Difficult situation with wife

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-31-2006
Difficult situation with wife
42
Wed, 05-31-2006 - 12:58pm

Hi, I am going to try to make a long story short, but forgive me if it draws out a little bit.

After 18 years of marriage with my wife, we are at the point where it might end. For the most part, we have been happy except for one primary cause. She is an emotionally needy person. She requires constant attention (high maintenance). A lot of this stems from her childhood where she and her sister were pretty much abandoned by their father first, then once they reached their teens, their mother. My wife's search for love and attention caused her to be promiscuous, beleiving that she could get somebody to love her through that (which we all know is false).

When we met, we had a whirlwind type romance and fell for each other, then soon after married. Along came kids and everything else that goes with marriage. Over the years it has pained her that I have not shown the attention to her that I did when "courting". Now I have always treated her very well and try to always remember to show some kind of affection to her daily and to tell her often that I love her, etc., but she seems to think our marriage should always be like it was when we were dating. We used to stay up until 3am often those days talking (and other things), but she didn't work those days and could sleep until whenever, but I had a professional job and had to sneak away somewhere to take a nap because I was getting exhausted.

Over the last 6 or 7 years things have taken a turn for the worse. Whenever things get busy and attention fades just a little bit, her reaction becomes more severe. Accusations of affairs, yelling and screaming, throwing things. If she could gently nudge me that things are lacking, I would happily give her what she needs, but instead she says that I don't love her because if I did, meeting her emotional needs would be automatic. I cannot even get a word in edgewise during these times and have learned to just shut up, but resentment just builds inside me, and naturally makes it more difficult to give her the attention that she needs because I feel like I am being manipulated.

Here about 3 or 4 days ago, she said she didn't want to be married if I was going to be this way. Things I thought were fine, then whammo, she was livid at me and hit me with this. I didn't want to argue so I walked out the room to cool off, then she went nuts and started hitting herself in the face and stuff. She took off her wedding ring, which remains on the nightstand. No further talk of divorce has been mentioned, and we are civil to each other.

My question to anybody is - does it appear to anybody that a woman like this can be ever satisfied with attention short of quitting my business and trying to recreate our honeymoon? She is quite beauty, but at 35 she has been getting really down about wrinkles, and excessive weight, and things like that. If I try to tough this out, will it just be a continued marriage of pain? I hate hurting her, but I don't know how I can ever meet her needs, as it seems like her needs are far more than one person can meet. She says I am a great husband outside of this area.

Also, she will absolutely never consider counseling. She thinks it is all hogwash.

All comments will be appreciated. Thank you.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 10-05-2004
Mon, 06-19-2006 - 2:44pm

Thanks for your kind words.

I wish I didn't have so much experience in this area.

Thanks again.

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-05-2004
Mon, 06-19-2006 - 6:48pm

I'm glad for you this has been helpful.

I know what you mean about thinking you are loosing your mind. Especially when dealing with the lying. BP people will do anything to cover up being caught in a lie.

With my dad (see my other post to you), he is the same way about driving. Now that I understand better, it doesn't bother me at all. I actually find it kind of funny. I drove him somewhere a few weeks ago. He would get all mad (you know the anger) and curse at people that pulled out in front of me. I'll ask him question when he gets like that now. Like, I asked him why he is so angry about the person pulling in front of me, when I'm driving and it didn't bother me at all. Sometimes the questions can aggrivate him more, but mostly it seems like he stops and thinks about his anger outburst. He has gotten much better than he was a few years back. But I think it is my understanding that makes it seem better now. I don't take things persoanlly (at least most of the time) and I understand his hot buttons better too.

The criticizing is more about self esteem than control. The 'less' they can make someone else feel the better for them. Helps them feel better about themselves when they see someone else has problems/issues/etc. I remember one girlfriend I had that had issues like that. I remember I translated something in Spanish wrong. She laughed and laughed and laughed about it. I remember being confused about how much joy she got out of my mistake. Later I understood that she saw me as much smarter than she was, so anything that helped with how insecure she felt about that, gave her great joy.

Hope that makes sense and that this all turns out the way you'd like.

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