JohnLee

I have not told anyone about my sufferings under my grandparents because my relatives would not believe me and will attack me for it because they put my grandparents on the pedestal because financially my grandparents helped everyone. I grew up in an environment where if a child is fed, that is enough. Few ever thought about the emotional well being of a child. I didn't think much of it until the last few years because I thought that was normal. Now looking back, I think a lot of my anxiety issues came from my experience growing up with my grandparents. In the last few years I have periods for weeks when I feel great but a trigger can lead me into anxiety episodes for one or two weeks. The main trigger is that my wife being cold and withdrawn. Lately the problems of raising my youngest who is autistic can also trigger my anxiety and sadness but these anxiety episodes tend to be shorter, only one or two days. My current spouse has her own emotional issues and she vacillates between being warm and cold depending on her emotional well being or health issues which no doctor had been able to figure out what is wrong. My wife has a lot of stomach troubles but a Gastroenterologist said there is nothing wrong with her. She also has problems with cold hands, feet and sometimes entire body but Hematologist found nothing is wrong with her blood count and her thyroid numbers are fine. She was a homemaker for 5 years. Finally, she is working 25 to 30 hours a week in a skin care boutique and it seems to help her well being. There are a few thing going well in my life that would be my two older kids. They are doing well in school. I also think I am a good father. I take care of my kids well, at least the two older ones, physically, emotionally and academically. I am also extremely happy with my career. I was one of the best engineers in my company and now after transferring to sales I am the best Sales Manager (out of 30) in the company if it is based on sales revenue. In times of distress, these positives aspects of my life can be an anchor for me. Yes, I have tried therapy once for 6 weeks after my divorce from my ex. It helped but I don't feel it was lasting. I was feeling great after being able to leave a gambling addict spouse. I am planning to find another therapist who is specialized in anxiety and self-esteem. I think I need a therapist who is able to deal with my core issues. The goal is that I shouldn't need validation from my wife or anyone to feel good about myself. I will also talk to my family doctor in April about sleep apnea and ask for a referral to a specialist.

How do you overcome feelings of worthlessness and low self-esteem? I am in my late 40s. I am educated and have a successful career. I have relationship anxiety issues. I got married and divorced with my first wife because she became a gambling addict. I got married again very quickly just 2 years later. I have 1 child from my first marriage and 2 more children with my current wife. I have trust issues. My wife uses FB constantly and that give me anxiety when men chat with her or make comments on her posts. I know it is not my wife's problem for using FB but the problems lie in me and my low self-esteem. I am responsible for my own happiness. I have tried meditation, exercise, golfing with friends and write down positive affirmations but sometimes the anxiety is just overwhelming. I have periods when I feel good and then short episodes when the anxiety came out with triggers and times with no obvious triggers. I have read books after books trying to overcome my anxiety. I don't know if it is genetics or it is from my poor childhood. At 4 year old, I went to live with my grandparents. I grew up in a country at a time that it economically it was very depressed and my grandpa told my mom that he would take me to the city to live with him because she can't afford to feed 5 kids. She objected to it but my grandpa was the family patriarch and she reluctantly agreed. During my 8 years living with my grandparents, I went to school for 1 year. The rest of the time I was homeschooled maybe 30 minutes a day. I was stuck inside the house and not able to go out and play with other kids. My grandma was extremely mean to me and yelled at me constantly. My grandpa loved to take naps in his chair while putting his legs on my shoulders while I was standing and that happened almost daily. My mom visited me once a year, I always wanted to leave with her to go home but it always ended in tears. The pain in my heart during my 8 years living with grandparents was immense. Thank you for reading. I need to get this out of my chest. Any advice is welcome.

May be you don't really love her. You are just afraid of being alone. It is hard to love someone you don't trust. Whatever you do, let her go. If you marry her, it only gets worst. You will have constant anxiety. Work on your self-esteem. You can start by doing things that you enjoy by yourselves. Stop obsessing over her. I understand because I have the same tendencies as you.

You are doing a lot trying to maintain this relationship. Does she give you massages back? If she doesn't, it seems like a one-way relationship. You will never be happy with her. Don't force sex, it has to be a mutual attraction.

Let her go. From my experience of marrying to a person who was abused and had a bad childhood. The sadness, depression, and pain will never leave her. You don't want to spend your entire life with someone like that if you can avoid. Take care of yourself, avoid damaged people. You save yourself a lot of pain and headache later. Don't try to save people. I made this mistake.

Some people are just not into intimate contact. You have tried a lot already. Massage is the best way to connect people but unfortunately, he doesn't like to give or receive. I understand not wanting to give massage but not wanting to receive massage is strange. You need to tell him directly that you feel invisible in the relationship, and you need more intimacy. I was in similar situation where my wife's need for cuddling, hugging and kissing is very low compared to me. This is consistent with people that have avoidant leaning personality. On the other hand, I need a lot of intimate contact. We started to give each other massages before sleeping and it helped to get us closer.

Have you been to Toastmasters? These are speech clubs that help people to talk in public and overall increase self confidence and social skills. I was a very very shy person. After 2 years of going to Toastmasters and practiced talking in public I was able to transferred from Engineering to Sales. Being in Sales is something unthinkable for me just a few years ago. Now I am confidently meeting customers and present our products and I am very successful. It is just a matter of practice. Previously I would feel like dying if I have to talk in public, now I can talk. This also helped me to improve my social skills. I could also be mildly autistic. I have never been diagnosed but my youngest kid (out of 3) is autistic. After she was diagnosed, I took an online test and my score was borderline. I scored 28/50. Anything 30 or more is considered autistic. I have a lot of problems reading people or understand that what I am doing could make people upset. I figure you have similar issues.

From someone who is twice married and both times I picked wounded people. Do not marry this guy he is very very wounded and he will never change. Expect the problems will multiply 5 times when you live together especially with children. Everyone has nice qualities and bad qualities but he has too many major red flags. You also need to look internally why you have been in chaotic relationships. Two makes a trend. For me, I have low self-esteem and very anxious in relationships because I grew up with my grandma who was very mean to me since I was 4 year old. Work on improving yourself and you will pick better partners.

I am sorry that you have gone through many unfortunate events in your life and things have not gone well overall. I was in similar situations when I was young and the result was that I was really shy and have low self esteem and feel invisible in a group of friends. I felt that I was not interesting enough and people wouldn't hang out with me unless I am in a group. Sadly, I still feel the same sometimes even at 48 year old. However, most of the time I have learned to ignore what people think and focus on myself. If you improve your self confidence, you will be a more interesting person and worry less about other people. If you have a chance at your high school I suggest that you join the debate team or other clubs with activities that you are interested in. For me, it is golf. My golf buddies are nice to me because we have the same common interest. This is the environment I am most comfortable in. When you are old enough, join Toastmasters and learn to talk in public, it helps to improve your self-esteem. Excercise, do meditation, Focus on school and be successful at it so you can have a nice career with decent income. I am making over $200k a year in a job that I love and I can tell you it helped me with improving my self esteem tremendously. Without Toastmasters participation, I wouldn't have been successful and more confident. Low self esteem is something that unfortunately will stick with you. You can lessen it by doing positive activities that I have mentioned but I have learned that it is really hard to turn myself into someone totally confident. It is possible but really hard.

Your relationship with your bf seems to be an unhealthy obsession because you are not living in your house, you have decided to forgo in-person school and switched to online school to be close to him. You also let go of your friends. If everything revolves around your bf, if you lose him, your world will collapse. Your chance of being with your bf 2 years from now is probably 30%. You are too young, you need to go to college, in a job training program or get a job, you need to have friends and you should not live in his house with his mother. Anyway, I am probably not making any sense to you. Once this fascination stage passes, you will see that you can't invest your entire live into one person.

My first wife had a gambling problem and I put up with it for so long because I thought I wanted to keep the family together for my daughter. I also tried to fix my wife by taking her to Therapists and Gambling Anonymous which is an organization that helps gambling addicts. It was useless and I have learned that you can't fix people. Deep down, it was my fear of being alone and keeping the same horrible life situation was better than freedom which was unknown and terrifying. Friends and family told me to end the relationship but I resisted. My wife was in troubles and it is my job to rescue her.. "in sickness and health for richer or poorer"... I lived through periods of extreme anxiety because my ex was gambling and putting us into debts. Finally, I hit bottom as I was "sick of trying and getting hurt" and found the courage to file for divorce when my daughter was 2 and I won the right to have my daughter living with me on weekdays. The day that I moved out, it was so liberating. 3-year of stress and pain was lifted from my shoulders. No one deserves to live in constant stress and resentment. Now my 10 year old daughter is a mentally and physically healthy, gifted student, with many friends. She stays with her mom on weekends and I think she will be fine.

What I have learned is that people rarely change. You are setting yourself up for major disappointment and resentment if you hope that she will be better. You can only change yourself and that is also extremely difficult. You will have to work on yourself and expect that your wife stays the same and think if you can live with that. Perhaps if you improve your confidence and set boundaries she will respect you more. Setting boundaries is extremely critical for people with low self esteem. You need to let her know your limits. You will also need to learn to listen to her story and how she thinks and acts. You need to communicate to her in a way that she feels that you are not critical of her. Just listen to her for a while. Sorry that I have said that you have low self esteem but because you and I are very similar and I recognize your thinking and behaviors in myself. I am working toward becoming a more secured person by focusing on my needs, exercise, meditation, talking to friends. Good Luck.

This abuse will never end. A friend of mine married his wife because she was pregnant. He doesn't find her attractive and keeps making fun of her look in front of friends. Even after 10 years he keeps belittling her even though she showed a lot of discomfort and pain in front of everyone. I have told my friend that it isn't funny but he is not listening.

You have asked a question which she has clearly explained in her posts. May be you didn't read them.

Emotional connection, attention. Things that we need from our partners but many don't get since their partners are afraid of intimacy due to difficult childhoods.