My marriage feels like a never ending drama. My wife and I argue constantly. She has kicked me out of the apartment I pay for, only to later “allow” me to come back into my own home.
I’m 26, work full time, and attend college full time. Somehow, I still have no savings and feel like I’m getting nowhere. I love my wife deeply, but I’ve reached the point where, unless we’re going somewhere or connecting through physical attraction, I’m bored and unhappy around her.
I’ve given up nearly everything that used to make me feel like myself. I stopped gaming because she said it “made her sick.” I surrender decisions because it’s easier than risking another argument. We watch whatever she wants, and I feel obligated to spend nearly all of my free time with her. If she starts cleaning, I immediately have to find something to clean too or she becomes furious and accuses me of treating her like a servant. She has even hit me.
When I struggled to find work after a restaurant trained me for four weeks and then dropped me, she threatened to leave unless I paid for a birthday trip. I took gig work and somehow paid for the trip while keeping up with our bills and my other responsibilities. Even after all of that, I still feel like nothing I do is appreciated.
She dislikes my music, movies, gaming, and creative interests. During our marriage, I gained 75 pounds because food became my only escape. Recently, I started working out, meal prepping, and watching gaming videos again. But when I look at my life, I barely recognize myself. I’ve become a dull, numb version of who I used to be, focused mostly on finding whatever career will make the most money.
We married early because she gave me an ultimatum connected to starting her immigration paperwork. Over the past two years, she has hit me for making mistakes and called me immature, a pussy, a bitch, and an asshole. Recently, she told me she understood why my father and everyone else in my life had left me, because I’m “bad” and manipulate everyone.
After saying all of that, she wanted to meet for lunch and talk things through. Now everything is good again. But I already know that means everything is good until it isn’t. The same cycle keeps repeating.
I don’t enjoy being with her anymore. I spend my life trying to delay the next argument and avoid doing anything that might make things worse. I feel completely numb, and I don’t know what to do.
You need to stop asking yourself how to make this marriage less dramatic and start calling what is happening by its name.
Your wife is abusing you.
She has hit you. She insults you. She threatens the relationship to get what she wants. You surrender decisions and monitor her mood because you’re trying to prevent the next explosion.
That is not a communication problem. And being a 26 year old man does not make getting hit by your spouse any less serious.
You’ve spent years becoming whatever version of yourself causes the least conflict. You stopped gaming. Your music, movies, and creative interests became problems. Even sitting down while she cleans can start a fight.
Eventually, there isn’t much of you left.
The good periods don’t erase what happens during the bad ones. Things blow up, terrible things are said or done, you reconnect, and everything feels okay again.
Until the next time.
You don’t need to prove your wife is an evil person before you’re allowed to say, “I cannot live like this anymore.”
Right now, stop making your first goal saving the marriage. Your first goal needs to be getting yourself into a safe and stable position where you can think clearly.
Tell someone you trust what has actually been happening, including the hitting. Make sure you have independent access to your identification, money, phone, transportation, and important documents. Start putting aside money you control. If another confrontation escalates, prioritize getting somewhere safe instead of trying to calm her down.
Because immigration paperwork is involved, don’t use her immigration status as leverage or make major legal decisions out of anger. Get independent legal advice before changing or signing anything.
Then ask yourself a harder question than “Do I still love her?”
“If absolutely nothing about this relationship changed for the next five years, would I willingly choose this life?”
Your letter already gives a pretty clear answer.
Keep rebuilding the parts of yourself you’ve lost. Exercise. Play a game. Listen to your music. Create something. Spend time with people who care about you. Start making your own decisions again.
A marriage should not require one person to slowly disappear so the other person stays calm.
And you cannot love someone hard enough to make them stop hitting you.
Take the violence seriously. You do not have to wait for it to get worse before deciding that enough is enough.