Really Stuck on Making Decision whether to Stay or Leave

[StrangeWeather]

Hi Folks,

I could really do with some help, I will try and keep things brief and to the point. I really appreciate all the posts here and wanted to get a view from a female as most of my friends are male.

We are both British Asians living in the UK and both working professionals.

TLDR I've been together with my wife 5 years, she keeps bringing up my past, she is quite aggressive and recently hit me. She changes into a different person when she is angry. I contacted my ex g/f and had a 25 min phone call with her, now her family are saying I had an affair. Despite everything I think I still love her should I try and make it work or leave her?

I got together with my first g/f in 2007 and we had a bad break up in 2014 as her mom wanted me to get married and I said no as I was too young and didn't feel ready. I thought her mom would be like okay cool, we will wait until your ready, but her mom broke us up and got her married within 2 months to someone else...I started suffering with depression / anxiety etc and it took me almost 10 months of counseling to get better.

I decided it was time to move on and in 2015 (maybe it was too early) I started dating this girl who I met online. We decided to get engaged a year later and married in 2017. I was fully aware from the start she had bad anger issues, she would shout and scream and have tantrums but she told me she was working on her anger and knew she had a problem...so I thought okay the girl ticks most of my boxes and she knows she has an issue.

My wife was also aware of some parts of my past I told her some details about it but not all as I felt I didn't need to discuss in my detail my previous relationship.

Since we have been married we have had issues from day 1, my wife doesn't trust me...she constantly asks me what I am doing on my phone / what am I doing on my laptop. During the first month of marriage she saw my phone ring and the name "sarah" appeared my wife snatched my phone off me and said "why are you calling my husband" I was so shocked!! I got my phone back from her and said Sarah I am so sorry about that! (Sarah is a colleague I work with and was calling me to discuss work issues).

Another issue we have is my wife constantly brings up my ex g/f's name, usually goes like this

Your Ex g/f is so beautiful, why are you with me?

Your ex g/f is your true love, you should get back with

Do you still think about your ex g/f?

What did you used to do with your ex g/f?

What did you buy her?

My wife will ask me a million questions and won't quit until I answer them...I've told her a million times I am with you NOT HER so get over it but no she keeps asking and its hurting me.

In our relationship my wife is quite dominating she always asks me loaded questions e.g "Don't you think [insert statement]?" when I say no, I am told "your stubborn like your family" she doesn't let me disagree with her.

My wife says I don't express my feelings and I am cold but when I try and do say something like I say I am upset she says "You need to man up" this is probably based on her Macho brother who controls her.

Throughout this marriage, I have tried and tried to make it work, I've taken her all over the world, I stopped talking to my family so they wouldn't upset her..I've tried agreeing with everything she says but nothing seemed to work...

Since we have been married my wife has had more than 5 occasions where she has taken her wedding rings up, packed her bags and said I am leaving you. I hate you, I want a divorce, I don't love you. I've always begged her to stay but I recently got to the point where I had a break down and said I cannot do this anymore, and she changed her tune..

We have both been attending counseling (We have had two joint sessions so far) and I told her I need my own one on one sessions, my wife got really angry and said why are you talking to a counselor why can't you talk to my own wife? After I told her she needs one on one help and she said "no your the one with the issues".

Things escalated a lot this weekend, my wife kept saying to me non stop "get back with your ex" for the past 7 days so I made a mistake...I called my ex g/f on instagram and we had a 25 min convo she told me the following things:

You treated me so bad when we was together (I said yes I know this now).

I am not interested in you as I don't live in the UK and I'm with someone else.

I said the following to her

I think I still have feelings for you

I am a different person now

I understand where I went wrong in our relationship and I am sorry

I said cool your with someone else, I wish you the best of luck in the future, if you ever wanna get back in touch / be with me you know where I am at. I won't ever contact you again or chase you

Ended the call - a few mins later she sends an instagram request and says send me a photo of you, I said "maybe later"

That evening I was in the bathroom and I come out and my wife has my phone and says "who have you been speaking to?" I go what do you mean? she goes your phone just rang...its your EX!! I could not believe it!! so I told my wife everything..the full convo and what was said...

My wife locked me in the bedroom and said your not going anywhere, at 11:45pm she called all her family and my family and forced me to go to my mum and dads house.

They sat me in the middle of a circle and her family said they have proof I have been having an affair....they didn't let me speak and kept saying "this is what your perfect son is like" no one understood what drove me to make this phone call as I wasn't allowed to talk, every time I tried to speak they spoke over me.

I was then told I have to make a decision by Saturday 29th Oct if I want to make this relationship work or not...my wife said She does (which I don't believe...why say to me for the past 5 years she wants a divorce, and now I have given her a reason?)

At the same time her family took my house keys and my car and said I am not allowed to go back to my own house! Which we jointly own...since Sunday 23rd Oct I have been living back with my mum and dad.

I also later found out my ex g/f didn't ring me on instagram , my wife went through my private password protected notes for counselling, where I wrote down the conversation I had with my ex g/f.

I am unable to speak to my wife as apparently I have been sending her 'aggressive messages' all I did was send her a list of questions:

Why do you think I spoke to my ex?

How do you need to change to fix things? just a list like that ( I know what I need to do to fix things my side, I just want to know her thoughts).

On Sunday 23rd Oct she tried to grab my phone from me whilst I was in bed as she thought I was speaking to lots of girls, she jumped on me and scratched my arm. My parents witnessed the whole thing.

When my wife was asked what happened she said "I didn't do anything, nope I never attacked him".

We had a joint counseling session yesterday and the followings points were raised :

I made a mistake by contacting my ex g/f I said yes I know and I accept it was the wrong thing to do

My wife speaks to me with no respect

My wife kept bringing up the past which encouraged me to do this

My wife doesn't let me speak

My wife dominates me

I don't speak about my feelings to my wife

My wife doesn't trust me

My wife mainly wants to make things work because of religious beliefs

If we are to make things work my wife says she needs full access to my mobile device / laptop / social media (the counselor told her no way!)

By my wife telling her whole family and mine at 1am on Sunday Morning she has now ruined my relationship with them, this problem should of only been discussed between us 2 not everyone else.

What has also upset me is, I am pretty sure my wife's family have contacted my ex g/f on instagram and told her a bunch of lies about me...she has now unfriended me and this morning blocked me on Insta...why has this upset me?

I don't like people taking control over my life...I was still processing how I was feeling about my ex g/f and now I feel hurt that she has been told so many lies and is viewing me in such a bad light!!

Please note I never thought it would be a good idea to leave my wife and jump straight back to my ex!! this would be the dumbest move ever!! I just wanted to remain friends with her on Instagram...

Despite everything the last 5 years with my wife have not been terrible but right now I feel this is how the situation will evolve if I say I don't want to work it out.

I will say I don't want to work it out

She will say I want to work it out (Not sure if this is what she truly wants or her brother has told her, her brother has openly told me many times he can control her)

Her family will say "see your son ended this, your son broke this up".

Despite everything I do love her and we have had some good times in the past 5 years, its just the bad times are so bad!!

sorry forgot to add I am 32 M and she is 32 F

Just leave. She is violent and abusive, you have feelings for someone else, that's not a happy marriage in the slightest.

Thank but how do I get the strength to leave her? I keep thinking about how many happy memories we had :(

Leave.
It's not employment. You don't have to stay til you get a better position.
Being single would be good for you. Do not rush in to another relationship though.
My x was abusive. Ieft 15 years ago and what still amazes me is how it SEEMED like such a difficult decision to leave.
Trauma bonding I guess.
After I worked through the worst I just thought THANK GOODNESS IM FREE

Good luck, do what's right for you.
You life is not a sacrifice to her convenience.

Have faith that you will become a stronger person when there is no albatross around your neck depleting you
X

Thanks for the replies one other thing i forgot to mention was having kids!

We don't have any yet but she has made a list of preconditions I need to accept before she will have kids with me.

1. She doesn't want our kids mixing too much with kids of other faiths

2. I must agree to changing all nappies and doing night time feeds

3. Our kids are not allowed to be left alone with my parents...as she feels my parents are too "dull".

She also openly said to me on numerous occasions "you won't be a good dad, you don't know anything about looking after children".

I guess why I am having a hard time is...could she change through counselling?

If your friend was living your life and told you what you've told us on this thread, what would your advice to him be?
You and your wife would be in counselling for the rest of your lives and nothing would improve. If you had kids, your life would be even worse than it is now. She's abusive. She'll be an abusive mother, too.
Life is short... leave her. It won't be as hard as you think and you'll be so much happier.

Thats a very long post. Could you break it down into bullet points or something. However

Since we have been married my wife has had more than 5 occasions where she has taken her wedding rings up, packed her bags and said I am leaving you. I hate you, I want a divorce, I don't love you. I've always begged her to stay

One) what did you do just before she did this? Each time.
Two) why did you beg her to stay since she's obviously unhappy, what did you do to help make the marriage better afterwards?

I really appreciate all the replies, in regards what did I do to make her leave? it's always the same reoccurring issue, my wife feels I do not support her.

Every month she has issues with my parents, these issues I would describe as 'minor' it could be something as silly as

"your mum is in a mood with me, she hasn't rang me, you need to go and find out whats wrong with her"

I would go to my mums house and ask her and she would say "nothing"

I would go back home my wife would say "Go again and keep asking her until she tells you"

I would say there is no point! Its minor, forget about it...

What I believe my wife wants from me is what her brother does....he shouts and swears at his parents if they upset his wife...I wasn't brought up this way and I told her this is something I cannot do.

I have said to her if my family swear at you / insult you or do something I consider not right I will fully support you, but for these minor issues you need to grow up....

In regards to what I did to make the marriage better, I stopped talking to my parents and I stopped seeing them. I thought removing them from the equation would fix things....this worked for 2/3 weeks when they did something else which upset her...

Get the hell out. Whatever you do, don't have children with this psycho. Don't see the point in counseling in this situation tbh.

This is an awful relationship. There is nothing to salvage here - whatever you do don’t have kids with her. I bet your poor parents will breathe a sigh of relief when you leave her

Im afraid your wife sounds unhinged, as do her family! Tbh you sound very passive as do your parents, why are they allowing this mad family abuse their son? Absolutely leave right away and start divorce proceedings. It doesn't matter who decided to end it - just do it. You have your whole life ahead of you.

yes you are right I am very passive and patient, in my counselling sessions I am learning how to get my voice back and stand up for myself.

My mum and dad have told me for a while to leave her but I keep saying to them maybe I can make it work...and you are 100% right my parents will be relieved when I leave her they are worried about my health (mental and physical)

I have lost over 1 stn in the last 4 weeks because of all this drama.

She sounds awful. Leave file for a no fault divorce, put the house on the market. Nothing you can do will change her. Get some counselling for yourself. Stop listening to your family for relationship advice, I'm aware culturally this may be difficult but you need to go your own way now, oh and delete the former ex from your contacts, sounds like things could get very messy in that front so I'd just avoid all together.

Thank you all for the advice I really appreciate it!

Leave her. Never have counselling with an abuser - and that's what she is.

Leave her, rebuild your relationships with family and friends, and have some counselling for yourself. The Freedom Programme might also help you.

Your mistake was marrying someone you knew had an anger problem.

You deserve much better. Take care.

Im sorry but she sounds absolutely awful, leave and don’t look back,.

If you were one of my male friends, I would say to your face, divorce your wife and don’t feel bad about it.

You deserve better than being with someone who treats you like this. Her family shouldn’t be so involved in your marriage either. Having said that, you should not have phoned your ex and said what you did. I’m sure you know this. When you are pushed so so hard it’s very easy to make mistakes. You can still leave, head held high. Life is too short for regrets but also too long to stay and hope things change when they cannot.
Good luck to you both, sounds like a terrible match all around.

She sounds awful. Please leave before there are children to consider. You deserve a happy life with someone you love and who loves you. A relationship based on mutual trust and respect. It really sounds like she has no respect for you and this means you're losing your self respect. She might be happier with someone else too.

Leave with your head held high. This is your only
life. Nobody should have to live with that much drama. The relationship sounds like it has no
foundations- trust, respect-and can’t be saved. For goodness sake do not have children with this partner.

Move on, work on yourself with counselling (learn about boundaries and the adult/child/victim triangle). Be happy and good luck.

“My mum and dad have told me for a while to leave her but I keep saying to them maybe I can make it work...”

She is abusive and unhinged. You can’t make it work and why would you want to? Please leave ASAP and for goodness sake, don’t have children with her. She’s awful.

This relationship is not salvageable. It needs to end.
Do not have children with your wife. It will create decades of unhappiness for you and your children.

Be single for a good long while. Stick with the counselling you need it.

Also reflect on why your ex said you treated her badly. Was it just because you weren’t ready to marry, or something else?

Hi Folks,

Thanks for all your comments, in regards to why my ex said I treated her badly I guess because I was with her between the ages of 17 - and 24 roughly and she was my first girlfriend, I didn't really know how to treat her "properly".

Saying that I know I was the love of her life and she was mine, I think she said I treated her bad because she would come and see me and then at the last minute I would say "sorry I need to cancel". I don't think she remembered any of the good things or memories we had....overall I don't think I was a terrible boyfriend to her, I was just immature and not a man but I was really young. I've had 7 years to reflect and I know where I went wrong and what I did right...

Oh ok. It just seemed weird to me that you agreed you treated her “so bad”. I couldn’t work out why you agreed with that.

I think you need to get rid of this message that you and the ex were the love of each other’s lives. First love is very intense and powerful, but it doesn’t mean it is the only relationship that ever means anything.

I think you were right to say you weren’t ready for marriage. You weren’t. But you rushed into marriage with your wife. You saw the red flags and hoped they would go away. Now you find they are worse.
You need to let your feelings about your ex go. A relationship with her is not the answer to your problems. You know that really. You can take anything you’ve learned into any future relationships. But be single for a good while before that.

You need to deal with the situation in hand.
Divorce with your side is going to be hard. She (and her family) will not take it well. Make sure she doesn’t get pregnant in the meantime.