She is concerned that this 3400 sqft house isn’t going to have enough oxygen to sustain the three of us. Keeping the doors/windows closed with AC on is going to give us recycled air, which is very bad for you. The only time she’ll ever do that is if she feels very hot. Same thing when driving. Even if you turn on AC, she’ll have her window cracked open to let in that sweet hot air to feel that fresh air. Doesn’t matter you press the button to let in outside air. She doesn’t believe in them. She only believes in fresh air straight out the window.
Thank you for the perspective. Truly appreciate it. I actually didn’t expect this community to even get any views or comments. Just made this to vent out and sort of keep a record of things, to remind myself if I forget. I’m astonished you picked up on the username and gave me advice.
My wife is not the willing to change anything type, and she doesn’t even agree with naming things (ocd, adhd, etc.) Doesn’t believe in them. Thinks doctors just label normal behavior to make money. I have an undiagnosed adhd (I think, another thing she makes fun of me for) that makes things harder to handle. I can get extremely depressed one minute thinking about all this, and then might distract myself with something else and feel normal again the next minute. Along with my daughter, my life is even more complicated by me being here on a visa. If I decide to ‘free myself’, I would have to do it back at my country, and my daughter can’t stay here anymore on my visa (she’ll probably get custody because of how young my daughter is), so I’ll either have to pack everything up and rebuild my life from scratch in my country, or resign to seeing my daughter only once a year.
I have found that stoicism helped me a lot. I used to feel suicidal after a big fight, but these days I kind of take it as a fact of life that I can’t change.
I’ll read the two books you linked. Hope they give me some ways to turn my life around instead of just being able to cope with it without killing myself.
I’m really sorry, that’s a wrinkle I’d never even thought of, (being on a visa). I can’t imagine how difficult/stressful that must be. I’m not an expert by any means, my knowledge is really just limited to what’s in those two books, but, from what I understand your wife not believing in them isn’t that uncommon for people with either disorder - luckily I think both books suggest that doesn’t mean there’s no hope. I however was lucky, my spouse has been willing to work on it, and I have to believe it would have been so much harder if she had been one to dismiss them, I’m so sorry that you have to go through that.
It’s awesome that stoicism has helped, at least you seem to have it in you to adapt to what sounds like a really bad situation, I hope that continues to serve you well. If you ever want someone to vent to, feel free to send me a message - I know personally I felt like there was no one I could vent to that would get it and that was miserable.
I’ve started listening to your recommendation on eggshells, and it’s so far bang on. I’m hoping to hear some solutions down the line. Thank you for that book.