Hi guys, I keep getting messages asking me for an update, I wanted to do it sooner but couldn’t spare time to do it properly. First of all I would like to thank everyone for the comments and DMs in my last post, I tried to reply to everyone but I couldn’t. I read you all tho.
Before confronting my wife I had time to reflect, and I came to the conclusion that I will never again let anyone in my life dictate the relationship I should have with my mother or the time I should dedicate to her. So I decided to answer the ultimatum, but first I wanted to know if there was another reason why she gave me this ultimatum, she replied that nope. I asked her apart from what she blamed me for was there something she wanted to tell me but couldn’t tell me. She said there was nothing and asked me to come to the point so I told her I wanted a divorce.
She remained frozen, I think she was shocked because she wasn’t talking, she was just staring at me. I tell her everything that was on my mind, that our values are too different, I was going through the worst moment of my life, my mother was sick, we did several tests with her, we still don’t know what she’s suffering from, we don’t know her family medical history because she was an orphan. It makes me anxious to know that overnight I could find myself alone in the world, yes alone in the world because in these difficult times, I all I needed was her support but if my own wife thinks that I should give less attention to my mother who is sick and who needs me more than ever, it’s time to go to our separate way. She still didn’t say anything so I told her I’m going to a hotel for now and we’ll discuss later how we’re going to separate. I took some of my things and left.
The next day when I went to see my mother, she figure out something wasn’t right but I was not going to tell her I was separating from my wife because she could not bear our relationship, especially since she was sick like that, I didn’t want to add more torment to her. I never discuss my marriage issue with my mother anyway, so she does not know our problems and honestly, she adores my wife too much, and my wife behaves as if she was her own mother so I was not going tell her what she was thinking behind her back.
My mom ends up telling me that my wife didn’t come by that day, yes, my wife who asks me to reduce my contact with my mother was seing her every day and I never asked her to do anything for my mother. She calls my mother “mom”. When she gets sick, she used to go to my mother so she will take care of her, it used to hurt me because it’s as if I couldn’t take care of her, but she said that this was not the same the attentions of a mother are different. I told myself that it was her way of creating a mother-daughter bond that she never had and I understood her. She ever said her mother used to tell her that she was not supposed to be born, that she was an accident that she almost aborted her and regrets not doing it. Only a monster could say that to her child. So I never said anything whenever she wanted my mother’s attention, besides I received enough love to share with whoever wanted. My mother after I left home to study became a foster mom for children. She always did until two years ago. I have always loved each of the children with whom I still keep in touch and whom I consider to be my siblings. Once a year, we all went on vacation together for a week, the children, my mother and my wife. I generally take two months of vacation of which the six weeks I devoted it to my wife but the two weeks that I devote to my mother and the children, it was too much for my wife.
Anyway, I’m rambling, so when my mom told me she didn’t come to see her that day, I went back home because I was worried, I found her in the bathroom with her clothes and red eyes like she was crying all along. Seeing her like that was unbearable, I helped her out, but this woman who have so much pride, collapsed in front of me with lot of crying I don’t know if it was an hour or two, but she kept crying, calm down crying again, I just stayed silent. She ended up telling me that deep down she never wanted me to involv any less in my mother life, she was always jealous of our relationship she was always jealous of the attention my mother gave to the other children, she knows that it wasn’t rational but she couldn’t help constantly striving to be number one in my mother’s heart. It was kind of a competition for her, so when I wanted to take care of my mom she didn’t want me to be the one taking care of her. I was honestly furious without saying anything of course but I wondered if she was a psychopath or something? We are talking about a person who is seriously ill and she is thinking about her damn competition even if it means sabotaging the relationship I have with my mother and putting us in a situation where I wanted to divorce her. She told me that she was very jealous of me and that she would have liked to be in my place, if she had to choose she would have even chosen to be my mother’s child rather than my wife even if I was the love of her life and the only man she ever known.
She also told me that even if the world falls apart around me, I will remain stoic, that I live as if I don’t need anyone and that I give everything to others but I don’t know how to let others reach me and she never managed to get there, only my mother could get there. At that moment, I did not know what else to say, I was hooked on this idea of competition so that I did not immediately grasp the scope of these words. But I still listened to her to the end. I put her to bed until she fell asleep, then I went to sleep in an other room. In the morning she was acting like anything happened she was being herself she said I don’t have to pity. I told her It was out of love she was still my wife. She left to work and I do the same but decided to stay at the hotel from the time being.
During that time, I wondered what I could have made the saying act so that she could think about that. Deep down I think she’s right, it’s a defense mechanism I’ve had since childhood, I’ve never stayed in one place longer to make friends, it was heartbreaking to every time we have to move between my 5 and my 15 years I have moved more than fifty times, from apartment to apartment, from hotel room to hotel room, and since then I think I have always lived my relationships like a squat. I never unpacked and settled in because I knew at any moment I could be fired. But I thought that with my wife I acted differently, but you have to believe not.
During that time, I wondered what I could have done, acted or said to make her feel like that. Deep down I think she’s right, it’s a defense mechanism I’ve had since childhood, I’ve never stayed in one place longer to make friends, it was heartbreaking to every time we have to move between my 5 to my 15 I have moved more than fifty times, from apartment to apartment, from hotel room to hotel room, and since then I think I have always lived my relationships like a squat. I never unpacked and settled in because I knew at any moment I could be kicked out. But I thought with my wife I acted differently, but I guess not.
So I thought maybe we didn’t need to go that far, what we needed wasn’t divorce but therapy. Then this happened. a little over a week after our discussion, I was called from the hospital. my wife had been hospitalized, she apparently did not feel well. I went to visit her, but she didn’t want to see me. If you see the eyes I saw, I’ve never seen so much hate in just two eyes. I told her besties so she can have her system support because she didn’t want me there. I told my mom, she asked me what I had done to my wife so that she ended up in the hospital, and that I should not stress a woman who was PREGNANT. I said what ? She told me my wife told her and asked her to keep it a secret because she wanted to tell me herself when she was ready. I don’t know what was going through my head, between anger that it was my mother who told me or happiness at having to be a dad for the first time and total confusion at the surreal situation. I went to my wife and told her I knew, but she looked at me again angrily and told me she had lost the baby and it was my fault.
In an instant, I just get the new my wife was pregnant but keep it from me, that I was going to be a dad and that we lost the baby and that she was accusing me of having caused something that I did not even know. She asked me to leave and I left. I always wanted children, very early on. My wife wanted to put her career first, I understood and accepted, I’ve been trying to convince her for years but without success, now she gets pregnant, she doesn’t tell me anything, she talks to my mother about it, and she says I caused her miscarriage. Since then, she says she didn’t tell me anything because she wanted to first confirm if I could deal with all the responsibilities I give myself and raise a child at the same time. I don’t understand her, and I admit since then I have a fierce hatred against her. I don’t know how to look at her without having anger on me and I don’t want to hurt her with my words, I take care of her at home but we don’t talk to each other. I’m not going to stay with her, it’s not possible. I started a session with a psychologist, he told me that patience was my best weapon, that I shouldn’t make a permanent decision on emotions that could be temporary and that I should take time to see if there were things to salvage. Here is where I am. I don’t know if I’ll do another update, I took days off to be there for my wife and for my mother but I’m feeling pretty depressed and I just want to get away from all this bullshit right now. Thank you in any case for giving me your point on your first post, for your support or your critics.
View Reddit by TWAFOR – View Source
Please take care of yourself. It sounds like you are spreading yourself too thin. Can some of the kids your mom fostered step up to give you a break with her care?
My mother, my wife… Dude what about you?
Who are YOU? What do YOU want?
Time to love and discover yourself!
You and your wife both have extremely unhealthy attachment styles. Regardless of if this works out or not, keep in therapy. I don’t think your wife is evil btw. I feel like I followed your post and reserved any emotional response to the end. Oh. I have so many things I could say. But for now. I’m sorry you’re in pain and in the middle of all this. Focus on you. Take care of you. The rest will be there to deal with when you’re ready.
the character development has fallen apart in the update here, initial story sets up for a better twist than this. D-, too long winded.
Listen to your therapist. They’re the professional and they’re right there are a lot of seriously high emtions right now. And you want to bolt. Just take a breather. You can still go through with divorce and the with regards to a miscarriage that early its not from stress, its usually from genetic/chromosomal abnormalities where the child wouldn’t have survived- using this against you is rediculous. However. Just take a step back because you are spiraling and there’s a lot to sort through, and if you’re going to get divorced you need to calm and thinking rationally- so for the time being just give yourself two weeks to come down off of this roller coaster where you can think clearly again.
Are you sure she was really pregnant?
This is a troll. Next time keep it short. This was messy and had way too many plot twists. 4/10.
That was a roller coaster of insanity. Your future ex-wife who was jealous of your relationship with your mom and wanted her to be her mom instead of you was pregnant and told your mom and kept it from you until she lost it and was concerned about YOUR ability to be a good parent. She’s a mess.
Using a miscarriage as leverage against you is probably one of the most manipulative things a person can do.
Talk to a lawyer. Make sure everything is handled, because this isn’t the only trick your wife will pull.
Your wife is extremely manipulative. Ultimatums and tests to work you up have no place in a healthy marriage. She’s broken in a way you can’t fix. Divorce her.
honestly i understand your wife’s perspective. you wouldn’t come home until 8PM most days, bought your mom a house without consulting your wife (while you both were still renting), called your mom DAILY (yes, that’s enmeshment), and likely did have a miscarriage as a result of stress. feeling jealous of another person is certainly not psychopathy. your therapist advocates for you to be patient with her as well. i mean seriously i feel bad for you wife. her reaction to losing a life certainly is harsh, but consider her perspective that she thought you guys were going to buy a house together and have a kid, and now she’s bawling her eyes out in an apartment complex after suffering a stress induced miscarriage while you spend all your time with your mom in the house you bought her after deciding to divorce her. that’s a stark reality change. your wife needs to be seeing a therapist to work through this as i’m sure her mental health is awful right now.
i totally understand your perspective at the same time though.
[Your original post.](https://www.reddit.com/r/relationship_advice/comments/xl4p84/my_wife_31f_asked_me_34m_to_choose_between_my_mom/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf) Lotta people that demonized you eating their words right now, yikes.
Weaponizing a miscarriage for a pregnancy you didn’t even know about, man run away from this one and don’t ever, ever look back.
And your wife wanted to shit-test you to see how you would be with the responsibilities of children? With how much you and your mother have done for foster kids your whole lives?!? Really? *Really?!?* Again, move on and never look back.
Sorry you had to go through that, and I hope your mother is doing better.
This post is just jumbled up words basically.
You sound like you’re struggling, given this story is impossibly incoherent. I’d suggest reaching out to a professional, as you need help to figure out what to do, and more help than Reddit will really be able to provide. Good luck.
I hear you about your planning to not post another update, but I hope that, if you ever find yourself with the desire to do so, I’m gonna leave this “UpdateMe!” here so that you know that someone out there, wherever or whenever that is in your life, cares about how you end up in life. Have a good day, dude! And I hope you find whatever it is you’re looking for.
I think you need to take the advise of your therapist, don’t make any rash decisions. It sounds as though you and your wife both have separate issues to work through. She desperately craves a parent and has attached herself to your Mom. However somewhere along the line, she has formed this unhealthy relationship, this jealous competition. She is mentally unwell.
You admit yourself that you perhaps have not opened up to your wife. I think your Mom’s illness highlighted that and she saw you distancing yourself not involving her or allowing her to help you and that caused her to make this ultimatum. Was that smart? No of course not. Perhaps her fantasy of family has been destroyed, she felt useless seeing her parental figure sick, her husband not involving her and on top of that being pregnant. She craves family. Your wife being mentally unwell doesn’t excuse all her actions however if you still love her, I think this relationship could be salvageable. As long as you both agree to put the work in and go to therapy separately at first and then together. It won’t be easy.
Your wife is acting out sure, but you’re emotionally married to your mother and all your relationships will play out this way unless you do something about it.
You should read some books about enmeshment and emotional incest.
It’s incredible that you want kids but prioritize providing for your mother over your family.
Please seek therapy. So much pain and heartache has been tossed onto your shoulders. It’s a lot. You need help to sort through the emotions.
This is some serious telenovela shit.
If you are gonna do creative writing exercises, maybe be actually creative. The pregnant trope is very overused. Overall 2/5. Maybe use paragraph form next time and a better plot.
I’m sorry you’re going through all this. It’s so much. I’m glad you’re getting a divorce because your wife really took you and your efforts for granted. Obviously she needs a therapist bc there are unresolved issues and she let that ruin your marriage. It’s definitely not salvageable anymore. I hope things settle down for you soon so you can focus on your mother and yourself. Good luck.
I guess I don’t get how, if both of you want to take care of your mother, it couldn’t be something you do together, that you work together to do. That seems the natural way to handle things.
I don’t get the competition thing at all.
Seems like if your wife likes your mother so much, it would be a good thing, that your mom could mother both of you.
I don’t see bad motives in any of you, just some emotionally scarred people who had tough childhoods. And people often act irrational because of childhood trauma.
Will say that if you are that stoic and help everyone around you but don’t want to let them help you or trust that they’ll help you — emotions I understand well that I’m sure come from your chaotic childhood — your wife will feel like you don’t need her.
We want to feel like our spouses need us and we need them. There’s balance in that kind of relationship. You each take care of each other. Your wife not feeling like you need her — which I’m sure you see as taking care of her, as a husband should — will leave her feeling deeply insecure.
Why would you stay with her? You don’t need her, as she sees things. Then your mom needs you, and you’re the one to take care of mom, I can see your wife thinking if your mom needs you more, you would prioritize mom over wife. Again, because she’s deeply insecure.
I would not be so quick to assume wife wasn’t pregnant. It’s very common to miscarry early in pregnancy. You also feel very vulnerable while pregnant. She would need to depend on you even more, but again she’s worried you’d prioritize mom over her and baby. It probably doesn’t make sense to you, but remember, she was emotional from the pregnancy and telling herself you would choose mom over her.
Her giving you an ultimatum, which was totally wrong and unreasonable on her part, was her trying to believe you’d prioritize her and baby over mom. You respond by saying you want a divorce.
That’s a nightmare for her. You have actually chosen mom over her, and she’s pregnant.
Then she loses the baby. Women’s hormones and emotions are all over the place after a miscarriage, and it’s going to be worse for her because she already thinks she’s lost you. Her blaming you is wrong. It may come from her own guilt from losing the baby and asking you to choose between her and mom and feeling like she’s losing you. Desperate people lash out in hurtful ways. I’m sorry you’re on the receiving end of it.
I really don’t want this to sound like you’re in the wrong here. I don’t. You sound like a really good guy with some emotional hang ups from childhood. I think you and your wife are just acting from old emotional patterns and for some reason not working together.
I think a lot of your issues as a couple could get so much better if you sat down with her and said you both love your mom. She has room in her life to love you both back and you two should be working together to take care of mom. You both want to do it. Why not do it together? Seems like that would solve so many of your problems.
>I just want to get away from all this bullshit right now
Your problems are going to follow you because you are the source of them. No matter what you do with your marriage, you need help.
I moved 15 times before I was 16. I know about walls put up to keep attachments away. I was also raised in a strange religious cult which didn’t help my social situation. I also know that if you don’t confront and control that trauma, you will not be a good or safe partner. Please seek therapy.
The lack of empathy in this comment section is outstanding. It sounds like you and your wife both have a lot of unhealed issues that have suddenly exploded after two huge life changing events. Pregnancy also causes crazy changes in hormones that can manifest in behaviors a person wouldn’t normally do.
I would stick to the therapy and focus on yourself right now. It’s time to do some real digging on where you anger is coming from. Are you angry at your wife for keeping the pregnancy from you? Or is it more the shattering of a future you thought you had?
It is 100% wrong for her to blame you for the miscarriage. That is NEITHER of your faults. I am so sorry for all you are going through. Keep strong.
This sounds like a really weird situation where you weren’t letting her in or being emotionally available. But because you were with your mum, and that’s the only time she saw you being open she wanted that too. At the same time she was getting emotional fulfilment from your mum, and enjoyed that.
After a while she realised your mum gets more from you emotionally, to the point where she realised she wasn’t getting anything in comparison. I don’t mean materialistic things at all.
Being pregnant was probably a reality check for her as she realised you are emotionally closed off with her.
She didn’t have any issues with your mum, the issues were that you weren’t able to give her what she needed from you emotionally and she wasn’t able to verbalise it or maybe she didn’t know until then.
Maybe she thought if you weren’t seeing your mum so much she’d see that side of you.
I don’t think she was intentionally being manipulative, I think she was doing it all without any awareness as to why. A bit like you having that realisation that you were emotionally closed off too.
Either way doesn’t matter. You all need therapy.
She’s not healthy.
You’re not healthy. I’m not sure if it’s because of the moving around or because maybe you put pressure on yourself to just hide any problems you have to make it easier for your mum.
I don’t think your relationship should be your focus, it may not be salvageable at all. But you both need to work on yourselves.
Hope your mum is doing ok, you’re going to need to tell her about what’s going on though. I don’t know if it’s worth talking to your wife about this and doing it together or alone.
You obviously dont match well so its probably a great choice to divorce. However, most women are not comfortable with their partner putting the parent first on everything. You are supposed to put your partner first, thats the whole point of being spouses, and convey and make decicions with them to see what kind of compromises your marriage will involve with taking care of sick parent. If you didnt do this and instead made the decicionson your own, thats not great partnership.
The buying a house for your mom is amazing and i understand you could expect your partner to be happy with you doing such an amazing gesture. But if she wanted a house as well and was taking this as taking away from your joint future, its understandable she was upset.
Parents mean so much to everyone of us, but you cant make a marriage work by making solo decicions about time and finances. A 15 minute call every day screams emeshment, look it up. The things you find sweet in your relationship with a parent might reflect as dependancy to others and make your partner feel like they truly are in competition with your mother, since it seems like you have a stronger partership with your mother here.
Also yes your wife might be very manipulative. This is not something i take stance on here and it seems great decicion to divorce. But you have to learn how to be a partner in an adult relationship.
just to let you know that early miscarriages where the woman doesn’t look pregnant is usually due to chromosomal issues and a basic incompatibility with life so don’t feel that bad about it. If women lost babies this early due to stress then the human race wouldn’t survive.
Your wife is manipulative and it’s truly evil to blame the miscarriage on you.
I can’t understand anything you’re saying.
You wife it’s a psychopath. I’m so sorry for you, don’t leave therapy but leave the wife when you feel ready.
Your wife is a manipulative psychopath, and you would do well to get away from her. She’s lying to multiple people in order to manipulate you all (I don’t believe for a second that she was ever pregnant, given what’s here, but even if she was, there are enough other cases to make the point) and weaponizing emotional states. She needs help – while single, where she’s not actively abusing people – to learn methods to cope with her distress without harming other people, and for that to happen she needs to recognize that she has a problem. The best thing you can do for everyone involved is to divorce and cut contact; that’s necessary for your own well-being, and it might be enough of a wake-up call for her to recognize she has a problem for which she needs to seek help.