Hi everyone,
I've just found this forum and desperately need some advice. I apologize if it is a little long.
I have been with my husband 30 years and married to him 11 years. I have just become aware that he has been controlling me all this time. He works on a need to know basis (ie, what he wants me to know). He handles the finances and gives me minimal information. We are both retired now although we have a shop in the UK which he runs; depression and ill-health caused me to stop working 20 years ago.
A conversation the other caused me to realise exactly what the problems are here. He handles the finances and gives me no information. I have tried to talk about things that need doing and I waste my breath.
He has a very limited range of things he will do. We bought a 5 bed house in France 7 years ago. It is beautiful. We have a pool. He does very little around the place and the whole thing falls on my shoulders. We moved from a 3 bedroom cottage where the whole place fell on my shoulders and I was petrified of it happening here. And he promised me it wouldn't. Piecrust promises anyone?
I am kept short of information on finances and have no authority to do anything.
I feel that everything is down to me but I can do nothing and in the meantime everything is going to rack and ruin around my ears. We go round and do a checklist of things that need doing and nothing ever gets done, basically it is a black hole where because it has been written on a list it doesn't need to be acted on.
Housework - down to me.
Minor repairs - down to me.
Gardening - down to me.
Major repairs - ignored.
He doesn't show any interest either in what I might do. We share no interests, I try to find things that we could do together and can't come up with anything. He likes skiing, playing poker, playing cricket. Not for me! I like creative stuff, sewing, papier maché and pottering in the garden. But I do ask him how things go and he never asks me how my things go.
I never found my voice - as a child I was chronically shy, never asked what I wanted, never learnt to express myself. Had a bad first marriage
which I was glad to see the back of.
Then I found a man who gave me exactly what I wanted, I thought. Supportive, loving - loved me for myself, how wonderful. My rock. He is a lovely guy, people warm to him - and he is no different at home. I know those other types. He's never been a bully, a control freak - I know them too. He is alway perfectly reasonable. But he gives me limited choices. He pressures me to do what he wants. He doesn't give me enough information to make my own choices.
I know now that the reason I drink too much and smoke too much is because these are the few things I have control of. So I drink too much and try to express myself and it is always wrong. I upset him. So I live in a state of guilt and shame.
So now the rug has been whisked away and where I was standing on rock I am roadrunner running off the edge of the cliff. There is nothing. We have had long talks and he admitted everything, I truly do not believe he knows what he does. But his words worry me. That when I had bad depression he had to control me. Not take responsibility for me or make decisions on my behalf, he had to control me.
I have spent more time than I can mention working on myself, trying to sort out the source of my unhappiness. All kinds of self-help programmes, cognitive behavioural therapy, meditation, mindfulness and more. All this time, all this money, what a waste. Under my nose all this time and such a waste of my time and energy.
Now I'm roadrunner frantically pedalling in space. He's promised me he can change. I would like to believe him but I don't know if I can.
I've just found this forum and desperately need some advice. I apologize if it is a little long.
I have been with my husband 30 years and married to him 11 years. I have just become aware that he has been controlling me all this time. He works on a need to know basis (ie, what he wants me to know). He handles the finances and gives me minimal information. We are both retired now although we have a shop in the UK which he runs; depression and ill-health caused me to stop working 20 years ago.
A conversation the other caused me to realise exactly what the problems are here. He handles the finances and gives me no information. I have tried to talk about things that need doing and I waste my breath.
He has a very limited range of things he will do. We bought a 5 bed house in France 7 years ago. It is beautiful. We have a pool. He does very little around the place and the whole thing falls on my shoulders. We moved from a 3 bedroom cottage where the whole place fell on my shoulders and I was petrified of it happening here. And he promised me it wouldn't. Piecrust promises anyone?
I am kept short of information on finances and have no authority to do anything.
I feel that everything is down to me but I can do nothing and in the meantime everything is going to rack and ruin around my ears. We go round and do a checklist of things that need doing and nothing ever gets done, basically it is a black hole where because it has been written on a list it doesn't need to be acted on.
Housework - down to me.
Minor repairs - down to me.
Gardening - down to me.
Major repairs - ignored.
He doesn't show any interest either in what I might do. We share no interests, I try to find things that we could do together and can't come up with anything. He likes skiing, playing poker, playing cricket. Not for me! I like creative stuff, sewing, papier maché and pottering in the garden. But I do ask him how things go and he never asks me how my things go.
I never found my voice - as a child I was chronically shy, never asked what I wanted, never learnt to express myself. Had a bad first marriage
which I was glad to see the back of.
Then I found a man who gave me exactly what I wanted, I thought. Supportive, loving - loved me for myself, how wonderful. My rock. He is a lovely guy, people warm to him - and he is no different at home. I know those other types. He's never been a bully, a control freak - I know them too. He is alway perfectly reasonable. But he gives me limited choices. He pressures me to do what he wants. He doesn't give me enough information to make my own choices.
I know now that the reason I drink too much and smoke too much is because these are the few things I have control of. So I drink too much and try to express myself and it is always wrong. I upset him. So I live in a state of guilt and shame.
So now the rug has been whisked away and where I was standing on rock I am roadrunner running off the edge of the cliff. There is nothing. We have had long talks and he admitted everything, I truly do not believe he knows what he does. But his words worry me. That when I had bad depression he had to control me. Not take responsibility for me or make decisions on my behalf, he had to control me.
I have spent more time than I can mention working on myself, trying to sort out the source of my unhappiness. All kinds of self-help programmes, cognitive behavioural therapy, meditation, mindfulness and more. All this time, all this money, what a waste. Under my nose all this time and such a waste of my time and energy.
Now I'm roadrunner frantically pedalling in space. He's promised me he can change. I would like to believe him but I don't know if I can.
Put the internet to work for you.
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