Posted on Dec 29, 2007 1:28 AM
Just a couple days ago, I finally learned and understood that I have been emotionally abusing my wife for years. I have been critical, jealous, aggressive, accusatory to the point where she is physically scared of me. I've never hit her but I've done scary things when I've been angry (screaming, throwing things, slamming doors...).
My situation right now is that I finally came to understand after 33 years of life how badly my parents' bad marriage affected me. I thought I grew up a strong independent guy who could keep everything under control. Hide all the pain, don't let anybody see, be on high alert and not trust anyone and always keep a safe enough distance from pain and vulnerability. I always had to control everything if there was any sign of self-danger. All the childhood hurt taught me to shield myself and I said I was never going to have a marriage like that. Chaos and fighting and being mean and never ending conflict.
Well, here I am today, separating from my wife because I finally pushed her to her breaking point. We both have problems that as individuals we are sorting out but I have just realized how much my problems affected her and her image of me. I have huge trust issues and I controlled her because of my anger at my mother. I took all the qualities of my mother and somehow found a way to get them to stick on my wife and focused all the mistrust and anger on her to make sure I wouldn't be hurt in the end. I blamed her for everything that is wrong in the marriage, I was always critical of her thoughts and intentions because I thought she'd end up cheating or leaving me. Every word to her became a preemptive strike. I hammered into her self-worth and confidence until she felt and still feels like she's nothing. All this was of because all the fear and pain and adult issues I was forced to confront from when I was young up until now. It's the only way I knew a marriage functioned.
Now that I've gotten to a point of understanding this about myself and wanting to change for myself first and then working to earn her trust all over again, is there any chance there's a way for her to forgive me? Can her physical fear of me ever be undone? I would never ever harm her physically and have never threatened to do so, but I'm so disgusted with myself for getting her to the point where she would think it was a matter of when and not if. Is there any chance of her forgiveness at all?
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