To feel like my life is a prison?

[namechangeforadvicepls]

I feel like my life is a prison.

I can't figure out which of my decisions are my own and which are me picking out of a few options my husband gave me. Don't get me wrong he is a good man and he is just trying to do what he thinks is best for us. He never tells me what to do but I do what I know he will want?

But my life has become smaller and smaller over the years we have been together. I was bubbly and funny and had a good circle of friends when we met. He wanted to go travelling so I didn't go to Uni to do so and don't get me wrong I did love travelling.

We got back and he set up a business and I went to work. Over the years, he asked me for more and more help in his business that I felt I couldn't say no to. I now work for him full time, from home.

I don't have any friends left, he has fallen out with all his family. I still see my Mum a couple of times a month (in normal times), but I don't see much of my sisters as he doesn't like their partners. He won’t go to things like if my mum had a barbeque or Sunday lunch at hers and my sisters are going, they do things like that often but we don’t go. I've noticed he seems to have stepped up how much he doesn't like them recently.

I've gained so much weight because I feel like all I can do is eat, that's the only fun thing I have left in my life. My weight has stopped us from having children. We're 36 and have been together 20 years. I feel like I didn't see being controlled coming, I was just a child and desperate to get away from my Mum who was also really controlling (she has got a lot better with time). It's only really the past few years since I have learned more about feminism that I have realised I never really felt I had any options, I always thought the most important thing was to have a husband and I have just sleep walked through my life.

Our life looks so perfect from the outside but inside I am miserable. I overheard him on the phone the other day telling my Mum how I had chosen our car. I don't like our car, it's so low and I struggle to get out of it but it was the best of the (bad) options he gave to me and totally opposite to what I would choose if I had free reign. But it's a Mercedes and I feel like I should be grateful about it? I would have picked an ecosport or a juke.

He is a workaholic and works outside of the home but has to do paperwork at home. He does this on an evening and on a weekend. I have to sit with him at the dining room table while he does this, even if that means staying up til midnight, getting up at 5am, or last Sunday he was doing it from about 10am-8pm. I do 100% of the mental load and housework and care of the dogs - he makes me a cup of tea once or twice a week. He often rings me 20 times a day when he is working - sometimes a genuine question about work but mostly to rant or talk while he is between jobs or driving. He likes me to be at home when he is.

Despite all this I do love him. (Although I don’t think I fancy him anymore. I have no sex drive at all.) He had a traumatic childhood and I can understand where his control issues come from and I do have sympathy for him and what he went through. He refuses to have counselling.

But I feel like I am an empty shell. My self confidence and self esteem is so low, I am so scared of life outside of this house, I would have absolutely nothing, no education, no career prospects and no money but I am so unhappy.

Thank you @NewSong

For you OP not even being able to have a lie in ever and waking you up during the night- he us an abusive arsehole, sleep deprivation has been used in some countries as a form of torture. I wish you both and anyone else in the situation the strength and support for a new life away from them. flowers

The sleep deprivation is awful sometimes, he wakes me up between 5:30-6:30 most days. I call 7am a lie in, and I can probably count the amount of times I've slept past 8am in the past twenty years on two hands with fingers spare. He has really rigid rules about bedtimes too.

if you loved me you wouldn’t Go/leave Me on my own

Bloody hell, this is a grown up we are talking about, not a 5 year old?????!!

OP what else is he rigid about? Is it other things aside from you, or is the rigidity all around you?

He’s an absolute piece of work. I used to work with two horrible men, both married, a bit older than me and we shared an office. I used to listen to their conversations, swapping tips about how best to keep their wives in check. It was astounding how calculated it was. They both knew fine well when their wives were upset and would coach each other on how to give less, so that the wives would simply come to expect less and be pleased with whatever crumbs they threw.

One of them (Tony) deliberately engineered a plan where he sabotaged his wife attending a school reunion. I don’t know why he didn’t want her to go, that didn’t seem to matter to anyone. He knew she was trying to butter him up by cooking a really special meal for them the weekend before, and he deliberately ruined it. He did something to the food so that it was awful, and then shouted at her till she cried. And sulked until she appeared to independently decide to miss the reunion. They both laughed about it in the office, how funny it was that he “had to go out and get a burger” cos he’d ruined the dinner. He didnt get her anything.

That’s how cold and calculating I suspect your husband is. He’s done a cracking job on you, the evil bastard.

@namechangeforadvicepls I was 36 when I left and it was very messy and I didn’t do it in a good way at all, which I do feel bad about, but there wouldn’t have been a good way to do it. He took it badly and I still feel a lot of guilt which is why I probably put up with more manipulative behaviour (from afar) than I should. I didn’t always act well in the marriage and certainly bear my share of the blame for why it failed but I can now look back at some of my behaviour and see how it was a result of being suppressed and controlled for so long. He predicted dire things for me when we split and I am sure he badmouthed me a lot to his friends and family. But so what!

Now I live in a nice house with DC and my nice DP, I don’t have so much money but I never feel my heart sink when the door opens, I don’t have a constant fantasy life in my head (again I thought this was normal but I don’t need to daydream now!) and I have an actual partner who treats me like a human being with thoughts and needs of my own.

@Tankflybosswalkjam there are a lot of things. Like I mentioned, bedtime has to go a certain way. No one is allowed to say someone else works hard, he hated all the NHS stuff last year. If anyone mentions Range Rovers, he goes off on a rant, no one is allowed to like them. He went no contact with his family because they didn't do what he told them they should do in a situation that didn't have very much to do with him.

@Tankflybosswalkjam why'd you ask, what are you thinking?

Sounds like heaven @pinkflask you lucky duck

ps im now 28 hours in on the silent treatment from yesterday.

28 hours and not a single word

Op I was wondering what the fuck is wrong with him. I am surrounded in my life by rigid thinkers, but this is borne of neurodivergence/autism and if they ran my world it would be massively regimented. However, they don’t, and more importantly they are not cruel and cold and unkind. And are mortified if they think they’ve upset anyone, as well as being baffled. I’m just trying to work out what’s happening here.

What will he do if you treat his 'punishments' like toddler tantrums and just go on with your life?

When the signs were there in the smallest of ways that the psychological abuse was no longer controlling me, mine turned to violent rage. It is literally impossible to stand up to these people. I don't post LTB on threads because I like to see people suffer or because I don't care about them or can't be bothered giving advice. I post LTB because so often by the time things are sufficiently bad that someone has resorted to posting on an internet forum, it is the only solution.

@namechangeforadvicepls the strong options sounds very familiar. Any woman who had a few boyfriends one after the other, or who dared to have casual sex, was a slag. The fact I’d slept with literally two guys before him was a big deal he really struggled with (I’ve never felt ashamed or embarrassed by this at all). When I left he ranted about how I was splitting up the family just to have sex with other men - I wasn’t, but even if I was, so what? People do that!

I found it hard at first to choose furniture or decor for my house because I didn’t know what I liked. I knew what we liked (he claimed to let me make all the choices of what we had in the house, and I sort of did, but I also knew it needed to be “right”).

@Tankflybosswalkjam

Op I was wondering what the fuck is wrong with him. I am surrounded in my life by rigid thinkers, but this is borne of neurodivergence/autism and if they ran my world it would be massively regimented. However, they don’t, and more importantly they are not cruel and cold and unkind. And are mortified if they think they’ve upset anyone, as well as being baffled. I’m just trying to work out what’s happening here.

As you've discovered, ill doesn't necessarily equal nasty. It works the other way round too. Nasty doesn't always equal ill. There's often nothing to figure out. They're just nasty, like having their own way and have worked out how to achieve that.

@Tankflybosswalkjam Some people (abusers) are just like it, some call in narcissistic traits.

A friend's father would only allow mediaeval music in the house, the upstairs was unheated etc. One poster here was banned from having things in a certain colour, from brushing her teeth etc.

It's how abusers get their kicks, or the amount of power they think they deserve.

@namechangeforadvicepls I won't go off topic but there is a certain celebrity some say is a narc. Apparently they disown people if their life choices aren't exactly what they think they should be. Sounds exactly like you describe.

Ah right I get you. He sometimes says he thinks he is autistic but I don't think he is. I do think it's his childhood that caused his issues, I think he's a controlling person in general, hearing him on the phone to the people who work for him while he's been wfh this week, he's sounded awful to them.

He also has some weird rules about food. He doesn't like fizzy pop but will tolerate lemonade but strictly no Coca Cola. I can't have a Twirl but I can bake a cake. I know where some of the rules come from but not the others. I keep trying to understand him and make sense of it all but I'm realising I probably never will.

@yogibear0 that is awful, what a prick he is. Have you tried talking to him, are you making his dinner etc? He knows exactly what he is doing. I never usually write down swear words but could think of many for all these controlling ba**ds. The men in the office giving advice on how to mistreat their wives, honestly, I hope the women got their own back one day.

@yogibear0

28 hours and not a single word

All designed to get you fretting, successfully it seems . Push him out of your head and use the mental space to think about your escape plan. But expect "something" to happen when he senses your mental energy is not focused on him any more, another argument perhaps.

The thing you need to remember is that whether his behaviour is caused by something underlying (ie not his “fault”) or not, the outcome is the same. If it feels like abuse then it’s abuse. And I’d guess that these rules are not so much about what he can tolerate, as is often the case in neurodivergent control issues, these are about keeping YOU in check.

This situation sounds absolutely heartbreaking, I really hope that you find the strength to leave and start living the life you deserve, I am imagining you having a massive lie in and a trip to the cinema with a big grin on your face, I hope it isn't too long.
You can do this .

I do think it's his childhood that caused his issues,

This is a reason, not an excuse. A decent person with issues tries hard not to be a shit, apologizes when they have been and gets help if they can't stop themselves from doing it. A nasty person says this is me, it works for me being this way, why should I change, you'll have to accept it.

@Tankflybosswalkjam, it doesn't matter what you call it or what it is, it's abusive.

Of course there can be comorbidities and there are some abusers who have ASD, just as there are some who are ginger or whatever.

But I have autistic traits, I don't think we would deliberately wake people up etc (not as grown ups, anyway.)

Some autistic people like their surroundings ordered, or mightn't like certain sounds etc.

But they don't tend to be obsessed with regimenting other people's behaviour constantly and keeping other people as their unpaid gimps.

Whereas an abuser is obsessed with having people run round after them all the time, or controlling how others act.

OP please confide in your sister, don't wait until later so as not to be a burden. It really sounds to me like she has the measure of your H and that's why he's decided he doesn't like her. But either way I'm certain she'll be a support to you now if you tell her the truth about how you're living and that you want out. She'll help you get out. There's nothing I wouldn't do for my sister if she confided in me that she was in your situation. Having real life support is invaluable

I keep trying to understand him and make sense of it all but I'm realising I probably never will.

Is that so you can get it right/do the right thing? And then he'll love you/not be irritated by you getting it wrong/be a nicer person to you? Because it doesn't work like that. If by some miraculous feat you could figure out every complexity and get everything perfect (for him, you'd be tied up in knots!), guess what? It still wouldn't be ok. He'd just change the rules and not tell you, then you'd be wrong again and he could punish you/belittle you. Being allowed to get things right would give you confidence and heaven forbid you should have any of that!

@me4real I agree. In fact, I think that’s what I said...