It's complicated - and right now its failing
I love my wife, and I am pretty sure she loves me too. I should say that this is a long distance relationship at the moment, I'm in Europe and she is with the kids at home. For various reasons to complex to explain or really relevant, we aren't exactly sure when the geographical separation is going to end. Obviously, this is an added stressor.
The issue that has come to define our relationship, however, is fighting. I am not talking about the physical kind, but verbal exchanges that have slowly taken over our relationship to the point where it feels like we don't do anything else. None of the fights is about anything that I would consider earth shattering, as in none are about differences in values or a fundamental difference about how to apply financial resources. On those issues, ones that would normally set the tone of the relationship, we appear to be steady.
On the emotional front however, that is not the case. The words I would use to describe the rising crescendo of fights is either minor or minutia in terms of substance, but the central issue to all of these somehow becomes my wife's 'feelings'. A typical 'fight' erupts over whether or not I am texting her enough, and in some cases, distracted or over tasked I agree. In other cases, the demand is not quite so clear cut. In one case, with the time zone difference, sleep schedules determine a lot of what can be done. I was out exercising at noon on on a weekend, (5:00 AM at home) and came home to find a series of alarmist text messages essentially saying, "I need to to talk you now!" Thinking one of the kids was hurt or something upon finding the messages, I immediately phoned only to discover the issues was ... I was not texting her enough and she felt unimportant. Any attempt to add context or mitigating circumstance, appears to be something akin to waiving a red cape in front of a bull and sets off ... fireworks.
These fights are not only becoming more frequent, they are starting over different issues. These different issues are alarming. In the middle of a normal conversation, a passing comment is suddenly, and apparently deliberately, taken out of context and the battle begins despite pleas to acknowledge the reality of the comment. For example, the conversation could be, "So I was reading and article about how women get paid less in the workplace, and ...," and what will suddenly come back is, "So you think that women should be paid less?" Once again, attempts to return the conversation to the original statement are futile and the fights escalate quickly. In honesty, my tolerance and patience for this behavior has significantly eroded over the course of the past year. Where there was a lot of patience a year ago, there is very little now. Recognizing the pattern, and when the, for example, refusal to acknowledge that the husband does not think women should be paid less, the responses are blunt (this behavior is wrong, stop), and when they escalate anyway - I just walk away. Given that 'devices' are required to communicate across this geographical gap, one can shut them off. I realize it drives her up the wall to do this, but with no way to de-escalate a sudden sharp turn into the need to exonerate myself from the charge of misogyny, its become the default - because there seems to be no other way to return the discussion to equilibrium.
I have tried the alternative of attempting to communicate through the issue to reach some resolution, and that feels extraordinarily counter-productive. The comments from my wife are rather routinely laced with insults that have to be separated from substance of the communication. I get a steady stream of comments like, "I feel sorry for you being this bad at handling feelings, and clearly its wrong to think that women should be paid less." I also find that I am having to deal with a steady stream of 'shifts' in the conversation, where the subject itself is suddenly clouded with tangential issues. Attempting to explain that you are not a misogynist is met with something like, "Well, clearly you don't respect me based on my position on the issue (Yet we are in agreement - I am truly bewildered)."
The last one was a severe. I got very sick, to the point where it literally knocked me out. My wife was well aware that I was both sick and that it was severe, yet when I picked up the phone upon waking up I found, you guessed it, "You don't get it, you clearly should be texting me and haven't yet!" I am pretty sure that it was not an improper response to try and explain just how debilitatingly sick I was that day, hence the delay in contact, but could barely get the explanation out before the rejoinder, "Well, you let the dog out to pee at some point, and you could have texted me then - you clearly value me less than the dog!," was launched in my direction. I mean its true, I did open the door for the dog, and act that left me disoriented and exhausted do to the severity of the illness, at a time when it would have been the post midnight portion of the home. I did indeed choose to rest rather than text at that point, but I am unsure that the decision to delay at that time and wait until after some rest restored some semblance of health was either wrong or disrespectful. After a difficult band of communication, she finally acknowledged as much, apologized, and then immediately doubled down with the accusations that I did not care, had done nothing all day to take her feelings into account, etc. I had to hang up on her to stop the increasingly angry tone and what was becoming a steady stream of base accusations and insults.
In our next communication, I specifically attempted to address the 'feelings' behind the issue here, including both her version, feeling unimportant, and my sense, that there was some insecurity exaggerating a relatively minor issue, and appeared, albeit at great difficulty, to be making some head way. Out of the blue comes and accusation that I am lying about ... exactly when I was and was not vomiting. After several hours of difficult communication, a direct attack on my integrity about which days I was and was not vomiting, which had no relevance (whether I was telling the truth or not) to anything we were talking about, I got angry. Really angry, and told her as much and that the line of questioning was completely disrespectful repeatedly. When that admission resulted in nothing but rationalization to continue to vomit inquest, a Rubicon was crossed. I told her I was ready for a divorce.
Only then did she back down.
I apologized the next day for both the anger and for threatening divorce. However, after a year of this treatment, the intimacy in our relationship is gone. The fights appear to be the norm for our relationship rather than the exception, and attempting to avoid or mitigate the 'fights' feels like it has been an exercise in futility. The tenor has grown more acrimonious and hurtful, and for the first time the idea that maybe things would be better without my wife has made it into the 'course of action' to consider category. I genuinely love my wife. There is no person on this earth that I have ever felt affection for, or more comfort in expressing affection for her. I know she is just as hurt as I am, but I feel absolutely dumbfounded here about how to engage the situation in a helpful manner.
I am not completely innocent here, acrimony takes two, and there has been plenty of push back for being pushed. Acrimony takes two, and I understand that. What I struggle with is the reality that attempting to communicate, at least right now, means acrimony whether I want it or not, and walking away might solve the acrimony, but it sure as hell is not communication. I feel very much like I am damned if I do and damned if I don't. I fully understand that my wife is every bit as hurt and as baffled as I am.
I love my wife dearly, but I am all out of options. If anyone can help me understand what the hell is going on here, and more important what on God's earth I can do to be fighting to get my wife back rather than pointlessly fighting my wife - you have my thanks in advance.
