Should I stay or should I go

[Greg]

I am new to the forum. Perhaps I am just venting out, but here is my story, I am seeking a 'should I stay or should I go' advice, suggestions, feedback...
- Male, married for 30 plus years with adult kids. First 10 years of the marriage were great and smooth but then started to go downhill.
- Last 10 years of my marriage are a typical scenario of a 'shell marriage', with no emotional or sexual attachment - essentially nothing but kids is what keeps us together.
- We are both professionals, with good income and have means to live independently but not at a level we are accustomed to if we do separate.
- The issues started when we experienced financial difficulties, and for a year or 2 we basically lived off the credit cards after exhausting all savings and draining pension funds. Wife blamed me,  partially correctly, as I was the one who accepted a poor financial advice, and I have always been in charge of financial aspects of our marriage. But we recovered, kept the house and paid our bills and have been doing quite well over the last 3-4 years
- The issue is that my spouse is verbally abusive, goes thru significant mood swings and I strongly suspect she is bipolar. She is a 'control freak' - kids had to convince here to accept that much. But she has exploded when I suggested that she is and she has outright refused to see a therapist, putting all faults on me. I may have my faults but I am a far more calm, perhaps too easy going and accepting.
- Meanwhile, I am emotionally drained. Where previously I would stay quiet and not answer, I now find it hard to control myself and now respond as I am no longer willing or able accept to be referred to as a 'worthless nothing' - exact words from a recent outburst.  I am constantly reminded that she makes more $ than me, she is constantly referring to herself as the 'bread winner' as she makes better $ than I do, although by objective standards I do OK myself.  I am staying in the marriage for kids sake - they have their own issues. But it is getting progressively worse and more frequent.
- it is now to a point of micro-aggression, perhaps even resentment, now showing even while the kids are around.
- couple of other points - she has no friends, she is on bad terms with most of her family members excluding her parents. She is generally very judgmental and some acquaintances confined to me that they don't want to have anything but a casual conversation with her for that reason.
- The second point - verbally abusive behavior seems to run in her family, with her mother constantly berating her dad, for no good reason that I can see or know of, but it doesn't seem to get to the point of him being called worthless.
- But on a plus side, she is an amazing mother who has been great to the kids.
- Oh, one other, probably very important point. This is all very familiar to me, as my parents situation was practically identical to what I am experiencing. However, my parents passed away early, they were about the same age as I am now, so I wouldn't know how it would have played out in their case. 

[bloomie]

Welcome to Out of the FOG and for sharing some of the serious issues that have developed in your marriage. I am so sorry things are so painful.

One thing is for certain, only you can know if you stay or go. No one here can know your lived experience and no one here has to live with the consequences of whatever you decide. One of our premises here is we offer support and insights from our own lives and resources to empower YOU to know what is best and right for you.

From what you share this is a familiar dynamic given your parents' relationship. How important that you realize that could be a factor in you staying as well as not wanting to upset and impact the lives of your adult children.

Do you have a trusted mentor or counselor, therapist who can support you in real life/time to begin to establish and hold boundaries for yourself that reflect your core values?

Part of my beginning work in a relationship with a person who has disordered traits and diagnosed mental health issues has been to determine my core values.. one of them is that I do not allow myself to be abused by others (in any way) and I do not abuse others (in any way) - from there I can leave a room/house/drive separately, etc, when things begin to be verbally disrepectful. That is an example of staying or going which is a bit short of what you were asking about, but could be a very important first step to see if your spouse can begin to see by your choices what works and does not work for you.

Given how easily triggered and disregulated my own spouse can be, and that I wanted to have a compassionate way of establishing this, I asserted at a calm time that when the conversation becomes verbally disrespectful I will leave the room/house, etc., for a period of time, but I will return. And I began to do that every time. 

This is one part of the dynamic, I know there has to be so much more to work through for you and my hope is that you will continue to reach out and build a support network for yourself both here and in real life.

Our Toolbox is a great resource for you and for me any way, helps to work as an important filter as to what might be a healthy, reasonable response to unhealthy, destructive behaviors within my own long marriage. 

Keep coming back as you are able and make good use of the resources and join the conversations taking place on the forum boards!

[bloomie]

I'm back... wanted to add a thought.. for a long time in my own marriage I would experience a great deal of embarrassment and shame when I made a mistake or did something that was labeled a mistake by my own spouse.

So, I missed that there was a abject lack of compassion and lovingkindness that a partner would reasonably show given we all make mistakes - even my spouse.  I was a hyper vigilant mess.

I missed, for a long time, that the standards in my marriage were unreasonable and crushing for me, given my own stuff, and when I gave myself that compassion and understanding I was offering to others - spouse included - I began to say..."I get to be human and make mistakes, disappoint others, misunderstand, misspeak, be tired, not have the answers, misjudge an investment, unintentionally annoy another, have a sick day, be unavailable, waste time..." you get it.

That doesn't mean I don't have to take responsibility to repair to the best of my ability when I have blown it (which it seems you have most certainly done with a financial investment), but I do not have to pay for it, listen to it, be torn down over it for the rest of my life.

If your spouse cannot forgive the mistake when you have done all you can to make it right then her complaints might be best directed to a pastor, her journal, a therapist... rather than weaponized against you for being a human being. Just a few thoughts.

[Rebel13]

Hi Greg, seconding bloomie's welcome to you. There are many wise and experienced members here who can provide support for your specific situation.

I am not a parent and I don't have a PD partner. However, I wanted to say, no parent is "amazing" who abuses their children's other parent.

Verbal abuse, derision, and contempt of a partner is a terrible thing to model, even if those behaviors are not extended to the children. (And you can never know that they weren't. Each of my parents did things that my other parent never knew about.) The children do not have to experience the behaviors; they just have to observe them one time, to think, "Wow, I better never step out of line or mom/dad could treat me that way." Repeated observations can lead to a lifetime of emotional insecurity and anxiety about intimate relationships that they may not even be aware of, until some life crisis makes it impossible to ignore any longer.

I hope one "grown child"'s viewpoint can help you feel confident in assessing that your situation is not working for you, and I hope you find the peace and freedom from abuse that you deserve.