The straw that broke the camel's back?

[smileygrapefruit]

Has anyone ever ended an otherwise very happy and loving marriage over something quite small because you just can't take it anymore and the same thing keeps happening despite promises that it won't happen again?

I'm sorry but clearly some of you don't understand anxiety. Not just the little anxiety everyone experiences but chronic anxiety. The thoughts rag and rag and roll over in your head constantly over and over and battering you until you have a panic attack. Of course it's not rational. People seem to think that mental health is no excuse for behaviour but actually it really can affect how you behave. I'm sure the op knows she has to get help but the unhelpful comments from mental health experts on here are out of order.

The thoughts are destructive and horrible and frightening. I can almost bet that her husband makes her feel calm and safe so when he is not about then the op feels unsafe and projects it onto her husband and panics. Not saying it's the correct thing to do but I understand it because I have anxiety myself. It can make you act strange and irrational at things most people wouldn't bat an eyelid at. And even if you suffer anxiety as well it doesn't always mean you know how others are affected but I can understand her point as it's a frightening place to be.

Totally stand by this.

And to clarify having anxiety in and of itself does not mean you are abusive. Anxiety limiting your own life and responses is not abusive (though it is miserable and you should at that point seek help to get it under control). Using your anxiety as an excuse to control and coerce your partner into living in a way that you want them to so that it restricts their autonomy and affects their happiness is what is abusive.

There is a real difference between feelings and behaviour.

I completely reject the idea that people with even the most extreme anxiety ‘can’t help’ their behaviour towards others. If you think that’s true then you have no place having a partner or children because someone who can’t manage to control their own behaviour is not a safe person.

And as I said in another post this kind of controlling behaviour has little to do with how severe or enduring the anxiety is, it is determined by having an ‘I’m anxious I can’t help it, you need to stop me being anxious’ attitude.

I also find it fascinating that on any thread where anxiety is claimed to be the cause of the issue - which it absolutely can be, I am not saying it isn't - someone will always say to those who are critical of the OP "you clearly don't understand anxiety" despite the fact that several of those who have been critical have stated that they too suffer or have suffered from anxiety.

You can't use your anxiety to control him - abuse that happens once a year is still abuse. You wouldn't tell someone whose husband hit them every few months that it wasn't abusive because it wasn't every week.

I know how awful anxiety can be but making a grown up promise to text you if he's going to be late home isn't fair. He made that promise, yes, but no doubt to appease you and stop the anger. He's an adult. If he wants to stay out until 3am that's upto him. If his phone dies at 10pm and he decides to go to a club or another bar then that's his choice. He doesn't have to be home at midnight just because you want him to be.

And I have a question - if he text you at midnight and said "I'll be late home - don't wait up" what would your reaction be? Honestly?

Sticky, this time last year I would have reacted badly. Now, so long as he texts to say he's going to be late I say "ok, glad you're having fun xx" but I still can't sleep and I'm anxious but I don't take it out on him.

Do you not feel guilty that you've made him cry over something so minor? He got drunk and was too drunk to be able to sort out letting you know he was going to be later than he originally said. He sounds incredibly distressed. Do you not realise that you are forcing him to always be monitoring his own, and your, mental states, so he is always placating you? He can never 'turn off'? Always treading on eggshells? You are threatening him, you are dangling a knife over him, that your 'distress' anxiety is his responsibility and his fault. You are implying that he is abusing you.

If you feel you've come a long way, I hope you see you still have a long way to go.

If it were the other way round, I would be calling this emotional abuse and suggesting he leave. You need to see this differently.

Also, to PP re Anxiety and 'how bad it is'... If someone was psychotic and fix the want their partner to go out after 10pm because they believed the CIA was going to kill the partner. They were 100% convinced of this and were incredibly distressed by it. Should the partner stay in? Or should the person get treatment because their mental health problems were causing them so much distress that they were causing them to try to restrict their partners freedom? What exactly is the difference?

didn't want their partner...

I do not believe for one minute if he text you at midnight you'd tell him to have fun. That's complete at odds with literally everything you've said and inferred. Listen the bottom line is, are you going to allow your anxiety to ruin your relationship? Are you going to address it?

So if your DH text you, do you then relax and go to sleep reassured? How long before you need him to check in again? You reduced him to tears. How bad a reaction did you have that would bring a man to that state? I also worry about the effect that this will have on your own DCs. If when they are older would they take risks ie getting in cars, taking more dangerous short cuts, telling you lies etc because their priority is your reaction rather than their own safety.

Les, you may not believe that but I have done exactly that a couple of months ago. I forced myself to do it, it was completely at odds of how I felt, but despite what many of you are inferring I am aware that it's my problem and I have had help and worked on my reactions. All I ask for is a text and when he has done that I have managed my reactions so as not to affect him.

But it IS affecting him.

And you are not asking him, you are demanding that he does it on pain of you having a disproportionate and extreme reaction.

If it were a simple request you would be able to accommodate times when, for example, his phone dies without going straight to extremely dramatic thoughts that you have been betrayed and you want to leave him.

Asking him to do it to help you avoid an anxiety spiral is one thing. That means it’s ok for him to say ‘no’ or for him to sometimes forget or for his phone to die without you becoming angry and dramatic.

Demanding is different. It’s based on this thing you mentioned upthread where you see him as having a role to play in managing your anxiety for you and you feel entitled to go nuclear when he doesn’t do it.

It really doesn’t matter that he promised to do it since his promise came on the back of some really extreme controlling behaviour from you and this represented a reduction in that for him.

It does not mean you are entitled to expect that he panders to your irrational feelings.

Do you have any idea how difficult it must be to deal with never being able to just be human?

And as I said before, this idea of him having to text you to reassure you IS NOT helping you deal with your anxiety. You have even said it doesn’t stop the anxiety and you have to force yourself to not react badly even when he is doing everything you expect.

It is simply reinforcing, not only that your anxiety is rational and that this intangible and obsessive nebulous worry you have when he goes out is acceptable, but that he is in part responsible for it.

What you need to be doing is actually taking steps to cope better with your feelings not steps which legitimise irrational and controlling behaviour.

I agree with Offred.

OP, you just defend yourself to those who don't tell you what you want to hear, or say thank you with further self justification to anyone who agrees with you. I don't think you have comprehended that your behaviour is abusive.

I feel very sorry for your DH, and if you don't sort out YOUR issues, he will be the one leaving.

I simply cannot understand women who feel the need to push their OH's into reporting back/returning home at certain times. AND vice versa. I would never accept it or expect it. it IS controlling, and you are using your anxiety to do this.

Dh also can't sleep when I'm not back yet and he also likes me to text to let me know when I'm on my way.

Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. I find it a pain. I wouldn't dream of asking him to do the same - but then I'm usually fast asleep.

It's definitely not something most people would consider leaving an otherwise happy marriage and family over.

Asking him to text is absolutely fine, but your reaction when he doesn't is what's unreasonable here.

People's phones die, they don't have signal, they forget, or, shock horror, they're having fun and don't want or need to be accountable to their partner.

He's an adult who is going out a few times a year with his friends. Don't expect him to adhere to a curfew or to text you when he's going to be late. Just let him go out and enjoy himself and accept that you won't see him until tomorrow.

And please don't tell him you can't sleep without him next to you. That's saying "you must come home when I say otherwise I'll be really tired and it'll be all your fault".

If you can't sleep, watch a film or curl up with a book. It's not your husbands responsibility to make sure you get enough sleep!

Some practical advice from one lifelong anxiety sufferer to another;

• try to track your anxiety so you can work out the triggers and the patterns. You can do this by simply writing a journal record or you can use the amazing SAM phone app which also has toolkit stuff in it. This will then help you to develop insight into the issue and then you will be able to better distinguish between reasonable worries and unreasonable anxieties (sometimes anxiety obscured problems that are genuine) and help you to plan for and predict times where you are probably going to be anxious.

• try out different techniques for self soothing, mindfulness, meditation, breathing, Pilates, whatever, try things to find things that work (SAM has quite a few resources of this kind too).

• if sleeping is part of the problem then discuss this with your GP. There are a range of options available; mirtazapine helps with sleep as well as being an AD, sleeping pills and herbal sleep remedies or there are a range of self soothing non-pharmacological methods that can help.

Basically at the moment you are making it so that your DH cannot support you and you are not able to communicate reasonably about anything because you are fixated on him accounting for his whereabouts and he is probably trying to evade this control.

It means if he gets so drunk that he pisses the bed etc or he doesn’t get up with the DC on his day then it is hard for you to express that this is unreasonable because you have set the boundary so extremely (he is not able to have freedom to go out at all without monitoring and accountability) that he is going to struggle to see what is/isn’t going to be acceptable or fair.

OP, I am glad that you can read back and see how far you have come since last year. So in another years time you will read back on this and again understand how irrational you still seem to be now. You have started your journey, congrats on getting this far.

However, in your replies you have twisted things. Implying you would leave him, but then denying it and then having a go at those who have suggested he do the same. This is irrational. What would be the case if he went away for a weekend with his friends, or away for work, where you didn't know his every move?

Also, this isn't the first time he has been home late. So, yes he was probably have fun and time ran away with him. He came home late last time, if its happened 4-6 times last year, then you know in your mind that when he goes out, he is going to get back later than his suggested time, in the case the word curfew is on the tip of my tongue.

I think you are making a mountain out of a molehill I am afraid. And dare I say it, you seem to be suffocating your dh. He is a grown adult, and I am sure is quite capable of making it home when it suits him.

Do you ever go out with your friends? If not, I think you should. Its good to get out and have a change of scene every now and then. And then perhaps you will see how easy it is to not keep track of time all the time.

When I read the OP I wondered how you would leave him and live alone if your anxiety was so bad. I still wonder this. What good would divorce do you?

isthismylifenow "OP, I am glad that you can read back and see how far you have come since last year. So in another years time you will read back on this and again understand how irrational you still seem to be now."

Could not agree more. I don't think OP really wants to consider her CURRENT irrationality. She didn't a year ago, and she doesn't now.

ICESTAR "I'm sorry but clearly some of you don't understand anxiety."

This really sounds entitled. And yes, I have suffered debilitating and paralysing anxiety for years. I can recognise the sentiment - when one is in the depths of it, there seems like no way out, no one who truly understands and one feels totally alone. BUT, when you can step back and see your own actions and behaviors with or without the help of others, it's possible to see how those behaviors impact others and how unfair this is on others

So this time last year you were more controlling but you’ve worked on that. So you can do the next stage where you try and sleep. Try and pin point what you are anxious about and the thoughts going round your head. Then use your cbt kit to think it through. There are loads of stuff on a website called getselfhelp. You have made progress and it takes time to change how you think.

TBH I am slightly sickened that OP is congratulating herself for her improved behaviour when her DH is walking on eggshells to the extent he cries when he breaks one of her rules.

It sounds like he is more controlled than he was she first posted.

I think we are wasting our breath posting here. The OP has no self awareness whatsoever and takes only what she wants to hear from the advice she is being given.