Is my marriage over

LegacyUser

I am married 4 years now and my wife is non-Irish and European. We have a beautiful daughter just about to turn 3 years. I am 34 and she is 26.

Our first big argument was just after our girl was born. I was doing some DIY in the house and had problems with an electrical socket. Our neighbour is a sparks. Normally she does not keep the house very tidy - I spend about 1 to 2 hours doing housework after I get home - and on the rare time someone visits she normally wants advance notice to get the place in shape. It was getting late on the Friday and I was in a panic to get the socket fixed. She told me that if I invited the neighbour in without her getting a chance to clean the place up she would leave me. I thought she was joking.

The next morning her engagement ring and wedding ring were on the kitchen table. She had txted an ex bf and asked him could he drop her to the airport. We were due to go down to the local registery office the next Monday for the birth cert and she was still insisting that she was leaving. What hurt most was that he asked me did I want my name on the childs birth cert.

Eventually we made up and things were calm for a while.

About six months later she went back to her native country to visit her parents with our girl. There is a long running problem in their family with an uncle taking money off her senile grandparent. I mentioned this on the phone to her one night and she went spare and told me she would never be coming back with our baby. I was worried sick and we didn’t speak for a day or two. Three days later and she calls me like nothing has happened.

She kept this up for three days before I apologised and she seemed to calm down.

This is only the first half of the problem.

She is also a very jealous and insecure person. I only realised this after we married although we lived together for nearly two years before marriage.

I am not a blokey bloke and get on better with women. I remained good friends with all my exs. This really upset her and I had to end those friendships, even though it was just the occasional email or phone call…all my exs have been happily married or cohabiting for years and she is aware of their situations. All these contacts had to stop.

She accuses me of wanting to run off with every woman I come into contact with. Even on holiday with her family last year I was sat next to her sister making general conversation at the group dinner table and that night she accused me of wanting to have an affair with her. I put a few photos of our christening on facebook and a female friend wrote a complimentary message on the wall saying how well we looked. My wife wrote and very offensive message back to her on her wall calling her a fat slut and I had to close my facebook account down within minutes in case anyone else saw what she wrote.

It has come to a head recently. After my parents died a number of years ago I grew quite close to my uncle. He is seeing a new partner who is 57. The odd time we have all gotten together I have talked to his partner quite a lot. A few months ago my uncle called me, he went to get something from the kitchen and put me onto his partner. They were quite drunk. His partner mentioned one particular female we ran into a number of years ago at a funeral and I said that my wife thought at the time that I was trying to get into the girl. My uncle’s partner made a joke and said something like “why didn’t you?”. I thought it was funny and later told my wife. Big mistake. She started sending offensive texts to my Uncles Partner accusing her of trying to run off with me and has said that if I visit my uncle and if his partner is there that I’m to leave right away or else our marriage is over.

Despite the jealously and temper my wife can be a very easy going loving type of person. She seems to be a jekyl and hyde type – I can deal with jekyl and not hyde.

We are lucky in that my job pays well enough that we decided that it was a good opportunity for her to be a full time mum. She complained about being stuck in the house without any friends she spends up to two hours a day on the phone to either her mum or her dad in her own country. I said I’d pay for a crèche, childminder, driving-lessons, even car, anything yet she expects me to arrange and sort everything out for her.

My big problem is that as I bond with my daughter more and more I am so scared that my wife will run off in a temper over something and take her with her. There is a self – denfense mechanism kicking in within me that is preventing me bonding further with her because I know this will be the case.

I feel that we have come to the end of the road. I am sorry if I have dragged this message out but I havnt been able to tell this to anyone not even close family so this is like a purging for me. The whole situation makes me feel physically sick on a daily basis.

miec

Hi Op

I am sorry that in essence your wife is controlling you through emotional blackmail, ie: if you misbehave I leave you. I suffered this with my ex fiancee for a couple of years and had no choice but to end it as I felt this constant pressure of will he leave me now or what?

We were trying for a child and I look back and thank God I did not get pregnant, so I can only guess that the addition of a child is so much harder for you. I would suggest that you be friendly with whomever, be authentic and if your wife goes, she goes. See my from experience of bending over backwards and accomodating the other person, it just does not work and you end up losing self respect. I came to the realisation that I live in my own head 24/7 and I have to answer to that first because the mental stress of going against the self is not worth it. If she sees that you are standing up for yourself she will either respect you or find someone else to bully.

Sleepy

Or pre-empt her and take off in the middle of the night with your daughter yourself.

LegacyUser

Sleepy wrote: »

Or pre-empt her and take off in the middle of the night with your daughter yourself.

OP, don't, whatever you do, follow this, for your daughter's wellbeing.

I'm sorry to hear that the situation has developed the way it has - emotional blackmail is probably worse in many ways than other forms of abuse, in that it is psychological.

If I could offer some advice, it would be to see if you can get some counselling for yourself and your wife. This might help resolve the underlying issues. I would also keep a diary (password protected, online, etc) of what is happening. There may be a time (hopefully not) that the family situation may break down, and evidence is needed for courts.

Sleepy

cirualc wrote: »

OP, don't, whatever you do, follow this, for your daughter's wellbeing.

Why? Is his daughter better brought up by such an unstable woman than by himself purely because he's a man?

The courts will discriminate against the OP on the grounds of his gender and there's nothing he can practically do to stop her absconding to her country of origin with their child (theoretically his guardianship allows him have a say in such matters but this is ignored by passport control IRL) by which time he'll have no ability to maintain a relationship with his child as the courts here will have no control of the situation.

Since they're married he already has guardianship. By making the first move he can ensure he has custody and then fight for that sole-custody to be upheld by the courts on the grounds that his wife has previously threatened to kidnap his child and is a flight risk.

I'm no lawyer but I'd like to find it hard to believe a court could go against him in this position, as poor as their previous record is in relation to family law.

I'm not suggesting he never lets his wife have access btw, just that if he wants to stay in his child's life, it seems the only way he can allow this is via supervised access with him having sole custody.

LegacyUser

OP, there are two sides to every story. Yes, it seems things are difficult for you but reading between the lines (I may be wrong), it seems that your wife may simply not be coping very well. It would appear she got married quite young, then had a baby, can't keep on top of the housework, is separated from her family,probably feels quite isolated (on the phone for 2 hours everyday to her mother), perhaps some cultural differences and there's also an age gap between you. When people are not coping very well they can become insecure and contact with your ex girlfriends is probably fuelling that insecurity even further and causing her seemingly irrational reactions. Similarly with the housework. If she truly was a slob, she wouldn't really care so much who dropped in.

Before you go down the route of ending your marriage and custody battles, I wonder is there any more practical and emotional support your wife can avail of here? Just a thought,is all, but don't throw your marriage away until you're sure what the real issues might be.