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Dear Hillary,
My husband is driving me slowly, but surely mad. Whatever I do or don’t do, whatever I say or don’t say, however I act or react - it’s wrong. His nasty remarks and often rude language towards me keeps me on edge. I really don’t know what to do anymore since everything is wrong anyway. He married me many years ago and loved me for the woman I am. Now, he’s trying to change me, my character, my behavior, my language, my style - everything. I try to please him in any way I can. I get out of his way when he’s moody, only to blamed that I don’t care for him. I try to sit with him to help him or calm him down, and he tells me I am getting on his nerves. By the way, he always tells me he’s teaching me because he loves me and cares for me - the only one who cares. Sometimes I feel like I am deserted by all other people and already believe that nobody else loves me.
So, what should I do? Sometimes I just cannot bare it anymore when he screams and shouts at me and I just start to scream back. That’s not the way of life I want! I am close to a nervous break-down!
Nervous Wreck.
Dear Nervous Wreck,
If he doesn’t have a girlfriend and isn’t trying to get rid of you by treating you badly, than he is simply an abuser.
Obviously, it is never right for anyone to suffer physical abuse for any amount of time with a lover. But people are less likely to spot psychological abuse. When anyone tells you that you must change who you are in order to conform to some ideal of his, that’s psychological abuse. By its very definition, love should make you feel better about yourself. It should add something. You should feel smarter, sexier, more capable - not less any of these things. You should feel like a movie star, not like a student who has a lot to learn.
Think carefully about your relationship. A lover is a luxury, not a necessity. You are a whole person without a lover, and the presence of a lover should never make you feel less of one. It can never be right to change yourself in an unnatural way for a relationship. By trying to do this in the most intimate area of your life is self-betrayal. Try judging your relationship by scoring it from one to ten on how much of yourself you feel comfortable revealing to your partner, on how natural you are.
If your husband continually implies that you’re doing things wrong, then he has distracted you from asking the most important question in any relationship: “How does this man make me feel?” The problem of wanting to change a partner almost always goes deeper, and it is his, not yours. He should actually look at himself and not at you.
The real issue is your husband’s brutality in drawing generalizations about your character based on a minor defect he thinks he can see. Don’t play into his cruelty anymore by accepting his premise instead of questioning his attitude. Confront him with some real alternatives. Walk out if he continues picking on you and simply refuse to talk to him if he is using nasty language. Don’t try to bend yourself into shape for him for it will wear you out soon and at the end you’ll walk out of this relationship for you don’t want to see yourself in the mirror he’s holding up for you.