My Wife Wants to Work on Things - Any Advice?

[Sherman333]

One thing that sped up me marrying this woman (I was dating 4 of them at the same time) was that she got pregnant early when we were dating. So I married her. I can't say that it wouldn't have happened anyway, but that was definitely the catalyst. She wasn't supposed to be able to get pregnant and the OBGYN thought she was going to get sued. I have a wonderful son that is full of life and makes everything around him fun. He's my priority.

Do you think that running away is the best strategy?

Can you explain you question a little more?
There's a lot of ways to interpret it.

• I had my first session with the therapist yesterday and I brought up variations of your questions.
• Another one was for as bad as it's been, why didn't I want to leave? The reasons to go on her list were long and the reasons to stay were VERY short.
• I know I'm the common thread in all things in my life. In many aspects I married my mother and played my dads role.

After doing some reading, someone with bipolar disorder can hold together for 3 to 4 years and then it comes out. That's around when everything went south.

She's also a former stripper. With a strippers mindset. She very vindictive and controlling. It was more subtle at first but with my withdrawal of me by DBing, it really unsettled her.

From Sandi.... In fact, b/c she feels loss of control, she will play a lot of games to get it back. She wants the security that was provided to her, but she doesn't want to give up the A to have it. That's her selfishness leading.

Last night in texts, she told me flat out that I'm to be in the house taking care of her for the next 6 months while she sets herself up financially and starts dating last night. That if I file then I'm doing it too soon for her and she'll bury me and take Sloan. There's a ton of other stuff there that is all about her controlling the situation. She's trying to use fear about my son and our "stuff" to keep me under her thumb. I could care less about the stuff. It could all go tomorrow as long as I have my son safe.

She was getting so angry last night that she was promising to do something big and I didn't feel safe leaving my son in the house. That's why I turned around. She didn't have me to attack, so she was using him as a proxy.

In recent history, she's gotten so angry that she's destroyed property. My son and I cleaned it up (hindsight I should have left it). A huge piece of me knew then where this was going to end up and instead of addressing it head on, I tried appeasement by DB - addressing her complaints in the marriage (which was and is a worthwhile goal) and this is where I'm at. Another statement she made is that as I got stronger, I trampled on her; which is spew I know, but the part I take out of it is that the changes were making her uncomfortable and insecure which she can't abide.

Every other aspect of my life I'm quite successful. In this area, I'm not even sure how to describe it yet. Most of the words that come to mind are negative. The biggest one is sad.