Reader’s Question

After a year of marriage, my husband and I have separated. The reason I couldn’t stay with him is because of his lack of trust in me. I have devoted all my time and energy to him, but nothing I did ever seemed good enough for him.

In fact, what was worrying is that shortly after we tied the knot, he very quickly seemed to think that this marriage was a mistake – even though he was the one who proposed to me within a fortnight of meeting me. This was very hurtful. I stayed and continued to work on this because of the committment I had made to him.

During our marriage, I stopped keeping in contact with family and friends as he saw them as a bad influence. To add to that, I even changed my religion, dropped my maiden name and gave up certain foods because he felt it was necessary.

Worse still, he started becoming paranoid and obsessed with the idea that I would meet someone at work and leave him. In fact there came a point when I couldn’t even mention the name of a male colleague at home without him suspecting that there was some kind of affair going on. His behaviour in social situations was embarrassing, and even hurtful due to his unreasonable suspicions.

Since we’ve been separated, my husband has often said that he loves me and would like this marriage to work. However what frustrates me is that I’m the “bad person” in this. I’m the irresponsible one who doesn’t know how to save money or show him enough affection.

I do love him, although I can’t help but feel terribly depressed as I often wonder what went wrong? Please help. I am confused. Is there anything I can do to make this marriage work? Am I doing something wrong that I need to change?

I look forward to your advice. Thank you so much.
Regards

Our Clinical Psychologist’s Reply

From your description, you’ve married a controlling partner. I’ve discussed the characteristics of controlling and abusive partners in my article “Identifying Losers” on this website. Controllers work hard to separate you from family, friends, and fellow workers — then work hard to separate you from your self-esteem and self-confidence. They belittle, embarrass, torment, use guilt, intimidate, and blame their partners. At the same time, they take no responsibility for their behavior — it’s always your fault — and they feel entitled to punish you for not meeting their immediate demands. They have no tolerance for you having a personal life, job, family, goals, career, etc.

Individuals who operate this way do so because it’s their personality — not something you have done or didn’t do. You could be the best wife, partner, lover, etc. in the world and it wouldn’t matter. To keep you under control they must destroy your self-confidence, so you’ll never be good enough. Destroying your self-confidence also makes it less likely you’ll escape the situation.

He may not actually want the marriage to work — he may just want it under his control again. His denial of responsibility for his behavior makes the long-term outlook poor. This will likely only get worse. Please read the Loser article and visit the discussion group on this website. Many folks have been in your situation and describe how it only gets worse. You may want to seriously consider placing the marriage on probation as you discover more about his personality. At the same time, don’t do anything that might increase the obligations in the marriage such as major purchases, having children, etc., as controllers then use these issues to increase their control and prevent your detachment. Keep in mind that if you feel miserable in this relationship — it’s not love. It’s something else.