Despairing of My Partner, Yet Ultimately Saved — More Than a Decade of Hell Spent Learning Who We Were
“You can quit your job now.”
I wrote in Chapter 2, Section 3 that it was these words from my partner that led me to take sick leave. Some readers may have taken them as the words of a supportive and understanding partner.
The reality was the complete opposite.
For more than a decade—from our marriage until I finally took sick leave—I lived at the mercy of my partner’s moods and behaviour. My mind and body were worn down, until I felt like a piece of cloth that had been used up and discarded.
I considered giving up on the marriage many times. I even went to the local government office and picked up the divorce papers. Yet each time, I stopped at the last moment and never filled them out. Before making such an irreversible decision, I could not shake the feeling that there might still be something I myself could do.
The period of rest became a turning point for us.
After leaving work, I found that I was able, little by little, to let my partner’s excessive behaviour pass without reacting to it. I believe this was because I finally had some emotional room to breathe.
Advice I received through regular appointments with a psychiatrist, together with what I learned through reading, also helped. I tried to change how I engaged with my partner—not by reasoning with them, but by not taking everything head-on, and by allowing their words and actions to pass through without resistance.
It was also fortunate that the long-standing problems within my family of origin, which had troubled me for years, began to settle down.
These changes in me seemed, gradually, to prompt changes in my partner as well. Their emotions became more stable than before, and they began, little by little, to look back on their own upbringing and inner life.
Even now, my partner sometimes flies into a rage over trivial matters. But these episodes are less frequent than they used to be, and they seem to be slowly gaining a sense of calm.
That said, living with my partner felt like living inside a lion’s cage. On top of that came the weight of my responsibilities at work and the problems within my family of origin. There was no place—at home or outside—where I could truly let my guard down.
Still, this was not my partner’s responsibility alone. As I will explain below, my partner, too, had been burdened with a complex and difficult upbringing—circumstances they had no power to change by themselves.
Now, I am glad that we did not separate. But why did we need to take such a long detour? At present, my answer is this: we both needed time to gain life experience.
Looking back, I realise that I myself did not fully understand the wounds my partner carried. In that sense, we may have been more alike than I had realised.
It is also true that when I lost my job shortly after we married, my partner supported me both emotionally and financially. When work overwhelmed me, they took on all the household responsibilities. Despite the turmoil, there were many moments in which I was undeniably supported.
Many people struggle in their relationships with their partners. Some choose to part ways. For a long time, I, too, lived in a state where it would not have been surprising if I had collapsed at any moment.
I believe we managed to continue because there was always, somewhere, a small reserve of hope—just enough to keep despair at bay. It took more than a decade before I was finally able to put that source of hope into words.
The Burdens My Partner Carried — Toxic Parents, Faith, and Inherited Circumstances
Almost as soon as we began living together after marriage, I found myself increasingly unsettled by my partner’s everyday behaviour. Their way of thinking and acting was distinctive in a way I had never sensed before we married.
Whenever I tried to express my confusion, my partner would respond with an intensely hostile expression—almost ferocious—yet, strangely, with tears streaming down their face as they argued back forcefully. Their eyes would widen, and they seemed possessed by something beyond themselves. To me, they looked like a completely different person.
The aggression in those reactions, the anger embedded in their words, and the raw, almost animal intensity of their presence left me stunned and at a loss for words.
They would become so emotionally charged that there was no room for dialogue, pressing forward relentlessly with harsh language as if trying to overpower me. When this happened repeatedly, I sometimes found myself, despite the unfairness, slipping into the thought: “Perhaps I was the one at fault.”. Looking back now, I think I may have been close to being psychologically dominated through fear.
As our life together continued, I gradually came to understand that my partner’s parents, too, seemed misaligned with the wider society. I do not know the precise definition of what people commonly call “toxic parents”, but that is how they felt to me.
They were also followers of a relatively new religious movement. In that sense, my partner could be described as a second-generation adherent.
I had been told about this faith before we married, but at the time it did not trouble me. I had no intention of criticising belief itself, nor did I have any particular knowledge of or interest in new religious movements.
Later, my partner also told me something I had not known before: their mother had, when she was young, attended a welfare facility for people with intellectual disabilities.
This is only my own interpretation, not a professional assessment, but I believe that such an upbringing may have influenced the formation of my partner’s personality.
My Partner’s View of Others and a Lack of Empathy — Inner Struggles Revealed After Marriage
Before we married, my partner did not appear to carry any deep inner difficulties. If anything, I thought of them as emotionally reserved and straightforward.
After marriage, however, that same simplicity began to take on a different tone in the small, everyday moments of life together. There were many times when I found myself wishing for just a little more kindness or consideration.
“I don’t like people.”
I began to hear these words from my partner with surprising frequency in daily life. It seemed likely that this outlook on others lay somewhere deep within them. Even now, as their emotional state has gradually stabilised, this basic disposition appears largely unchanged.
“I don’t understand how people feel.”
This was another phrase I heard often. If this was truly how they experienced the world, it explained certain aspects of their behaviour. They would sometimes say things without sensing the atmosphere of the moment—remarks that left those around them uneasy. Only later did I come to realise that they themselves may have been overwhelmed by their own emotions.
Seen from that perspective, it is perhaps unsurprising that the rational arguments I tried to offer never reached them. From their point of view, it must have felt as though my values were being imposed on them from one side only.
I later learned that this kind of value-imposing, dismissive attitude was exactly how my partner had been treated by their parents. When I consider the possibility that I may have been repeating the same pattern, I cannot shake a lingering sense of regret—for not having understood them more deeply.
