Desperately in need of help to understand my wife (and myself)!

[greengriff]

I’m really in need of some advice. My relationship with my wife is currently at its lowest ebb. There are many reasons, but I wanted to focus on just one of them, an incident that took place on holiday last year. I want to talk about this incident firstly because my wife described this it as the ‘breaking point’ in our marriage and that it caused her to hate me a little bit, and secondly because I don’t understand why she blames me for it and I would really, really like to.

First a bit of what I believe is relevant background information: My wife grew up with a very domineering father. She chafed under his rules and couldn’t wait to get out of his house and rule her own life. Consequently, anything she even perceives as an attempt by me to tell her what to do is like a red rag to a bull and is guaranteed to lead to an instant confrontation. She views these kind of moments through the dynamic of sex (i.e. ‘you think because you’re the man that you should be in charge..’ etc.) whereas I view them as simply a clash of two quite dominant personalities. She very much emphasizes her independence as a grown woman from the need for a man and considers it patronising and reacts negatively if I ever have an opinion (apart from praise) regarding how she’s doing something. She is an extremely intelligent, strong-willed and capable person who, if she decides she’s going to do something, will work ceaselessly until she does. She’s definitely not one of life’s victims.

Anyway, to the point: We were on a skiing holiday last year. The slope at the time was very icy but pitch-wise it was nothing extreme. To give some perspective she’d skied steeper slopes many dozens (maybe even hundreds) of times before and there were at least a hundred other people on it of all levels. But it was indeed icy and unpleasant to ski and she was not definitely having fun, so - seeing that she was struggling - I offered to help. She shouted some abuse at me and skied off. Feeling thoroughly pssed off that an attempted act of kindness elicited such an unexpected response, I skied off in a different direction to do my own thing. When we met back at the hotel in the afternoon she told me that I’d abandoned her, leaving her scared and alone, ignored her calls, left her with no money and no idea how to get back to the hotel and that the whole thing was my fault. This obviously irritated the living sht out of me as I believed that I’d done nothing wrong and was in fact the wronged party.

This argument never really went away and we got stuck into it again last night, where some extra details were added that only increased my frustration and lack of understanding of her, and maybe even myself:

She said she needs a husband who’s there for her regardless of what she says. But for me it’s not what she says, it’s what she does. If she insults me and storms off am I supposed to go and plead with her to come back?

She then said that I would not have left a child in the same situation, to which I agreed, but said that she is a capable and responsible adult and therefore it’s different. She then said she wants the same kind of love and caring that I’d give a child and that she needs me to ‘be the man’ and ‘be her hero’ and be committed to her safety even when she’s acting like a twat.

And finally she said that she wants someone who would move a mountain for her even when she’d directly told them not to!

Thinking about this just makes my head ache! For 99.9% of the time in our relationship if I’d gone directly against her wishes or treated her like I would a child it would have led to an explosion that made Hiroshima look tame! Yet I’m supposed to do this – to ‘be the man’ and make her act against her own will – at certain times when she’s most angry and attacking? And not doing so is my fault and makes her hate me!?

What does this actually mean? That her ‘independent woman’ persona is not real? That it is real, right up until the moment that it isn’t, and I’m supposed to know when those moments are and switch role to the helpful patriarch? Something else?

If someone can shed some light on this please do as I’m really struggling. If I can’t solve this puzzle our relationship is likely to fail, and that’s the last thing I want.

Maybe it’s not her and there’s actually something wrong with me! If you think so, please tell me straight!

Not necessarily, there are multiple places where you can choose to go down a piste to the left or the right, or go back up a chairlift. It's normal etiquette to agree in advance or wait at junctions and make a joint decision. I imagine OP's wife went past one junction and could not be seen. I imagine she was expecting you to call to find out where she had gone, rather than just head back to the hotel (though not surprised you did that).

By the way, all those saying she must have been terrified- blue pistes are the most basic ones, an experienced skier might fall over a few times if they hit some unexpected ice but they would never be in any real danger of getting stuck and they'd have to be pretty unlucky to injure themselves unless skiing recklessly. You can't be terrified on a blue if you are an experienced skier.

To get into the long grass with this, I think the person that sets off from an altercation shouldn't expect the other to follow.

If you're going to do a flounce after a row you need to make sure you've got your key and your cash and whatnot before you do it!

However, this particular incident wouldn't be causing an end times scenario in a healthy relationship. Who did what on that particular day months ago should be well and truly in the past now, not being used as a stick to beat each other with and defend "rightness" at the cost of the marriage.

The issues run much deeper then the ski slope fiasco.

@NeverApologiseNeverExplain

He says he could have followed her but chose not to?

And you can't really dictate why someone gets scared 'on a blue' it is not the steepness that is the issue when skiing, it is the conditions that make things hard - every day is different to the next on the exact same slopes. In this circumstance it is acknowledged it was icy - i.e. hard to ski.

If you don't value marriage (or if her negatives far outweight her positives for you):
Leave, for this is a tough one (not a bad one).

If you value marriage (or if you know in your heart that her positives far outweight her negatives):
Get individual counselling for her and couples counselling for both (and you may need individual counselling too depending on what the couples counselling uncovers). In the meantime, be her hero in the way she would like you to (as long as it doesn't break the law, doesn't involve being unnecessarily rude to anyone, etc). Reassure her that you love her and tell her if it happens again, you will swear at each other but still ski together (and do it). Dont stick to your guns over an incident and ruin a marriage over it (yet). Hopefully, with the counselling and with having shown her you are invested in her, will protect her, will stand up for her, etc etc... you will need to "be her hero" less and less (and who knows, you may have seen some value in it too). Focus on reassurances, compromises, finding midddle ground, finding compassion for one another, good sex, etc.

We all go into marriage with our strong views and values but marriage is pretty successful in showing us how flawed we all are and how transient everything is. It can test our familial, environmental and socio-economic conditioning to the core and that is not a bad thing.

Oh actually he did say he could have followed her. So you actually saw where she went at a junction and went a different way?

Anyway, whatever. How did she react when you pointed out that she did have money and a means to get back? Surely the very fact that she did get back proves that, you know, she had a way to get back?

She said she needs a husband who’s there for her regardless of what she says. But for me it’s not what she says, it’s what she does. If she insults me and storms off am I supposed to go and plead with her to come back?

She then said that I would not have left a child in the same situation, to which I agreed, but said that she is a capable and responsible adult and therefore it’s different. She then said she wants the same kind of love and caring that I’d give a child and that she needs me to ‘be the man’ and ‘be her hero’ and be committed to her safety even when she’s acting like a twat.

This is manipulative nonsense. She can't have it both ways. I too had a difficult parent and have a diagnosis of BPD and have behaved manipulatively in the past – but I took the initiative to get a lot of therapy and change those ingrained faulty reactions and behaviours. She needs to do the same. If a partner said this to me frankly I'd laugh.

Yes, he could have followed, but he seemingly went off in a sulk

And then never looked at his phone for the rest of the day

And didn't worry that his wife was alone and scared on a ski slope at all (we know she was scared because he has told us that)

Dunno, I can see her POV.

Both people seem to have some apologising to do

It's possible that she found the blue a bit trickier than usual, maybe even a bit scary, what I am saying is that someone of the ability described is highly highly unlikely to have been "terrified" on the blue run. "Terrified" suggests a level of fear that precludes all reason. I'm just saying that it is not a legitimate explanation.

I don't quite get the skiing logistics either. If she is skiing slowly and carefully down an icy blue, or is maybe even stuck because she is paralysed with fear, then how can she suddenly zip off and leave you behind? I do actually think you should have followed her or waited for her then caught up at the next lift or whatever for a calmer discussion. Leaving her altogether by taking another route without telling her feels like the nuclear option.

I know a couple where the man would ask the woman what was wrong, and she'd say "nothing", even though something obviously WAS wrong. It drove him crazy. The woman was playing games where she wanted him to beg her to tell him, be contrite, be comforting etc to "prove" he loved her.

He told her that if he asked what was wrong in future, he was going to believe her first answer. So she could either tell him straight, or if she pretended nothing was wrong he'd assume nothing was wrong and leave her to it.

She stopped doing it very quickly. They have great communication now.

Fwiw I don't think you were wrong to believe her when she told you to piss off. You aren't psychic.

She is an abusive and controlling bully.

Also wanted to add, you talk about 'independant woman', 'patriachy', etc. I have to point out that you are making certain associations/definitions but she (and many women) will not see it that way. Most independant women I know do still want to be cared for by their husbands and do still have emotional expectations of their partners (and vice-versa). This doesn't mean these women aren't independant, or that they switch it on/off. I'm sure you also expect her to demonstrate her love for you in certain ways (that you've come to see as normal/reasonable); does that make you dependant? She sounds pretty independant to me from your own account.

It is surely likely some of her weaknesses stem from her childhood trauma but so will some of her strengths (eg. the strong will). If you want to help her work through her trauma, a good way of doing it is to be supportive, rather than jumping ship! Also ask yourself, if in that incident, if it was your daughter and son-in-law instead, would you have wanted your son-in-law to leave your daughter like that? You may have some advice for your daughter about her actions, but ultimately, you'll have likely wanted your son-in-law to be the bigger person there and stick around. Marriage requires people to take turns being the bigger person when the other is impared for whatever reasons. Take it offline; deal with it later in a caring way.

My DH and I used to have lots of fights; we found the "if this was our son or daughter" question very helpful to work through most bitter arguments. This incident isnt about the facts of whether she had money, blue vs. black slope, etc. This is about emotions; dont make the mistake of having an arugment over facts when this is a matter of emotions, values, insecurities, etc.

Thank you. That's a fascnating take.

There's some very interesting posts here and I've had some similar experience.
Generally what I've learned is when childhood trauma is triggered you can forget about reason, it's not there even in a normally well reasoned adult.
The brain automatically goes into protective behavior learned by the traumatised child.

Of course it's not the fault of anyone caught in it's way.

It can only really be addressed by long term therapy but she is very unlikely to be able to hear this from you.

My wife was very similar, early in our relationship on the way to my first visit to her parents she exploded at be for no reason I could see. I tried to defend myself. She stopped the car and repeatedly screamed at me to get out. I was genuinely frightened, I had no idea what was happening.
She drove off and I waited for around 20 mins in the rain, it was before mobile phones, no coat no money, before giving up and hitch hiked home. It took me all day.
That was the wrong thing to do as well
She was waiting for me and had returned to pick me up at some point (didn't know how long) and had a row with her parents because she was late, lunch was ruined etc and stormed out...

All my fault.

At the time I had no idea of her past history (also very domineering father) but she was far more self aware than me, had already had some therapy and after a fews days we were able to begin to talk and talk and talk.

She returned to therapy and we later went to couples counselling. I learned to recognise likely triggers (though they can be sneaky buggers) and learned tools to try and minimalise situations spiralling.
We used a keyword to help recognise a traumatic response and disengage with some limited success.

Non of it was easy and I had my own inner child response to deal with but we worked at it together.

None of it would have been possible without her own awareness but we had 2 beautiful children together and even after separating co-parented well and I still consider her my closest friend.

Since youve asked for criticism I'd say you shouldn't have gone off on your own nor chased after her but given her space while staying where she could easily find you as you would for a young teen that stropped off. Though you acted perfectly reasonably her traumatised child was left abandoned which is likely a related but seperate trigger.

It's not going to be easy and only you know whether it's worth the effort but I wish you the best of luck.

Sorry that's so long

If my husband told me to piss off I’d do just that. I wouldn’t chase him down a ski slope to confirm the instruction! It sounds like she is used to speaking to you disrespectfully and expects you to be her emotional punchbag. She needs to understand that her past is giving rise to some very unreasonable and unpleasant behaviors which are hard to live with. She probably won’t even hear you out if you try to have this conversation one on one, so I agree with PP that you should insist on couples counseling where you can discuss this in a safe and moderated space and where if she loses it, the counselor will pull her back into line. Good luck!

Maybe that's where I'm going wrong? It's the facts that I thought (and still do!) were most important.

That's very interesting, thank you.

No, the piste was wide, crowded, split in multiple places and was criss-crossed by other pistes. It's perfectly easy to lose sight of someone if you're not trying.

Blimey. That does not sound like an easy person to be with!

Those are her words. I'm just reusing them.

There are lots of people her talking at length about the potential trauma / personality disorder your wife may have and how it manifests. I don't necessarily diagree with any of them; they are all probably right. I do have concerns though in the actions they recommend for you. I would personally ask you to not follow strong/firm actions with your wife yet; leave that to the professionals to recommend (there will be a lot more than just the incident and her history to explore). Let couples/individual counselling guide log-term approach. In the short-term, I would personally recommend a soft/caring approach with her; if she is a good person you want to make thing work out with, then what is the harm in being reassuring and loving whilst you get professional help alongside?

I can't recall exactly sorry. As you say, she obviously did get back, and before I did as she'd been and had a sauna.

I loved her dearly (still do) and there were many beautiful times together

I've never been skiing so this can't be about me but I have done exactly this. Like others, I would suggest counselling. Probably joint so you can unpick this particular incident but that may lead on to her working on herself.

For me, issues in my childhood make me afraid to depend on anyone. I am independent to a fault. I don't really want to be, I would love to feel looked after but I can't allow myself to in case I am let down. I have 'tested' my husband many times over the years, in the scenario that you describe I would be upset because to me I was showing vulnerability. When you didn't come after me, you were 'proving' that I was wrong to let my guard down and need you. Obviously that doesn't sound all that rational but that's how it would play out in my head.

The underlying issues are clearly with her but your personality and reactions are important too so it would be best to explore through couples counselling. For me and my husband, his attitude of avoiding problems and shutting down doesn't help. As we have got older, things have settled down a lot but I do think you need to address it sooner rather than later so you can unpick some of these toxic patterns

Bingo... @Theresahippopotamusonourroofeatingcake !

Even if one person has childhood trauma, usually the other person's inner child and their responses also exacerbates the issue. My DH and I started with couples counselling and ended up each needing individual counselling too (it was a total eye opener).