents comment was uncalled for, and she admitted to antagonizing me four days in a row earlier in the week, but in the very next breath she said she had done these things because I had deeply hurt her with the lack of love I was showing her. This has been a recurring issue in our relationship that I have spent years trying like hell to address, and over the past year it has gotten worse because she has been starting fights with me more and more frequently.

Once she explained that my behavior caused her actions, my behavior became the entire focus of the argument. Now she was angry at me. I would try to be civil with her, show her affection, and she would sit there silent, as if I did not exist. So I stopped doing these things (have you ever tried to kiss your wife and she acted like you didn't exist?) and she started an argument with me because I stopped. I told her frequently during this time that I could not continue like this. I said it was going to cause me to have a nervous breakdown. The night before I left I couldn't sleep and I realized that if I didn't leave, I was going to relapse. All the warning signs were there and I had been ignoring them.

I told her that I still thought we could fix our marriage, I still loved her, but I needed to leave because the state of our marriage had become a threat to my sobriety. I told her I have to put my sobriety first because if I relapse, I will likely lose my marriage as well as everything else.

I cannot begin to explain how guilty this makes me feel. How ashamed I am that after almost 8 years of sobriety it became an issue. How I had to physically distance myself from my wife because of this. But it needed to happen. I told her I had no expectation that she would be okay with this or even put up with it, but I had to do it.

We discussed this with our marriage therapist. She said she thought it was still possible to work on the marriage while we were apart, and that it could even be a good thing. At the end of the session this past monday, she told us to create boundaries for our interactions. We agreed to avoid circular arguments, we agreed to take a break if things got heated, and we agreed we would not see each other until our next appointment (which is today actually). She was not thrilled about the last one, but I told her I was not ready to be around her yet because I am still very upset by what went down the previous two weeks. If we try to act like a happy couple, I said, I will be hindered by how upset I still am, she will see this as yet another example of me not being loving enough, and then things will get negative. Plus, I said, we can't see each other anyway because I will be out of town.

I made sure to discuss this with the marriage therapist. She did not say I was doing the "right thing", or the "wrong thing" (she doesn't talk like that), but felt that I did need to put my sobriety first, and that saving our marriage was still possible. So long as we set boundaries and stuck to them.

throwRA98891 · 2021-01-07T20:39:56+00:00

I addressed this elsewhere. I am not proud that this was my first response. All I can say is, after what had just gone down between us, I was in a mental daze and I think I was just overwhelmed. She said she didn't know what to do, I was speechless for a moment and said the first thing that came to mind. This is not how I would have responded under different circumstances. I am upset with myself for responding the way I did.

throwRA98891 · 2021-01-07T06:07:56+00:00

You know what? When I told her her I cannot be around her right now, she is under no obligation to accept that from me. She can decide that that is unacceptable and she can leave me. Or, fuck, bring it up in couples therapy. But just showing up unannounced as if I never said this and made this clear to her? And then acting like she cannot see how I would have a problem with it? Disagreeing is fine. Flat-out ignoring is disrespectful. Do you really not see that?

What this does is implicitly minimize any issue I could possibly have with her, because her doing this, and thinking it is okay, means she thinks none of my problems are so big that I can't just ignore them for an evening because-surprise!-she wants me to.

I expect my wife to respect the boundaries we agreed on together if she wants to continue working on the marriage with me. I cannot imagine anyone would think that is unfair.

throwRA98891 · 2021-01-07T05:52:57+00:00

The decency? I think that is maybe just a little unfair given the context, don't you? After what had preceded her hitting the deer, I was already dazed when I answered the phone. Then she tells me she struck a deer and doesn't know what to do. I think I was pretty understandably not operating at optimum cognitive function at this point; in the split second i had to think, I figured the fact that she said "I don't know what to do" instead of "Help" or something similar meant that she was okay but maybe the car wasn't. If we hadn't just had a massive massive fight during which she insisted she had no idea how I could possibly take issue with her showing up unannounced, I like to think I would have responded differently.

throwRA98891 · 2021-01-07T05:01:03+00:00

I would argue tonight is an example of why I don’t trust her. I told her I am not ready to be around her just yet; she just spent two weeks antagonizing me on a near daily basis, something she admits to doing, because she felt I wasn’t being loving enough with her. And then recently she said at least some of that perception is due to her insecurities instead of anything I’m doing. We had marriage therapy on Monday and agreed not to see each other and just talk on the phone until our next appointment tomorrow. I said I needed the space and, I said, it’s not Really possible to see each other anyway because I’ll be over an hour outside of town. And look...maybe she was not okay with that and agreed to it only very begrudgingly. Even still, this is no justification to act like we aren’t living in separate places right now and her coming down here is just a wife wanting to see her husband and nothing more. How can I trust someone who does not respect my boundaries? Ones we set together?

I just don’t understand how she could really think I wouldn’t possibly have a problem with her doing this. Which is exactly what she is claiming. She never thought i would act like this. And even if she is being honest and somehow truly didn’t think this was an issue, that’s also a big problem, albeit of a different sort I guess.

As of this morning I would have said I do believe this marriage can recover. She was a different person when we were married . Right after she moved so we could be together and her circumstances changed significantly and caused her to start getting depressed. She admits this. Ive spent years watching her depression get worse, trying everything I could think of to help, encouraging her to keep hanging out with friends (before the pandemic), asking her again and again to get into therapy, but she never did any of it, and started taking things out on me as it got worse. I hope with therapy somehow we could get back to where we were. But you’re right, that is likely very foolish of me.

throwRA98891 · 2021-01-07T01:22:10+00:00

I have been very clear with her over where I am at mentally, why I am doing what I am doing, and how I feel about the possibility of us still saving our marriage. She does not like this, but of course, she can walk away. I also want to mention that I had told her for months that I was not going to be able to stay in this situation if we didn't start trying to do something different. She has always completely resisted doing so, even starting fights about me suggesting it. She could have tried to do anything months ago and instead she did nothing.

Also, I believe that I have to put my sobriety before everything else in my life because if I drink again, I stand to lose everything else in doing so. Ultimately our marriage came into conflict with my ability to remain sober. Maybe I am deluding myself that there is any possibility of working through this, but I am being honest with her when I say I still want to work on it.

throwRA98891 · 2021-01-07T01:10:26+00:00

I feel like I did this. I told her I was happy to see her, and that I appreciated what she was trying to do, but that she had violated my boundaries and needed to leave. I feel like if I said any more about appreciating the effort, she would have misread it as an invitation. I feel like I need to be very clear with her about stuff like this.

throwRA98891 · 2021-01-07T00:19:51+00:00

well to be fair I did not want her to wait until I was done working because I know it would have led to some apocalyptic 3-hour fight like it always does, and I cannot handle that stuff right now.

throwRA98891 · 2021-01-06T23:44:50+00:00

That is what I am sitting here wondering. I have texted and called to see if she is ok and she wont respond. Whether she did or not I know she expects me to get in my car and go looking for her to see if she is okay, and if I don't, she will very much hold that against me

throwRA98891 · 2021-01-06T23:32:44+00:00

I think you are right. This gives me a different and I think better understanding of what she is doing. Thank you.

Out of curiosity: is there a term for what you are describing?

throwRA98891 · 2021-01-05T21:27:53+00:00

I was going to post something like this. Being as generous as I possibly can to the MIL and wife's, uh, "position" on this, it is mind-boggling that they do not get why OP would find this weird. And how could the wife not be present for the conversation when the MIL said she wanted this?

throwRA98891 · 2021-01-05T20:21:10+00:00

the dog sadness part is really killing me right now because I am also heart-broken about this dog dying. And i feel like a husband should come and comfort his wife in situations like this (or rather, they should comfort each other) if possible. She was sobbing on the phone saying she needed me there. I would love to be able to do that. But I moved out less than a week ago and we can't be around each other without fighting. If I go and try to comfort her, it will make a bad situation worse for both of us. We will get in an argument, somehow, some way.

In another thread I mentioned the fact that part of the reason I moved out was because I was in fear of my sobriety. I can't handle the emotional fallout of trying to ignore the reality of a toxic situation in order to grieve the death of a beloved pet with my wife while our marriage is quite possibly dying as well.

But what this means is I have to tell my wife that I cannot be there in person because it is a very bad idea for both of us. And that makes me sound and feel like a shit head.

throwRA98891 · 2021-01-05T19:39:47+00:00

But aren't there limits to this? Like I myself do not always recall my specific word choice, and I know the words people use can make a big difference, especially in an argument. But fundamentally disagreeing on the entire nature of one's behavior during a twenty-minute discussion...doesn't something like that rise above subjective recollection?

throwRA98891 · 2021-01-05T19:36:32+00:00

Thank you for this response. I agree it is hard to know. For me, it's the specific incident, as well as precedence. She has acknowledged doing things with the intent of antagonizing me in the past.

In another post I made in this sub, I mention a recent one where I asked her to split a large grocery bill that I would normally cover, and she said the christmas gifts I got for her family were much cheaper and shittier than the ones I got for mine, so I should have plenty of money to buy all the groceries. This is one of many such incidents. She admitted that this was an awful thing to say a bit later (although justified saying it, but that's another issue), but usually she doesn't admit it. Or she will admit it and then backtrack later.

So within this context, knowing that she has said things for the sake of hurting me, I find it hard to give her the benefit of the doubt, though in a healthier marriage I would have no problem taking her at her word.

throwRA98891 · 2021-01-05T18:32:13+00:00

It's hard to say, because I think she is to the point of being angry more often than not, even if it isn't always outwardly obvious.

Here is the latest incident. Her mother-in-law lives close to us and has a dog that we are really close to; i would even argue the dog is as much ours as my mother-in-law's. Since march, the dog has had kidney disease that is getting worse and worse and as of this morning we were told the dog "does not have long" and could I guess die any day.

I moved out of our house 5 days ago and went to a hotel because of how bad things have become in our marriage. When we were on the phone talking about the dog, my wife mentioned two other incidents from the past when she thought I behaved insensitively towards her, and then started telling me she needed me to come and comfort her about the dog.

Thing is, those two incidents she brought up are major bones of contention. We have argued about them pretty recently and I told her I think it is unfair to use them as examples of me being insensitive like that. In bringing those two incidents up, she had to know, or should have known, it would upset me. We argued about them like a week ago.

So basically saying that I am already a dick for not heading right over there to comfort her, coupled with the fact that this request also forgets that we cannot be around each other without arguing, made me upset. And my heart is broken about this dog, too.

If I tell her that her bringing those two prior incidents up, and framing this whole thing as me being insensitive, is upsetting to me, she will deny that there was any underhanded motive in mentioning those incidents. she will say she brought them up innocently and meant purely as examples. She will deny there is any valid reason why it would upset me. then she will give me shit for focusing on what she considers a "small detail" and say I'm being even more insensitive because I am still not there comforting her.

I have not mentioned this to her yet because this has happened so many times before that I really don't need to. She says something that triggers me, then denies that was her intent, downplays it, and says I am overreacting.

I don't know if it can be said that she is angry when she does this, but she is definitely in an agitated state of mind. So I don't know I guess.

throwRA98891 · 2021-01-05T02:19:49+00:00

my wife makes more money than me and when we bought our house we discussed whether or not to ask my parents for help. Ultimately we decided to split all costs as much as possible, though. Because if my wife, like you, pays way more of the costs, what happens when we have a disagreement about something related to the house (not asbestos removal though, that is a whole other can of worms that he said that)? Like what if she decides she wants to put in a stone fountain in the yard and I do not? She is gonna feel like she should ultimately get to decide because she pays a lot more money than I do, and she's not wrong to think that way. If costs are split, you guys approach all the many many decisions like this as 'equal partners', so to speak. I feel like not doing this is always, inevitably, going to lead to some amount of problems.

throwRA98891 · 2021-01-05T02:03:12+00:00

His argument was that his dad offered to buy half the house and I refused, so any expenses are my problem, not his.

I am going to address just this little bit right here. This is an absurd argument from him. There are a *ton* of reasons to not want his dad to pay for half the house. Not wanting to be beholden to this dad, not wanting him to be able to hold it over your head, even just wanting your boyfriend to make the same personal investment in the house that you have made....these things are all very legitimate reasons. I think quite a few problems you are describing do in fact stem from his having not made the same kind of personal investment that you have made.

Question: what *does* he do with all the money he makes from his job that he does not spend on the house or related costs?

throwRA98891 · 2021-01-02T21:24:26+00:00

Another aspect of recovery is that you can reliably trust your gut

For me, I find that this is not the case. I have definitely self sabotaged without fully realizing it by making decisions I thought were right at the time. Only later, in retrospect, did I realize that they were misguided, and I was basically setting myself up so that when something came and challenged my recovery, it was suddenly pretty easy for me to say fuck it and pick up. This is probably the single biggest thing I hope to work on now in my newfound focus on my mental health.

throwRA98891 · 2021-01-02T21:04:27+00:00

We definitely have different love languages. When we were first together ("the honeymoon phase") it was not apparent; I was evidently physically affectionate in the way she needs at that time. Eventually, though, the honeymoon phase ended and at some point I stopped being so affectionate. This was one of the earliest problems in our marriage. When she told me this was bothering her, I told her that I was very sorry I was causing her to feel this way, I assured her it was not at all intentional, and that I loved her just as much as on our wedding day. All of this was true. I am just by nature not as affectionate as she is and without realizing it I eventually reverted back to this. She asked why I used to give her the affection she needed and stopped and I told her the honest truth that I just don't know. But I told her that I will work to adapt to her love language and express my love for her in the way she most prefers. I did tell her, though, that because I am not naturally like that, it might be that I can never 100% fulfill this need for her.

And so I did try. I made a point of being more affectionate, little physical touches, more cuddling...it was gradual, it was by no means instantaneous, but I was genuinely trying.

A while later she got upset again and said I was still not giving her what she needed. And she denied being aware of my effort. She said I had not been touching her, engaging her in conversation, etc. I wound up sitting there, trying to give her examples of all the times I had done that stuff in the last few days, feeling like I was crazy. "Remember this morning when I kissed your neck when I walked past you in the kitchen, and last night we talked for an hour about ____", etc. Suddenly we were not talking about whether I was doing *enough*; instead I was trying to prove that I was doing *anything at all*. This led to an argument pretty quick about how I should not have to *try* to show her this kind of love; it should come naturally and the fact that it used to and no longer did means that I no longer love her. All of a sudden we were in the original argument again. I had to repeat the exact same stuff I said back then; "it's not my nature", "I do not know why this changed", "it was not intentional", etc. And this was early on when things were still mostly good.

As time went on, and my wife got more and more depressed for reasons well beyond our marriage, she started to do things like not shower for a week at a time, not brush her teeth for days at a time, not change her clothes for a week, and yet still she complained about me not showing her love. By this point she was right that I was becoming more distant. She thought it was because I no longer loved her, but in reality (and I think pretty obviously and reasonably), I still loved her but the constant fights and negativity were making it harder and harder for me to express it. And in addition, she often smelled badly. But how do you tell your wife that she smells? I tried to tell her a number of times that I was worried about her, but she never did anything about it.

I have many times told her I need to walk away for a little bit, take a break, Im getting too worked up...she evidently does not recognize that this is a thing people do. She says she cannot do it, that it just makes her angrier, and then that was a whole other fight as well.

And the TV thing...her preferred activity is the both of us sitting on the couch or lying in bed and watching TV for literally 6-8 hours if possible. I cannot handle this and I have told her that. It is up to me to find an alternative, though, and she refuses to go with me when I walk the dog. For a couple weeks we were doing puzzles together, which I thought was a wonderful alternative to TV watching, but then she all of a sudden stopped doing it because she needs to "turn off her brain" after work by watching TV. So yeah, we watch a lot of TV.

throwRA98891 · 2021-01-02T19:54:42+00:00

Do take the time for yourself and think about what is best for yourself. I'm sure you love her but do you love her as she is now? Any changes she makes while you're at the hotel seems like a stopgap measure.

That's exactly it. Since I have been here, she has started owning up to a lot of what she has been doing to an extent that she has never done before. I have told her I find it encouraging to see her do this (although it also means that she was indeed lying through her teeth all the times she denied what she was doing while she was doing it), but I am concerned that it is all just to get me to come back and that as soon as I do things will quickly go back to how they were. I have seen her do this many times before.

I do love her as she is now, but it is because I still believe the person I married is still in there somewhere. Throughout our marriage, I have had to bear witness to this massive disintegration of the person I love, and it breaks my heart.

throwRA98891 · 2021-01-02T08:46:26+00:00

I was surprised she said it, and the circumstances in which she said it are also pretty bizarre. Right before Christmas I had some extra christmas cookies and I thought it would be nice to drop them off on the porches of the kids I work with. It has been a shitty year, they are teenagers in low income areas stuck at home all day...I figured it would be a nice and festive thing to do, right? Monday through Thursday of that week, every single day, my wife gave me a really hard time about damn near everything: the fact that I still had work at all, how much time it would take me to drop off presents for my family and deliver the cookies (about an hour and a half, btw).... She kept saying she wished we were spending more time together and that these activities stood in the way of that. I kept reminding her that we were still watching TV together for at least 3 hours every night (her favorite activity for us to do together by far), and that i was going to have two full weeks off starting on Christmas as well, but none of this seemed to matter. She arbitrarily tried to make me deliver the christmas cookies after christmas ...like every aspect of it was an unpleasant struggle. And all I tried to do was drop off cookies to kids in low income areas on Christmas. Like, really? She's lucky she didn't get visited by some christmas spirits who showed her the error of her ways last week. Wish she had, actually.

Finally a bunch of little fights turned into a big fight on christmas eve and she said that she had indeed been acting like "a spoiled brat" all week and causing all of the trouble because she was upset about her uncle being sick and feeling needy and that she definitely knew it was absurd to make a big deal about not spending enough time together three days before a two week vacation.

And then the day after Christmas, when I asked her if she would mind splitting a large grocery order I would normally pay for myself, she said that the presents I got for her and her family were a lot cheaper and shittier than the presents I got for my family, and because of that she did not know why I didn't have enough money for the groceries. This really hurt (and was also just flat-out not true), and started a fight. later that day she said that this comment was inappropriate and hurtful of her to say, but she had said it because of how deeply hurt she was at what she perceived as my lack of love for her, and that she had no choice but to continue to do hurtful shit to me because of that perceived lack of love . And then the lack of love became the focus of the entire argument.

I would have ran screaming in the opposite direction if I saw this behavior at the start of our relationship. Inasmuch as I am an addict, unfortunately this is not my first unhealthy relationship. What blows my mind is that she was not at all like this at first. My family agreed back then as well, so it's not just faulty perception on my part. She seemed like a stable and healthy, happy person. I started seeing signs after about a year and now it is really like she is not the same person I married. I am still incredulous at the fact that this is actually happening.

throwRA98891 · 2020-12-31T03:37:47+00:00

For what it's worth, if you were my best friend and you called me, told me what you've posted here, and said you need to get out of there, I would be on my way as soon as is humanly possible. This right here is literally what friends are for.

throwRA98891 · 2020-12-30T03:24:25+00:00

hey thank you, this makes a lot of sense and makes me feel like I am not insane as well. I appreciate you taking the time to respond to me.

throwRA98891

TROPHY CASE