My Toxic Behavior Nearly Cost Me My Marriage
This was it. I was done. I was newly married less than two years and I was already FED UP.
My husband would snap at me. I would then criticize him back. We argued constantly. I felt angry all the time, so I cried all the time. I was ready to leave him behind and move back home and back to my parents after yet another failed marriage.
My husband, the man who swept me off my feet and charmed me with his stories, accent, and swagger, was now so irritated by me that we’d rather be in different rooms of the apartment than together.
I felt inside out and grotesque. I knew I was angry and frustrated that I just could not get this man to understand me. I was starting to hate who I was becoming. I was phoning it in when we had to be in public together.
What was worse — we had a newborn baby boy. He was not even a year old yet, and we often kept our cross words to ourselves until he was asleep. But by then, our pent up frustration would often just bubble over into a heated exchange.
Sliding downhill.
At first, it was little things I said. “Why are you folding towels like that? They don’t fit!”
Which grew to: “Why would you say that thing you said? Now people will think I’m an idiot!”
Don’t forget — “ Don’t talk to me that way! Stop doing this, doing that. Don’t tell me what to do!” I had become a jellyfish — using barbed words that were guaranteed to sting.
Hold up. How did we get this way?
Before we met, I was in a stagnated marriage of six years. By accepting this job posting overseas meant that my then-husband and I were effectively over. I fostered a fraction of hope in resurrecting our embattled marriage once my work contract was over, but for now, I needed peace. I walled off my emotions and plunged into my work to distract myself from my pain.
My future husband was in a relationship of five years with his girlfriend too. He wasn’t unhappy, but he wasn’t necessarily happy either. He was in Singapore visiting his parents who lived there. The girlfriend lived in Hong Kong, a short 4 four hour flight…
