u/Aloneinthewoods1979

I am in a situation with my wife and I am legitimately torn on where to go from here.

I am a stay at home dad to 2 kids. We moved across country in 2014 for my wife’s dream job and my job didn’t transfer to where we are. I had parental leave but my wife’s job is so demanding, it made sense for me to be at home. I thought we were on the same page about this at the time.

Over the years we had another kid who has serious autism, my wife had breast cancer, serious turmoil in her professional life but we have endured. We have a house in a very expensive city, our kids are doing ok but need a lot of support, have a large portfolio and I have increasingly taken on more work to help my wife with her job (book keeping, invoicing, admin, managing payroll taxes, investments etc). I also do 100% kids planning, cooking, cleaning, laundry, pet care, house maintenance etc. my wife comes home and just has to recharge from her job.

Over the years though the emotional abuse and her depression have come to a head. I get constant criticism about everything. From her perspective, she has to manage everything, from mine, she cannot let anything slide and escalates a minor inconvenience or annoyance into a 40 text message conversation about how I cannot support her. I
Do love her, I can acknowledge she is suffering and all of the benefits I have in life are because of her. She is cruel to me though, impatient and generally hates being around me.

In March she told me “you should end your life if you cannot support me in the way that I need”. She claims she doesn’t remember saying it and has not apologized.

We haven’t had sex in 10 years, any platonic affection I show her is brushed off and I’m
Walking on egg shells constantly. This morning, I made a 12 cup pot of coffee instead of an 8 cup
Pot of coffee. She likes it with 8 cups. I got 20 text messages about how stupid and useless I am that I cannot get basic tasks correct.

I don’t know what to do. My kids need so much support and I haven’t worked a regular 9-5 in 12 years. I have no family within 3000 miles, and what little family I have, cannot help or even offer advice.

I don’t know if I can move forward and get a divorced to torpedo my kids lives. I don’t know how support someone who is depressed and anxious and berates me daily over a variety of perceived mistakes or inconveniences. I think I’m a good person but this daily assault is destroying me.

Any other dads out there who have endured? Any who can offer advice from the other side?

Also posted on CPTSD

I’ll preface by saying, I have an amazing relationship with my psychologist. I started seeing her in 2022 after a life time of bottling up complex abuse as a child and generally a profoundly damaged sense of self worth. I had 5-6 years of abuse and despite the fact that I functioned for most of my life, it really really fucked me up. I’m a 40+ year old man with 2 kids in a dysfunctional marriage. Meeting a therapist who was kind, honest, empathetic has changed my life.

The first 6 months of sessions with her, I would leave trembling because I couldn’t believe I said these things out loud after 35+ years of suppression. I’ve unfortunately made her cry several times when telling her the litany of things that happened to me and how I truly view myself. I’ve always thought I was a burden to everyone in my life, worthless, and a disappointment to anyone who gets to know me.

I think I could talk about this with her but for the first time in 4 years, I had a sex dream about her. We have discussed everything about my life and no topics could be off limits given what I went through but sexual fantasies about her never happened.

I feel so bad I had this dream. It’s like I’m violating this bond we have. She is the only person in my life who is both intensely kind and gentle with me and also seems to like talking to me. We have a great rapport and never once have I felt judged telling her my fucked up sexual fantasies and this entire sexual identity I shaped around a child hood of abuse.

I know all about transference and for the first time in 4 years, I don’t know how to approach this. I don’t want to get fired as a patient and have to repeat all of this with another psychologist. I would sooner stop therapy all together than to have to describe things over again.

I could use some advice. Bury this or bring it up?

I have no allusions of wanting this to happen. I just have no idea where it came from after 4 years of intense weekly sex talks .