Dismaying Story #138: Her Rage versus His Insecurity

Dear Andrew,

My husband has an odd mix of traits that make him wonderful on so many levels. He is brilliant, affable, funny, and down-to-earth. He is passionate, capable and with certain people, compassionate to a very high degree. He’s handsome and affectionate. He’s a good provider for our family and has no problem doing housework. In fact, he excels at both! So how could I dare speak against such perfection when so many women would KILL to have a guy even a hundredth this awesome? Because there are some deep-rooted psychological issues that I’ve attempted to help resolve, but I’ve been unsuccessful.

My husband grew up in a trailer-park to an alcoholic, abusive father and an accommodating doormat of a mother. His environment could be described as squalor, he said. At one point, his father was arrested for assault after threatening his mother with a gun. My husband was probably ten or so and his refusal to move from in front of his mother saved her life. His father and younger brother purportedly did nothing while he and his mother did all the cleaning, cooking, laundry, etc. Essentially, they enabled.

My husband graduated high school and married his high school sweetheart, with a daughter born not long after. His wife, sadly, had several challenges that stemmed from childhood trauma, such as debilitating OCD and crippling insecurity that led to risky sexual behavior like multiple affairs. Two additional children and worsening symptoms later and he was in front of a court-appointed counselor who recommended that he should leave his wife and take the children with him, or the courts would do it instead.

Then he met a woman with two even younger children who was about to become homeless. He re-married, but she was abusive, hateful and entitled. He went from having $30,000 in the bank to being $40,000 in the hole. She publicly humiliated him and privately emasculated him. He didn’t want to be a two-time loser so he stayed and became a miserable, functioning escapist via alcohol, porn, and mild drug use.

Eventually he left her and met me six months later. I spent the first six months of our relationship reminding him I’m not one of his exes. He would project based on their past behaviors. We eventually married but we’re struggling in a few areas.

I was raised in a home where the physical environment was the exact opposite of his. My parents were so controlling, so perfectionistic, that they threatened to burn all my clothes but one outfit if I didn’t keep them perfectly washed, folded and put away at all times. I wasn’t allowed to shut my door because that is a sign of people who are doing something wrong and they threatened to take it off the hinges if I did. I was told to be seen and not heard. Laughing and singing was considered obnoxious and I was quickly slapped or beaten for speaking out of turn. EVERYTHING I did was criticized, belittled or shamed. I left as quickly as I was able but carried many emotional scars. It took two failed marriages of my own and a lot of counseling to get to where I was able to have some semblance of inner peace. I learned how to keep things clean without being obsessed about it and that it’s okay to let go of the need to be perfect.

Enter my husband. A dish left unwashed causes him to obsess that things are going to revert back to his childhood days. The only time he can relax is if he is surrounded by the starkest, cleanest of environments. If he had his way, while we were taking our last bite of food, we would be walking to the sink to wash the dish so as not to leave any dish undone for any length of time. Clothes are the same way. Leaving a nightgown or PJs on the bed so I can rewear them the next night makes him stressed. Keeping a hairbrush or medication or a toothbrush on the bathroom counter is intolerable. And while some people would say, just tell him to clean it up himself, that means he is entering into other peoples’ spaces and cleaning up others peoples’ things, putting them where he wants them to go or pitching them if he feels like it. Which is invasive, controlling and extraordinarily inconsiderate.

He admits to obsessing over things but denies that it’s detrimental. He says, “It’s who I am and I can’t change what I feel. It’s hard-wired into me from my childhood.” He feels that as long as he is able to control his environment, he is able to have peace and we should all help him achieve that peace if we love him. While he doesn’t belittle or shame us, it’s obvious he’s distressed over every little thing. I have successfully convinced him to leave my side of the room alone, but in shared spaces, such as the bathroom, he refuses.

Because I grew up in a very aggressive, very violent household, I learned all about rage very early. I experienced passive-aggressive behavior on a daily basis. It took me years to learn successful coping skills to prevent going into a rage or acting passive-aggressively when something upsets me. My technique is to calmly state that while I want to resolve the situation, I am feeling very emotional and very stressed and feel it’s best to remove myself from it for a time. I reassure him that I will come back to resolve it when I am calmer and more able to think clearly. My husband takes this as outright rejection. In the past he has followed me wherever I went, demanding that I talk to him NOW and saying that my behavior is unbiblical and is equivalent to asking for a divorce. When I forced him to go to counseling to get an outside, third-party perspective, he saw the harm that his aggression was causing, but he still hasn’t been able to let go of the feeling of abandonment and rejection. In spite of every effort to reassure him (even while trying to stifle extreme anger), it doesn’t register with him that my coping skill has nothing to do with punishing him, but that I simply need to be where it’s calm and quiet so I can think and regroup.

So, there are my two issues. How do I deal with his need for perfection? And secondly, when we’re arguing and I need to be alone for a while, how do I deal with the constant texting about how alone he feels and how rejected he feels?

Again, it seems so ridiculous to be complaining at all when so much of him is the stuff of dreams! It’s just that these two problems are the source of 99% of our disagreements. Even if it seems we’re disagreeing about who left a dish out, what we’re really talking about is his perfectionism and inability to overcome it. Or, if we’re arguing about his invasion of space and my need for solitude, we’re really talking about his inability to step outside of his own needs and trust. Which is so strange because in most circumstances, he is extraordinarily empathetic. But when he’s emotional, he ceases to be rational. And while learning effective coping skills would work great for him, he doesn’t think he has a problem. He blames others for having a problem with him. It’s a vicious cycle. And it’s exhausting.

Signed,
Perplexed

Dear Perplexed,

You say the physical environment you had while growing up was the exact opposite of your husband’s, but I think you’ll agree that your childhood experiences include an unfortunate common element; you both had to deal with abusive situations. I hate that the two of you had to endure the abuse you’ve described, and I’m sorry to hear about your current problems.

Abused children are tremendously affected in myriad ways, many of which exhibit themselves as challenges during adulthood. One common pattern is for such children to struggle with adult relationships. Your letter mentions several of the ways in which this can happen, such as:

• Tolerating abuse or other negative behavior when it starts to occur with a partner, perhaps due to low self esteem or because you’re used to dealing with it;
• Interpreting your partner’s behavior in the context of the previous abuse you’ve received — constantly looking for negative ways to interpret their behavior, rarely giving them the benefit of the doubt; and
• Bringing various insecurities and sensitivities into a relationship.

This last category seems most highly related to the two primary challenges you mentioned — the struggle over standards of cleanliness and your differing approaches to conflict resolution.

First of all, you shouldn’t question the need to deal with such issues. A problem is still a problem, even if many other aspects of your relationship are wonderful.

The last paragraph of your letter makes the distinction between topics and issues. When you talk about whether or not he should touch your toothbrush, that’s a topic. His desire to move the toothbrush and your desire for him not to do so are just the visible symptoms. The true issues run much deeper. You’ve touched on some of the issues, such as the inner distress you both admit to feeling in certain situations. You both seem to be aware that these issues stem from your past experiences to some degree.

Your frustration is obvious in your letter. You’re searching for ways to exert some control, a path you can take that will lead to improvements. I can promise that discussing the symptoms (the topics) will not effectively deal with the underlying issues. You’ve already seen that. You can ask him to leave your mess alone until you’re blue in the face, but he’ll still feel the same anxiety inside.

Identifying an underlying issue is a necessary first step to resolving it, but it’s not a full solution. This sounds like something you’ve tried. You believe he’s obsessing and you’ve told him so. Unfortunately the types of issues you’re dealing with are long-standing and complex. Pointing them out is not enough to make them go away. That’s like coming across a highly claustrophobic person who is unfortunate enough to be trapped in an elevator. You can say to them, “Oh, I know what this is. It’s claustrophobia, so you can stop being anxious now.” That’s clearly not going to work, just like it hasn’t worked for you to point out what you see as his issues.

By the way, I understand his position when he says, “This is just how I am, I’ve always been this way, and I’ll never change.” He believes this to be the absolute truth. From his point of view, he has been like that for as long as he can remember. Nothing has ever happened to change his experience, so it’s an understandable assumption on his part that nothing could ever change it.

I said I understand his belief. I also disagree with it. Just as our internal and external behaviors are shaped by our experiences, we can re-shape and re-learn new behaviors. When past traumas are involved, however, the re-learning process almost certainly requires extensive work with trained professionals and comes with no guarantee of eventual success. The individual must be highly committed to the process, so often it’s easier to say, “It can’t be done. This is just who I am.”

Okay, now let’s move on to some good news. I do have one suggestion that I believe will help you feel less perplexed and a bit more in control of whether your interactions with your husband have positive outcomes.

Here’s a fundamental truth I’d like you to wrap your head around: You can’t control his behavior; you can only control your own.

At first that might sound like bad news. After all, your letter clearly states that you believe he’s the problem and you’d like to know how you can deal with it. I suggest you take a moment and re-read the last paragraph of your letter above. In describing each of your two issues, you use the phrase “his inability.” You describe your standards of cleanliness as within normal bounds, while his need for perfection is obsessive. Your approach for handling conflict is apparently a reasonable strategy you’ve developed in response to your past traumas, whereas his approach is an unreasonable “inability” that has arisen from his past traumas.

According to you, you’re right and he’s wrong. You’d like to keep doing exactly what you’re doing, and you’d like to know how to change his response.

You haven’t mentioned anything about changing the part you can control — your own behavior. And that’s where the good news comes in. Every relationship is a give and take. You act, he reacts, then you react to his reaction. In other words, both of you have just influenced the other. The key to success is to realize that the most effective way to influence the situation in a good direction is to behave in ways that promote positive outcomes.

A further insight is related to this “I’m right, he’s wrong” business. There’s a spectrum of possible behavior for each of the two issues you mentioned. Let’s start with your standards of cleanliness. Your husband seems to be toward the “ultimate clean freak” end of the spectrum, while you’re able to exist quite comfortably in the midst of a bit more clutter. Statistically speaking, I suspect a larger number of people would tend to be similar to you rather than him in this respect, but that doesn’t make you right and him wrong. It just means the two of you are different. Your approach feels right and comfortable to you, as does his to him.

I’m willing to bet there are untold numbers of men to whom you could be married where this situation would be reversed. In other words, many men would consider your standards of cleanliness WAY too stringent when compared with their own preferences. Imagine being married to the guy who considers it a waste of energy to make the bed more often than Christmas and Easter. He leaves his tightie wighties on the floor in front of the shower every morning, and no amount of reminding or downright nagging is enough to get him to drop them in the laundry hamper instead. You have the daily pleasure of either picking them up yourself or looking at them every time you walk into the bathroom. If you want to talk about statistical probabilities, this is the situation I hear about more often than yours.

In both types of situations, the problem isn’t that one partner is right and the other is wrong. The issue is that each of you feels comfortable within a certain range of cleanliness along the spectrum, and your ranges don’t overlap. You haven’t been able to come up with a common compromise where you can both be comfortable and happy.

The same is true with your respective approaches to conflict resolution. You’re more comfortable being apart immediately after the onset of conflict (so you can deal with your rage), whereas he’s more comfortable being together at that time (so he doesn’t feel rejected). Both of you have your own needs. Both of you feel justified in those needs.

Both of you have the opportunity to change your own approach.

Neither of you is inclined to do so.

Stalemate.

The underlying assumption embodied in your letter is that your approach should stay the same and he should change. What if you opened up the possibility that you could both change? If you think about that, I bet you’ll agree that this doubles the possibility of finding a common comfort zone along those spectrums I described above. If both people can move toward middle ground (rather than only one of you) then successful compromise is more likely.

As an example, let’s talk about your rage reaction. I get the sense you’ve accepted that this will always be a part of your life. Your coping strategy isn’t about avoiding rage. Instead, the rage comes over you and you find a way to ride it out in isolation.

What if you could learn a different reaction to conflict, one that doesn’t involve rage? Pick a situation where you became enraged and had to withdraw so you could regain control of your emotions. Many, many people could be presented with exactly the same stimuli and have no anger reaction. “That’s true,” you might say, “but they don’t have my background. Unfortunately the rage is part of who I am and I can’t change what I feel. It’s hard-wired into me due to the very aggressive, very violent household in which I grew up.”

Hmmm. That sounds a lot like the argument your husband offers for why he can’t change. I’ll offer you the same rebuttal; it is possible for you to re-learn how to react to conflict, although admittedly that would require commitment to change and plenty of hard work with the support of a professional. Imagine if you could remove or lessen your rage reactions. I’m betting you would enjoy life more, and the two of you would have one less issue standing in the way of compromise.

I suspect the two of you share more similarities than you might be willing to admit. You’ve both suffered tremendous emotional trauma. You’ve both endured the pain of multiple failed relationships. You both have complex, deep-rooted issues that affect your current ability to compromise with your partner.

And you both have many wonderful qualities that make it WELL worth whatever effort it takes to find those compromises.

I’m not trying to downplay the difficulties of dealing with issues stemming from childhood abuse, but I do believe you can increase your chances of shared happiness if you (a) gain a bit more understanding and empathy for his point of view (rather than simply considering him to be wrong), and (b) open up the possibility of two-way compromise, rather than expecting all the concessions to come from him.

I’m so glad you chose to write to me. You clearly care a great deal about your husband and your marriage. He’s lucky to have such a caring spouse, and I suspect that one fact will go a long way toward helping the two of you be happy together. I wish you both the best of luck!

All the best,
Andrew

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Dismaying Story #136: A Recipe for Emotional Healing

Dear Andrew,

I read Dismaying Story #100: Getting Past a Rape and it struck a deep chord within me. I grew up in an emotionally and physically abusive house and was kicked out when I was 13 by my brother’s father. (I am the oldest of three, each with different fathers). He kicked me out for eating his Oreo cookies. Mom moved me into an apartment across town where I lived by myself for several months. She would come by after work and check on me, then go back to his house with my brother and sister.

A man broke in one night and raped me. I don’t even know what color he was because he put a sheet over him, and then placed it over me. When I was about 15-16, the man I babysat for would bring me home at night, after first making a stop in a dark elementary school parking lot, where he would force me to perform oral sex on him while he touched me. This was a pattern repeated multiple times. He was very well-known in the community (still is), a successful businessman, handsome, well-liked, wealthy, married with two children. I couldn’t tell anybody, not even mom, because she thought he was so wonderful.

Another reason I couldn’t tell her was that she didn’t initially believe I was raped. My brother’s father would touch me inappropriately at various times and when I told her, she didn’t believe that either. She said I was imagining it. She wouldn’t have believed me about this other man either.

I am in counseling with a therapist who specializes in PTSD. He told me that I need to forgive, not for the rapists, but for me. Only thing is, I don’t know how to do that. I understand the logic behind his words, but that is all I understand.

The man who I babysat for is now 71, he was in his 40s at the time. Some years ago, I called the police and they said there was a statute of limitations and if I reported him, called him out, or in any manner tried to do anything about it now, this man could sue me for slander. There is so much hate and anger in me that I don’t know how to rid myself of it. Realizing that I am only poisoning myself doesn’t help me get rid of the violent emotions inside of me.

Is there some guidepost to forgiveness? Like I told my counselor, I am a great cook and can follow any recipe I find, but forgiveness is ethereal. There seems to be no recipe to follow. I can't grasp it in my hands, look at it, smell it, taste it, mold it, and so I don't know how to do it.

Signed, Feeling Trapped By My Emotional Pain

Dear Feeling Trapped,

First of all, I am so sorry for the pain you’ve had to endure, both in the past and also today. I haven’t lived through your experiences and so I can’t (and don’t want to) pretend that I understand what you’ve gone through. Only someone who has walked in your shoes can truly say “I understand.” It’s clear, though, that the events you describe are horrific. It’s no surprise that trying to heal from all of that is tremendously challenging.

I’m glad you’re working with a therapist, and one who has specialized credentials. I urge you to continue. No doubt you already know this, but just to be clear for anyone who might read this post: Any thoughts that I might offer should never be considered as an alternative to working with a professional. Nonetheless, you’ve asked for my help and I certainly would like to do whatever I can.

If you haven't already done so, I urge you to forgive yourself for whatever guilt you might still have regarding your role in the abuse. You did not cause it ... not ANY of it. There is no behavior that a teenage girl could do that would / should cause any type of abuse to come your way. You didn't invite it and you didn't deserve it, not in any way. None of it was your fault.

You asked about forgiveness. You want to rid yourself of hate and anger and violent emotions. Can someone in your position really decide to ‘forgive’ the hurtful people from your past, and therefore get past those emotions? And what does forgiveness mean in that context?

Some people find the word forgiveness disconcerting because we associate that word with an action directed at the tormentors. The meaning here is that you need to stop hating. You’ve spent so much time and energy on actively feeling the rage. It has consumed far too much of your life. It is horrible that those abusers and rapists ruined your past, so you need to find ways of preventing them from ruining your future as well.

No doubt your therapist has explained that this is not about absolving your abusers of their responsibility for hurting you. By getting past the hate, you are not accepting in any way that what they did is somehow okay. In fact, the process you need to go through has nothing to do with them. It’s all about healing you, and only you.

If I’m reading your letter correctly, the painful emotions have been ever present inside you for around thirty years, or even longer if we consider that you grew up in an abusive home. You’ve endured decades of negative thoughts and feelings. This is not just a set of events you need to get past; your entire lifetime has been characterized by the hate and anger. You’ve been conditioned over and over again to associate emotional pain with your memories. Every time you remember the past and feel the emotional pain, you become even more strongly conditioned to associate one with the other. Feeling the anger is not a choice you make, it’s a conditioned response … and an understandable one given what you have gone through.

I doubt very much if there is a single person on the planet who could get past that type of decades-long conditioning simply by deciding to do so. It would be staggeringly difficult to say, “Okay, as of this moment I won’t be angry at those people anymore.” Our brains just don’t work that way. It takes much more than that do undo the conditioning.

In short, this type of healing is a process, not an event.

The process starts with your decision to let go of the anger. This is a necessary step, but the decision itself is not what will lessen your anger. Instead, that decision is what starts you down the road to accomplishing a longer-term goal.

The fact that you are working with a therapist is a good indication that you have already decided you want this for yourself. I believe you are already on the road, although you may not recognize the signposts, nor where the road can take you.

Can you imagine a day in the future when the rage is gone? Or at least when it is reduced to some manageable level so you can proceed happily with your day? I bet that sounds like a tremendously tough thing to accomplish. After all, your experience so far has been that your anguish is never ending. Not only can’t you see the light at the end of the tunnel, you may not even be convinced that the tunnel HAS an opening at the end. It can be difficult to muster the courage to take the first step when the road ahead looks impossibly long.

So perhaps one way to get started with your healing process is to set a tiny goal that you have a good chance of achieving, and quickly.

What kind of goal? Well what you’re really after is to spend time without rage and hatred in your heart. Any amount of time you can spend like that is a victory. In psychological terms, each time you do that is a conditioning event where you start to associate ‘you’ with happy thoughts, rather than ‘you’ with anger. This is one way to start breaking the old familiar feedback cycle in your mind.

You can think of a conditioned response (your anger) as habitual behavior, which arises when you have certain thoughts. Right now this happens often. I’m sure you would like to reduce the frequency.

I happen to believe we don’t ‘break’ habits. Instead, we replace them with new behaviors. One starting goal you might set for yourself is to engage your mind in a more positive way. The idea is to make it so the negative emotions have no room to live inside you, even if only for a small amount of time. Maybe it’s half an hour. Heck, maybe it’s only five minutes.

The type of positive activity that will be effective for you is as individual as you are. Some people achieve inner peace through meditation or long walks. Others lose themselves in exercise or a creative activity like painting or sculpting. Perhaps talking with your therapist, a good friend or a support group allows you to spend some time basking in the light, keeping the dark at bay. Whatever turns out to work for you, each moment of peace is proof that you can exert some level of control over your situation, even if it is only briefly and even if the control is tenuous.

It’s a start. And we can even do better than that.

I’m going to take an educated guess that self esteem is part of the issue. How could it not be? Ever since you were young you’ve had people demonstrating how unimportant you must be. Your step-father valued a bag of Oreo cookies more than you. That forced your mother to choose which was more important to her, you or him. She chose him. The men who raped and sexually abused you clearly valued their momentary gratification more than your well being. Who could blame you for coming to the inescapable conclusion that you are not worth much?

Well let me tell you – those people were SO wrong. You are every bit as worthy and deserving of happiness as every other person on the planet. It’s important that you start to gain faith in this as part of your emotional healing. You need to recapture the feelings of self worth that those people did their best to steal from you. By discovering how great you really are, you will recover the lost treasure – you will recover yourself!

In my experience, the best way for you to discover how great you are is for others to show how much they appreciate having you in their life. That’s why I suggest you choose your positive activities with one word in mind – giving.

When we give of ourselves, we usually get back much more. I’m betting that will be ultra true for you. Here are some ideas you might consider.

Drop by an old folks home and spend some time reading to the residents. Many dog owners are shut ins, elderly, or workaholics … so take their dog out for some exercise. The next time you’re out with your girlfriend, tell her how glad you are that she is your friend. Help your co-worker meet her deadline, even when (especially when) it’s not your job to do so. Hold a door open for the person behind you.

The possibilities are endless, the opportunities are every day, and the payoffs can be tremendous. The personal satisfaction you gain will momentarily help to crowd out the hate. Each time you hear “Thank you” and “You’re amazing” – well, those kind words will start to erect protective barriers of self esteem. Over time those fences will make it harder and harder for the anger to find its way back in.

So that’s my recipe for forgiveness. Over time, find repeated opportunities to re-learn what an amazing person you are, crowding out the anger as frequently and in as many ways as you can.

Here are a few ingredients that are important for making the recipe work:

• Be patient. Don’t become discouraged if it seems like the process is taking a long time. You’ve spent decades getting to this point, so give yourself permission to spend whatever time it takes to help yourself.
• Don’t try to do it all alone. Look for help wherever you might find it, whether that’s with friends, professionals, books, online, wherever. Make use of whatever seems to work for you.
• Recognize that partial victories are still victories. Finding yourself angry from time to time doesn’t mean you are failing. If you can eventually hold the pain at bay enough so it’s manageable, that is still a huge victory.
• Expect to go through peaks and valleys. Don’t let the dark days convince you that the good days will never return.
• Celebrate your victories, no matter how small. Use them to help motivate you that gradual success is not only possible, it is inevitable!

On that last point, here’s one thing you really need to understand: You’ve already achieved several victories! Despite the tremendous hardships you’ve gone through, you’ve survived and become a person with some obviously strong life skills. You were able to recognize and admit your challenges, form a goal to find help, identify and obtain appropriate professional help, listen to and really hear his advice, and work hard to find a way to implement the advice. You communicate well and you’re clearly a problem solver. And I’m sure I’ve only scratched the surface.

I can assure you of this – you’ve already begun the process of healing and you’ve already achieved some significant victories. Take heart in that and keep going.

Again, I am so sorry for what you’ve had to endure. It is definitely possible to re-gain your happiness, and it sounds like you’re doing the right things to get there. Please know that at least one person in the universe is pulling hard for you to do exactly that!

All the best,
Andrew

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Self-Esteem Affects How You View Your Partner

Did you know that people with low self-esteem tend to see their partners differently than those who feel more secure about themselves? Apparently people with low self-confidence often think of their partners as either virtually all good or all bad, depending on how well things are going between the two of them at the time. In the good times, their spouse is a saint. During the tougher times ... well, that's why many people have a doghouse. This is just one of the ways self-esteem can affect your relationships. For the rest of the story, check out this article by Dr. Deborah Serani.

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Dismaying Story #4: Her Insecurity Blanket

Dear Andrew,

I have been offered a fantastic new job with a higher salary than I have ever made. When I got home and told my wife, though, she was upset because the job involves being out of town with the sales team a few days each month. She came up with all sorts of reasons why I shouldn't take the job, like, "Do you really want to be away from the kids that much?" It's only a few days a month and I miss that much family time because of the overtime for my current job anyway. She talked about how much harder life would be for her and how she would miss me. She even said she was

worried I would meet some other woman when I was out of town, which is ridiculous. I would never do anything like that. In fact, I would have thought she'd be glad for me to take the new job -- she never has liked the fact that I have a pretty, young secretary where I work now.

She just kept coming up with one roadblock after another and to be honest, I can't see how any of them would result in significant problems if I took the job. Nothing I said seemed to make her feel any better, though. How can I get her to understand this job is really important to me?

Signed: Anxious to Get Started

Dear Anxious,

When someone's behavior doesn't seem to make sense, it often means we don't understand the true underlying reasons. My educated guess (which is all I can provide based on a letter) is that your wife does not object to the new job or the travel per se. Rather, this seems to be a fear reaction. What is she afraid of? I think she told you; she said she is afraid of losing you, that you will have an affair. She is expressing insecurity over your relationship.

This might seem to you like a strange or extreme way of expressing this fear. Why should she worry more about your marriage just because you'll be out of town once in a while? After all, you say you would never do that sort of thing in any circumstance, and plenty of people have affairs without ever leaving the city. It turns out that fears are not necessarily logical creatures. They can get in our minds, root around in the dark corners and have us imagining all sorts of dire consequences, even if those consequences are unlikely to actually occur. Regardless of how it seems to you, though, I suspect your wife's fears are very real to her.

You can likely verify this hypothesis by thinking back over conversations the two of you have had. Does she ever wonder out loud why you (or anyone else) would love someone like her? Does she think of herself as physically unattractive in any way? Does she talk about her own (real or imagined) character flaws? For example, she might describe herself as high maintenance or hard to get along with. Does she express jealousy or insecurity about situations that seem to you rather benign? You already mentioned one such situation in your letter, with your secretary. Does she tend to react strongly to criticism? The reaction could take any of several forms – anger, feeling down, and so on – but a strong reaction to criticism can be a sign of shaky self-esteem. Stated the opposite way, a person who is very secure in their own self worth may be affected less by someone else's opinions.

If this is ringing any bells, there are several things you can try. First, you should avoid adding fuel to the fire. Now that you are aware of her emotional hot buttons, be especially careful about doing anything that would validate her insecurities. Some men find it natural and comfortable to joke and mildly flirt with other women. You should avoid any hint of this. If you need to meet with your secretary, do so at your workplace in plain sight of others. Forget taking her to a working lunch, regardless of how convenient that might be or how innocent the purpose of the meeting. Be careful not to put your wife down in any way, even if you think you are "only teasing." Few of us are able to handle teasing well if the topic happens to coincide with an insecurity.

Second, go out of your way to reassure your wife. Don't assume she knows that you love her, that you will never leave her, that having an affair is something you would never do regardless of the circumstance or temptation. Tell her, straight out without mincing words or beating around the bush. Do it today and on an ongoing basis. Look her straight in the eye and tell her with all the sincerity you can muster that you and she are going to last for all time. More than anything, this may be the step that will help her feel better about your relationship in general, and about your potential new job in particular. Ask her if you have ever done anything to make her worry about your marriage. Given the fear she has expressed, she will likely say yes. Apologize for giving her that impression, even if you don't feel you did anything wrong. Remember, this is all about emotions and impressions. If she perceives a problem and your apology could help, then provide it, without reservation.

Finally, many couples find valuable help for these types of challenges by consulting with a third-party professional such as a counselor or psychologist.

Sincerely,
Andrew

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