GoGoGodzilla
Member
Hello, all, hoping this post finds everyone well. <3 If not, sending love and good thoughts your way~
So I've wrangled with degrees of depression and anxiety for... Duuuude. Decades at this point, and I've done just about everything "right" re: coping with these things. I exercise (obviously, I'm in training so it kinda by default comes with the territory, lulz), I eat healthy, I engage in healthy activities like reading and drawing, I spend time outside, I pray/meditate, I stick to a routine, I do gratitude lists, and etc. I'm on 20mg of Lexapro daily. Lately, however, I almost feel like I'm so just... down that I can't muster to do the things I enjoy and that help me to cope with these conditions.
I mean, good LORD, you guys--I don't drink because of the fact that just about everyone on my mom's side of the family is an alcoholic as is my husband, and I'm sitting in my pajamas allowing myself some wine because f*ck if I know why. It's here because my mom sent it over so I could cook with it but it's all going to get thrown out tomorrow once I've made my recipe since my husband doesn't need the open temptation and I don't need to pick up a drinking habit to match his.
As mentioned in a previous post, last week's session with my therapist was difficult--she asked if I felt my husband was being emotionally abusive to me, and I couldn't honestly answer her with a no. Emotional abuse doesn't always look like it does in the movies or fictitious novels. Like on a day-to-day basis, in spite of everything that's gone on between us, my husband and I get along pretty well. But on breaking down about our relationship to my counselor and having her ask me that question, it opened my mind to the possibility that that "getting along" doesn't really mean much when there's a larger pattern of abuse.
I can't ignore or deny the fact that he is, at the very least, controlling--like YES, I made a stupid f*cking decision and got involved with a dude I thought would be there for me when I decided I was going to leave my husband.
Okay I'll just say it *grumble grumble* I had an affair *grumble grumble* Even if one might use the term EXTENUATING CIRCUMSTANCES! that's still what it was. *SIGH*
Anyway. His actions following were justifiable and understandable, but in the wake of facing up to what I had done and taking responsibility for it I conveniently left the fact that even before this affair my husband regularly broke into and read my private instant message conversations, emails, text messages, journals, and diaries without my consent on the back burner. He has always been uncomfortable with my external friendships (regardless of who they might be--if they don't present a romantic threat, they are someone I "will talk sh*t about him to," and otherwise, they are... well, a romantic threat.) I can understand wanting to know my friends and build hedges against potentially inappropriate friendships to protect our relationship, but it is to an extent that lifelong friends have been blacklisted due to reasons such as "He doesn't regularly acknowledge me, I don't understand why I am not always included in your conversations," or "She didn't care about what it meant for me when you told her what happened last year," or etc. (The friend in question did, in fact, very much care what happened to him last year when I effed up.) I cut off contact with one of my closest friends in spite of this friend being married to a wonderful lady that I am also friends with to try to respect my husband's needs and boundaries. I have been writing a fan fiction with a friend out of state, and so have brainstormed via text with her to get this story written. I have been careful not to allow it to interfere with my time with my husband, and my screentime on my phone is less than two hours per day--and this includes texting, checking/reading/replying to emails, checking my fanfiction site and responding to messages and reading fics and replying to them, shopping, listening to music, and etc. However, I have been accused of being "buried in my phone," so I have stepped away from the phone entirely except to make sure everyone is healthy and well in my family and among my friends once--at most twice--a day.
I have brought up some goals regarding work to him. Bear in mind he effectively asked me to quit my previous job because the strain on him with childcare was too much. In the end, it wasn't a huge arm-pull because I didn't feel comfortable at the salon in question, but I had at least wanted to see how I managed on the floor before I made my decision. So following this choice, I just mentioned it might be a neat goal to work hard toward honing my techniques and maybe try going out for a beauty company's Fashion Week team and have the opportunity to go to one (or several) of the Fashion Weeks around the world and be a part of the events. I've always loved cosmetology and fashion and being a part of Fashion Week would be an incredible thing for me and what I felt an interesting goal to aspire to. A mentor at this previous salon had been a part of a major company's Fashion Week team for the better part of a decade and therefore it seemed like a lofty but still wholly plausible goal. My husband immediately said, in a sickened and disturbed murmur, "That thought makes me SO uncomfortable," and when I asked him why, he said he didn't know. When I asked if he'd be okay with me doing hair out of our home, he said that was fine with him. However, each second I mention any work out of the house, he is very shut down to the idea. If I had to guess, it is because the two times I met this ex-person (we'll call him Humbert) it was after my cosmetology classes at night, and therefore any cosmetology work outside of the house might trigger him. But to not have goals beyond just finding a hair and nails client for the next week and be indefinitely stuck in the house possibly even when COVID is a little more brought to heel is counterintuitive to my nature (I've always been very driven and aimed high), and I don't know how to approach the subject anymore because it's not changed or gotten better over the past year.
Years ago, when I mentioned working out of the home, he would become surly and explain that he felt I was only seeking work to try to leave him. Conversely, he would accuse me of using him for an income when I wasn't working out of the house. More recently, he has made similar accusations--that I stay to use him, and that if I had a legitimate job, I wouldn't be with him. It feels sometimes that he resents my dependence on him but then becomes embittered by the concept of me attempting to seek some form of independence while not leaving or indicating leaving the relationship.
It feels sometimes like my husband's standards might be more than I, as an individual, can meet. I'm sure there are women out there who could, just... I'm not sure I can. I try, and it's exhausting. He still wishes me to maintain total transparency (I'm just hoping he doesn't find this since it's supposed to be a safe venting ground to people who have no connection to him) as in he gets full access to all of my conversations, emails, messages, etc., wants regular sex (at least a few times a week--I feel about as sexy as Jabba the Hutt on meth these days and I'm still... I don't know, so HURT about his affair in September October--and frankly might still be ongoing, there are signs, but who knows, maybe I'm just paranoid and being stupid about it--and therefore just don't feel much like having sex, needs several forms of one-on-one connection each day from playing board games and doing conversation starters and ensuring all of our activities are ones that can be done together to engaging (at one point daily) in deep, hard communication about our relationship and continuously discussing harsher topics, like how badly I hurt him last year (2019) and how he felt so abandoned in 2015 (which oddly hurts me, he was drunk that whole year and lying about it while I was chronically ill and waiting massive surgery and just kinda trying to survive, lol) and etc. etc., needs me to time my activities according to what schedule works for him regardless of what the activity is, needs almost constant physical touch and contact (like I'll be up and about, cooking, vacuuming, cleaning, whatever, and he'll step in front of me and just hug me for like 3-5 minutes straight... hugs are fine but I REALLY wish he wouldn't time them when I'm in the middle of something. He claims I'm always in the middle of something but I TRY VERY HARD to be affectionate with him to ensure he feels loved but he still does this several times a day), and takes exception to me spending "too much" (from what I can tell, more than 5-10 minutes maybe once or twice a day unless I'm doing work for my job) time on my computer and is very sensitive to my phone usage. I spent a lot of time on my phone while he was drinking so I understand the aversion but I don't use any social media anymore and haven't for some time (it's been five years since I used Facebook or Twitter and one year since I stopped using Instagram.) I recognize his discomfort but I wish I could at least text friends here and there or look at stuff on Amazon or read a fanfic in bed without a probe or an interrogation to follow. (Or just him flat-out looking through my phone and checking its history and my conversations. Can't say as I say anything bad about him or have anything to hide but I'm always afraid there will be something he'll get upset about.) Just today I discovered that he was sifting through my email, some days after I tried to say the window for transparency was closing per our counselor's recommendation and that these probes into my private conversations were no longer appropriate and he needed to start working toward some level of trust or asking for consent before looking at my private things. He said he still needs the transparency, but I never agreed that I still want to give it to him. It's not because I want to unbridled-ly whine about him to all of my friends and family and acquaintances and coworkers and bank tellers and gas station attendants and etc., I just want to have conversations and correspondence without feeling like a cave woman in ice being observed by a scientist.
I want to make this work, but I don't know if I can revolve every waking moment of my life around my husband and his laundry list of needs and desires for this relationship. He has claimed that he does not ask for much, if anything, and when he asks me to list examples of what he requires, it then sounds like I'm out of line and selfish expressing being overwhelmed about his needs. And maybe I am--like maybe it's reasonable that he want the things he does, and I'm just not cut out for marriage because I can't fulfill all of those needs without being overwhelmed.
Meanwhile, I feel so helpless with COVID and like I'll never find or hold a job that will provide for my kids on its own. While I'm not a point that I want to leave or end it, even if I did, I don't feel I could because with the pandemic it's not like cosmetology is a secure field. I don't want to place my kids in a position of wanting or struggle just because my stupid ass with its useless talents couldn't hack it as Hubs' wife. It just makes me feel so trapped, like there's no choice anywhere. Again, I'm not at a point I want to leave him, I still want to make this work--but I wish I had choices.
As such, I can't seem to get up at a reasonable time, fall asleep at a reasonable time, find the energy to train or run, eat properly on a consistent basis, focus on the things I enjoy doing (time window limits and forced schedules aside), etc. I used to shower and bathe every day, and I'm down to every other day now because I just don't have the energy and I don't see the point since I rarely go anywhere other than the boxing gym and now I'm quarantining for two weeks.
I'm doing my best to keep my chin up for my kids but I'm really struggling. I know they say to do x y z and etc. to cope with depression, but what if you can't even muster up to do x y or z in the first place? What then? What do you do?
SIGH. I just don't know...
Happy Holidays, y'all, thanks for the vent sesh. Have a good night <3 Focker... OUT
So I've wrangled with degrees of depression and anxiety for... Duuuude. Decades at this point, and I've done just about everything "right" re: coping with these things. I exercise (obviously, I'm in training so it kinda by default comes with the territory, lulz), I eat healthy, I engage in healthy activities like reading and drawing, I spend time outside, I pray/meditate, I stick to a routine, I do gratitude lists, and etc. I'm on 20mg of Lexapro daily. Lately, however, I almost feel like I'm so just... down that I can't muster to do the things I enjoy and that help me to cope with these conditions.
I mean, good LORD, you guys--I don't drink because of the fact that just about everyone on my mom's side of the family is an alcoholic as is my husband, and I'm sitting in my pajamas allowing myself some wine because f*ck if I know why. It's here because my mom sent it over so I could cook with it but it's all going to get thrown out tomorrow once I've made my recipe since my husband doesn't need the open temptation and I don't need to pick up a drinking habit to match his.
As mentioned in a previous post, last week's session with my therapist was difficult--she asked if I felt my husband was being emotionally abusive to me, and I couldn't honestly answer her with a no. Emotional abuse doesn't always look like it does in the movies or fictitious novels. Like on a day-to-day basis, in spite of everything that's gone on between us, my husband and I get along pretty well. But on breaking down about our relationship to my counselor and having her ask me that question, it opened my mind to the possibility that that "getting along" doesn't really mean much when there's a larger pattern of abuse.
I can't ignore or deny the fact that he is, at the very least, controlling--like YES, I made a stupid f*cking decision and got involved with a dude I thought would be there for me when I decided I was going to leave my husband.
Okay I'll just say it *grumble grumble* I had an affair *grumble grumble* Even if one might use the term EXTENUATING CIRCUMSTANCES! that's still what it was. *SIGH*
Anyway. His actions following were justifiable and understandable, but in the wake of facing up to what I had done and taking responsibility for it I conveniently left the fact that even before this affair my husband regularly broke into and read my private instant message conversations, emails, text messages, journals, and diaries without my consent on the back burner. He has always been uncomfortable with my external friendships (regardless of who they might be--if they don't present a romantic threat, they are someone I "will talk sh*t about him to," and otherwise, they are... well, a romantic threat.) I can understand wanting to know my friends and build hedges against potentially inappropriate friendships to protect our relationship, but it is to an extent that lifelong friends have been blacklisted due to reasons such as "He doesn't regularly acknowledge me, I don't understand why I am not always included in your conversations," or "She didn't care about what it meant for me when you told her what happened last year," or etc. (The friend in question did, in fact, very much care what happened to him last year when I effed up.) I cut off contact with one of my closest friends in spite of this friend being married to a wonderful lady that I am also friends with to try to respect my husband's needs and boundaries. I have been writing a fan fiction with a friend out of state, and so have brainstormed via text with her to get this story written. I have been careful not to allow it to interfere with my time with my husband, and my screentime on my phone is less than two hours per day--and this includes texting, checking/reading/replying to emails, checking my fanfiction site and responding to messages and reading fics and replying to them, shopping, listening to music, and etc. However, I have been accused of being "buried in my phone," so I have stepped away from the phone entirely except to make sure everyone is healthy and well in my family and among my friends once--at most twice--a day.
I have brought up some goals regarding work to him. Bear in mind he effectively asked me to quit my previous job because the strain on him with childcare was too much. In the end, it wasn't a huge arm-pull because I didn't feel comfortable at the salon in question, but I had at least wanted to see how I managed on the floor before I made my decision. So following this choice, I just mentioned it might be a neat goal to work hard toward honing my techniques and maybe try going out for a beauty company's Fashion Week team and have the opportunity to go to one (or several) of the Fashion Weeks around the world and be a part of the events. I've always loved cosmetology and fashion and being a part of Fashion Week would be an incredible thing for me and what I felt an interesting goal to aspire to. A mentor at this previous salon had been a part of a major company's Fashion Week team for the better part of a decade and therefore it seemed like a lofty but still wholly plausible goal. My husband immediately said, in a sickened and disturbed murmur, "That thought makes me SO uncomfortable," and when I asked him why, he said he didn't know. When I asked if he'd be okay with me doing hair out of our home, he said that was fine with him. However, each second I mention any work out of the house, he is very shut down to the idea. If I had to guess, it is because the two times I met this ex-person (we'll call him Humbert) it was after my cosmetology classes at night, and therefore any cosmetology work outside of the house might trigger him. But to not have goals beyond just finding a hair and nails client for the next week and be indefinitely stuck in the house possibly even when COVID is a little more brought to heel is counterintuitive to my nature (I've always been very driven and aimed high), and I don't know how to approach the subject anymore because it's not changed or gotten better over the past year.
Years ago, when I mentioned working out of the home, he would become surly and explain that he felt I was only seeking work to try to leave him. Conversely, he would accuse me of using him for an income when I wasn't working out of the house. More recently, he has made similar accusations--that I stay to use him, and that if I had a legitimate job, I wouldn't be with him. It feels sometimes that he resents my dependence on him but then becomes embittered by the concept of me attempting to seek some form of independence while not leaving or indicating leaving the relationship.
It feels sometimes like my husband's standards might be more than I, as an individual, can meet. I'm sure there are women out there who could, just... I'm not sure I can. I try, and it's exhausting. He still wishes me to maintain total transparency (I'm just hoping he doesn't find this since it's supposed to be a safe venting ground to people who have no connection to him) as in he gets full access to all of my conversations, emails, messages, etc., wants regular sex (at least a few times a week--I feel about as sexy as Jabba the Hutt on meth these days and I'm still... I don't know, so HURT about his affair in September October--and frankly might still be ongoing, there are signs, but who knows, maybe I'm just paranoid and being stupid about it--and therefore just don't feel much like having sex, needs several forms of one-on-one connection each day from playing board games and doing conversation starters and ensuring all of our activities are ones that can be done together to engaging (at one point daily) in deep, hard communication about our relationship and continuously discussing harsher topics, like how badly I hurt him last year (2019) and how he felt so abandoned in 2015 (which oddly hurts me, he was drunk that whole year and lying about it while I was chronically ill and waiting massive surgery and just kinda trying to survive, lol) and etc. etc., needs me to time my activities according to what schedule works for him regardless of what the activity is, needs almost constant physical touch and contact (like I'll be up and about, cooking, vacuuming, cleaning, whatever, and he'll step in front of me and just hug me for like 3-5 minutes straight... hugs are fine but I REALLY wish he wouldn't time them when I'm in the middle of something. He claims I'm always in the middle of something but I TRY VERY HARD to be affectionate with him to ensure he feels loved but he still does this several times a day), and takes exception to me spending "too much" (from what I can tell, more than 5-10 minutes maybe once or twice a day unless I'm doing work for my job) time on my computer and is very sensitive to my phone usage. I spent a lot of time on my phone while he was drinking so I understand the aversion but I don't use any social media anymore and haven't for some time (it's been five years since I used Facebook or Twitter and one year since I stopped using Instagram.) I recognize his discomfort but I wish I could at least text friends here and there or look at stuff on Amazon or read a fanfic in bed without a probe or an interrogation to follow. (Or just him flat-out looking through my phone and checking its history and my conversations. Can't say as I say anything bad about him or have anything to hide but I'm always afraid there will be something he'll get upset about.) Just today I discovered that he was sifting through my email, some days after I tried to say the window for transparency was closing per our counselor's recommendation and that these probes into my private conversations were no longer appropriate and he needed to start working toward some level of trust or asking for consent before looking at my private things. He said he still needs the transparency, but I never agreed that I still want to give it to him. It's not because I want to unbridled-ly whine about him to all of my friends and family and acquaintances and coworkers and bank tellers and gas station attendants and etc., I just want to have conversations and correspondence without feeling like a cave woman in ice being observed by a scientist.
I want to make this work, but I don't know if I can revolve every waking moment of my life around my husband and his laundry list of needs and desires for this relationship. He has claimed that he does not ask for much, if anything, and when he asks me to list examples of what he requires, it then sounds like I'm out of line and selfish expressing being overwhelmed about his needs. And maybe I am--like maybe it's reasonable that he want the things he does, and I'm just not cut out for marriage because I can't fulfill all of those needs without being overwhelmed.
Meanwhile, I feel so helpless with COVID and like I'll never find or hold a job that will provide for my kids on its own. While I'm not a point that I want to leave or end it, even if I did, I don't feel I could because with the pandemic it's not like cosmetology is a secure field. I don't want to place my kids in a position of wanting or struggle just because my stupid ass with its useless talents couldn't hack it as Hubs' wife. It just makes me feel so trapped, like there's no choice anywhere. Again, I'm not at a point I want to leave him, I still want to make this work--but I wish I had choices.
As such, I can't seem to get up at a reasonable time, fall asleep at a reasonable time, find the energy to train or run, eat properly on a consistent basis, focus on the things I enjoy doing (time window limits and forced schedules aside), etc. I used to shower and bathe every day, and I'm down to every other day now because I just don't have the energy and I don't see the point since I rarely go anywhere other than the boxing gym and now I'm quarantining for two weeks.
I'm doing my best to keep my chin up for my kids but I'm really struggling. I know they say to do x y z and etc. to cope with depression, but what if you can't even muster up to do x y or z in the first place? What then? What do you do?
SIGH. I just don't know...
Happy Holidays, y'all, thanks for the vent sesh. Have a good night <3 Focker... OUT
