u/Nectasha

I’m trying to understand what’s going on in my marriage because it’s causing me a lot of distress.

A big issue is how my husband handles situations with his parents. When they corner me, criticize me, or make me feel uncomfortable, I expect him to step in or at least set boundaries. Instead, I feel like I’m left to deal with it alone.

I’ve told him I need him to stand up for me and create some boundaries for us as a couple. But when I bring this up, it usually turns into a conflict between us instead.

From my perspective, I feel like I’m being put in a position where I’m the “sacrificial lamb” to keep things smooth with his parents.

There are also some things from earlier in our relationship that still affect me. I was not ready to get married when we did. He pushed for it, and I went along with it, but I don’t think I was in the right place emotionally, mentally, or physically. I was drained because I was in middle of career change, I put in real hard work for the three years before doing two specialisations parallely, which just felt like they got vanished. I wanted to give my career a fair chance.

We also never had a honeymoon, which was something I really needed at the time to reset. Instead, I went straight into married life already feeling overwhelmed and dysregulated, and I’ve felt like I’ve been trying to catch up ever since.

I think what’s hard for me is that I don’t feel like this has ever really been acknowledged. I feel like my needs were sacrificed from the beginning, and I’m still dealing with the consequences of that now. I honestly feel like I need an apology for how all of that happened.

Another major issue: whenever I try to talk to him about these problems, he brings in other people. He will call my parents and his parents and basically create a “committee” to discuss our marriage.

This has been happening for a year.

I’m not okay with this at all. It feels humiliating and like a violation of privacy. I don’t want third parties involved in resolving issues in my marriage, especially not in that way. It makes me feel even more exposed and unsupported.

After our last fight, he told me:
- he feels like his feelings are being invalidated
- he doesn’t get enough space
- he feels like he’s emotionally checking out
- he wants to proceed with a divorce

That part really worries me.

What’s confusing to me is that I don’t feel like I have a problem with him on his own. The problems seem to show up in the context of his parents. But he seems to experience it as pressure coming from me.

I’m trying to figure out:
- Am I asking for something unreasonable here?
- Is this a boundaries issue, or a communication issue?
- Why does it feel like the more I push for support, the more he pulls away?

TL;DR: I wasn’t ready for marriage but felt pushed into it, and I’m still dealing with the consequences. My husband doesn’t defend me or set boundaries with his parents, and when I bring it up, he involves both our families, which feels humiliating. I feel unsupported and like my needs have been sacrificed from the beginning, and now he says he’s emotionally checking out.

I’m trying to understand what’s going on in my marriage because it’s causing me a lot of distress.

A big issue is how my husband handles situations with his parents. When they corner me, criticize me, or make me feel uncomfortable, I expect him to step in or at least set boundaries. Instead, I feel like I’m left to deal with it alone.

I’ve told him I need him to stand up for me and create some boundaries for us as a couple. But when I bring this up, it usually turns into a conflict between us instead.

From my perspective, I feel like I’m being put in a position where I’m the “sacrificial lamb” to keep things smooth with his parents.

There are also some things from earlier in our relationship that still affect me. I was not ready to get married when we did. He pushed for it, and I went along with it, but I don’t think I was in the right place emotionally, mentally, or physically. I was drained because I was in middle of career change, I put in real hard work for the three years before doing two specialisations parallely, which just felt like they got vanished. I wanted to give my career a fair chance.

We also never had a honeymoon, which was something I really needed at the time to reset. Instead, I went straight into married life already feeling overwhelmed and dysregulated, and I’ve felt like I’ve been trying to catch up ever since.

I think what’s hard for me is that I don’t feel like this has ever really been acknowledged. I feel like my needs were sacrificed from the beginning, and I’m still dealing with the consequences of that now. I honestly feel like I need an apology for how all of that happened.

Another major issue: whenever I try to talk to him about these problems, he brings in other people. He will call my parents and his parents and basically create a “committee” to discuss our marriage.

This has been happening for a year.

I’m not okay with this at all. It feels humiliating and like a violation of privacy. I don’t want third parties involved in resolving issues in my marriage, especially not in that way. It makes me feel even more exposed and unsupported.

After our last fight, he told me:
- he feels like his feelings are being invalidated
- he doesn’t get enough space
- he feels like he’s emotionally checking out
- he wants to proceed with a divorce

That part really worries me.

What’s confusing to me is that I don’t feel like I have a problem with him on his own. The problems seem to show up in the context of his parents. But he seems to experience it as pressure coming from me.

I’m trying to figure out:
- Am I asking for something unreasonable here?
- Is this a boundaries issue, or a communication issue?
- Why does it feel like the more I push for support, the more he pulls away?

TL;DR: I wasn’t ready for marriage but felt pushed into it, and I’m still dealing with the consequences. My husband doesn’t defend me or set boundaries with his parents, and when I bring it up, he involves both our families, which feels humiliating. I feel unsupported and like my needs have been sacrificed from the beginning, and now he says he’s emotionally checking out.

I’m in a really difficult situation and I don’t know what to do anymore. After marriage I moved to Europe.

My husband has started recording arguments between us, but not from the beginning. He creates situations where I feel pushed to defend myself, then only records the part where I react. After that, he threatens to send those recordings to my family and friends to make me look bad.

Earlier, he used to threaten to call my parents directly. I managed to stop that by telling both my parents and his not to entertain him. Now he’s escalated it, he’s threatening to contact my extended family and even my friends instead. He knew my whole family: including ny parents and my extended family were together for a birthday party, he used that situation to control me.

Lately, it’s gotten worse. I’m still in the process of getting my residence papers, and he keeps telling me I’m “illegal” and that he can report me or get me deported. It feels like he’s using both the recordings and my immigration situation to control me and scare me into staying quiet.

I feel trapped and honestly scared of what he might do next. What are my options? What am I supposed to do?

Has anyone been in a similar situation? What would you do? Any advice or resources would really help.