I agree she is using Darvo/Gaslighting when she is out on the spot. And I agree that this is harmful to you and eroding chance for trust to be rebuilt. I have been direct with her on that.
I think she has basically kept her finger in the dike for so long trying to control it that the dam has burst and she has done no preparation work. She is curling into a ball and yelling please make it stop. But she is also the only one who can get up and create the solutions that will actually make the course corrections needed. I have been in that state. There are coping skills and emotional regulation that need to be learned and applied for her to even get up.
That doesn’t mean that I don’t think you will bleed out while waiting for it, nor am I suggesting an outcome.
I think what we are looking at is a deeply codependent relationship. Your best bet is to recognize your part in that and start working on some boundaries. Boundaries is probably the most misunderstood word on this site. Generally, it means knowing where you end and the other person begins. What your responsibilities are versus what things are her responsibilities. I think that’s best done with your therapist.
I think your feet are firmly planted in staying as things stand right now, but doing that without your own preparations you will continue to be damaged and the more that is allowed the harder the healing is going to be. So you need to work on your side of the codependency. You need to work on your self preservation.
You have been willing to sacrifice your mental health to give her time to work on herself. She has been unwilling to give straight answers because she doesn’t want to get a divorce and she is afraid of saying the wrong answer- even though when she does come out with the answer it’s not even a surprising answer or nefarious in nature when compared with what she has already admitted.
This deeply ignites deep fears in you that I think sends you on investigation as part of a faulty self protection system being used as crutches without the administration of the kinds of boundaries I am talking about. And this isn’t helping either of you. I am not saying that you don’t have great points or questions or even a good picture of what you need. I am saying she has made it impossible to believe her so even if she tells the truth your fears about believing her will cause you to dismiss it. The fact there is so much hiding and deflection combined with the length of time , I don’t know how anyone could react differently.
I think a discussion about responsibilities to yourself and how to navigate those may be a great one to explore asap in IC.
I think your wife right now is her own worst enemy. I know that because I have been mine.And what I know about change is it’s slow as fuck with no guarantees it will happen.And when one panics they do a lot of irrational illogical shit that you can’t try to logic through. Nor will it ever have a good answer. It’s just quick reactionary crap that has little meaning. Your wife is doing a lot of panicking Why? No one here knows. Is there a deep dark secret she is hiding? Not necessarily. But I don’t rule that out, I don’t have a crystal ball and try not to make assumptions as much as I can notice them.
Something from my own experience may be relevant here. I actually confessed everything in one sitting, on my own. I was terrified but I did it. However, as we entered the inevitable questioning period (that typically goes on for a year or more by what I have experienced and observed) my answers were dart throws. I couldn’t tell him what he really needed to know because I had no idea why or how I could do this or that. Yes, he needed the facts of what happened and I spewed those out at every turn. But when you get to the harder things, why did you do that kind of questions, it was a literal dart throw. I couldn’t put logic to any of it. And then when asked the same question in every way possible, there were answers that disputed or contradicted other answers. All I was doing was panicking because I couldn’t really answer. It felt like lying from his standpoint, whereas when I look back on it, it still feels like evolution to me. As my self understanding grew my answers changed, but I couldn’t go back in time and remove previous answers or make the dart throws go away. And this eroded any trust I built every time.
By the time we got to the end of year one, I was just getting to a place that I didn’t panic nearly as much because I worked through some of the big picture answers but for him it felt too late and he was too worn out, didn’t know what to believe saw no path to trusting me again.
Now mind you, I do not see your situation exactly the same. But I can see how over the space if 11 years of trying to keep your finger in the dyke there is a lot more built up justification and fear to conquer that wasn’t balanced with any kind of introspection.
I also never did the gaslighting thing and that part troubles me considerably. I feel like that’s part of the control she knows she is doing and there are endless scenarios of what it means. A group of anonymous strangers on the internet making assumptions based from our own experience is all we are. Are we right a lot? Yes. Are we wrong a lot? Probably almost as often.
All this to say, I think your focus needs to be on how to protect yourself from further damage by figuring out how to have boundaries on certain things. I think your wife needs to focus on working on herself to the extent that she can overcome her fears of abandonment and let down the self preservation.
I don’t know if she will do it or not. You need to prepare for the not because that’s where it is right now. You have to deal with the tangibles.
In essence, a lot of this same thing I have said pages back- Focus us on your own healing (which means find ways to stop the bleeding now, and a key point of that is no longer relying on her to stop it-that’s going to take more time and practice if it is to happen) because she isn’t going to be ready tomorrow. I think she wants to be, but isn’t there and the panic is doing nothing to get her closer to that. You both need a little air, time and space to think about your approach to this situation, and the best place to start is to start sorting where you end and she begins and vice versa.
I can’t claim to know what that is or looks like. I don’t know either of you. I am only telling you what I see that you should talk to your therapist about. I have seen worse situations make it, I have seen better situations not make it. It all depends on the two people in it. Right now one of you is deeply traumatized and the other has a lot of growing into herself to do. These two people are not prepared to fix the relationship but if they both work on healing and growing they may then have the tools to navigate their way through.
I hope yesterdays appointment was fruitful.
