On and off empathy

[Girlwithabird]

My fiancé and I have been best friends for years. I have always been his rock because he's gone through a life of the most unfortunate abuses I've ever heard of. I'm literally the first person to ever show him love besides his children. He's such a beautiful person even after going through such terrible things and it has always amazed me. But obviously he has some very real PTSD from all this social, emotional and even physical abuse that started decades ago when he was just a kid and still continues at the hand of his ex wife. But then, when I got pregnant with our daughter, he and I had only been living together a very short time and my hormones were so bad I was very sensitive and we got into fights often. I triggered him so bad with yelling and fighting during that time that now when we get in fights it's like he shuts down and shuts off all empathy for me.

 

And these fights are ALWAYS (not an embellishment, whatsoever) started from his criticism of something I did or didn't do or that he THOUGT I did or didn't do. I can stay calm and power through his criticisms sometimes until he realizes what he thinks is happening isn't and relaxes again, but sometimes our lives are so stressful that I can't handle it and I get depressed and have to run out of the room crying, when this happens her shuts down and shuts off all empathy for me. He doesn't feel bad that I'm crying and the more I cry the more he laughs (or just smirks at me) or mocks me in this state.

 

I know he has had to create a place in himself to go when he is all alone that is devoted to self preservation, but I don't know what to do when his happens. I get so depressed that i have a hard time focusing on work or anything but my daughter and I can't talk to any of my friends or family because I don't want them to judge him. My background is in counseling, so my perspective isn't a him vs me perspective like I'm afraid they will take and treat him with if I get help from anyone. I'm all alone in this city with him.

 

Should I just be trying to get him to see a counselor? He will never reconcile with me unless I apologize and almost deny my own feelings and take the blame for the arguments. I know he's incredibly stressed out from carrying so much of the burden of providing for all of us and his other kids, but when he looks at me like the enemy I am all alone. And I keep getting ulcers. I don't want my relationship to fall apart, but there's so much stress all around us that I don't know how to keep it together. My self esteem is lower than it has been in years. He understands me better than anyone else in my life until the stress and the PTSD kicks in. He's like two different people: one that loves me more than life and gets depressed even thinking our time gets cut short, and one person who hates me and resent me and thinks I'm some kind of cruel, immature .

 

I swear it feels like all his resentment for his CRAZY abusive ex-wife is getting dumped on me. He knows I spoil him and do and always have done more for him than everyone, but 30 years of abuse and NO love at all has to leave a person very broke still, right? He's everyone's favorite person and the only people who don't enjoy him are jealous and change the second he befriends them. You, reader, would fall in love with him, too. He's like an angel who forgets who he's supposed to be fighting and turns around thinking I'm the demon. Thanks for letting me vent and I'm beyond grateful to anyone who even reads this far, let alone reaponds. I just need to get him a counselor, don't I?

[mhowe]

No. You need to get you to a counselor. You cannot change his behavior, but you can change how you react to it.

[ThatwasThen]

Seems like you moved way to fast to the point that within a very short period of time you've had a child with a man that clearly has some mental/psychological/emotional issues to have stayed in a relationship with a woman that treated him that way. Now, you're faced with making (hopefully) a decision to leave a man that is doing to you and your daughter, what she did to him. And... the cycle continues. (sadly). You walking on eggshells to "keep the peace" is not a solution to what is wrong with this relationship in general.

 

Yes. Do get your own therapy and hopefully you will have a light bulb moment of your own where you'll realize that YOU can't fix him and he will just continue laughing at your reaction to his abuse of you as long as you stay there and enable him to do it.

 

This man had no business starting up another relationship so soon and way, way before he had healed and learned about personal boundaries and the importance of them in being able to form and maintain happy, functional unions.

 

While you're waiting for your own therapy I'd highly recommend that you hone up on your own personal boundaries so that you learn that the only person you have any control over is yourself and that its his job to fix him.

 

Here are some links that you might benefit from if you're self-aware enough to be open to having them as a life-style.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Do be cognizant of the fact that by being in this dysfunctional relationship, you are teaching your daughter that abuse and dysfunction are the norm and the chances that her ending up in the same situation are high if she is forced to grow up in that type of environment.

[Whattheduck]

He's abusive. He had bad examples growing up and that is what he became. He will take what he learned on you. He will put you down to feel better. You will bend over backwards for fear of making him upset but there will always be things he will find to be upset. Now he is going to be that kind of example to his own child.