Sorry for the long post… been reading a lot of the posts here and just want to start out by saying "thank you". Great stuff that has opened my eyes to a lot of things that may have led to the point where I am, right now, in my marriage and things I need to do to change.

Unfortunately, I may be one of those that let it go too far for too long. I may not be able to bring my marriage back to what it once was, and I am, basically, asking for some advice on my current situation.

Background: Me? 44, waited till I was 39 to get married. Wife? 43… this is her second. She has two daughters from her previous marriage. Together we have 1 daughter who is now 4.

Soon after we got married, things started to get bad. She was constantly questioning my judgment and criticizing things I do and she would criticize others but only to me. She also would not allow me to discipline/correct my step-daughters or would not allow me to have a say in their activities… If I would get into it with my oldest step-daughter, she would come to their rescue. Also, she would spend a lot of time trash talking her ex… not just to me… but to her daughters as well. There was always a double standard… She might bring up an ex or something and start talking about him, but, when I did it, all hell would break loose.

In the beginning, I would tell her everything… where I was going, when I was going to be home, what I had to buy, personal goals, etc… I would also share work stories with her, and ask her opinion on things… But, after a few times of me divulging something to her and it coming up in a marriage counselling sessions, completely out of context and really just sounding bad, I stopped. An example of that was when my father passed away… I told her that there were some things that, at the end of my dad's life, bothered me about his behavior. She told the marriage counselor that I didn’t like my father and said I never wanted to be like him…. Not the same thing at all.

When we would argue, she always won… I look back now and, knowing what I know now, from a lot of what I have read here, I should never have engaged in arguments with her. Especially when I saw the "rationalization hamster" start going… she would take things out of context, accuse me of saying something I didn’t, or somehow turn the argument into about something else that I had no defense for (i.e. raising my voice). She would record our arguments once it escalated to a point where she had pissed me off.

She almost always would get her way… if she didn’t, she would make everyone in the family miserable… one time, she wanted to go see Christmas lights after a long day of shopping at the mall. Everyone was tired and just wanted to go home, so, she started to try to manipulate my youngest step-daughter, saying that she had said earlier that she wanted to go and now she was backing out… then she said that the little one, who was 3, REALLY wanted to go… and when myself and my oldest step-daughter said we were really tired and just wanted to go home, she stopped talking to everyone and then, later, told me that she hates it when people say they are going to do something and then don’t and that I told her I would take her to see lights (which I had not). She spent a few days not talking to me and then brought it up to a marriage counselor.

Most of the time, I gave in to whatever she wanted to avoid conflict… But, over the last couple of years, I stopped putting up with it as much… that’s when things started to get really bad.

We've been to four different marriage counselors. In the course of sessions with marriage counselors, I have heard it all… She has accused me of an "inappropriate" relationship with my step-daughters soccer coach, not texting her enough during the day, never doing anything alone with her, always doing what I want to do, having anger issues, victim of molestation (long story that she fabricated based on something I told her about when I was a kid that SHE turned into "he was molested"), victim of depression… and the list goes on and on. I won't go into details about the marriage counselors, but, while seeing the third one, my wife brought out a letter she had written about her concerns and observations of me… on it was a bunch of sh*t about my father and mother, the thing about "he was molested", stuff about my step-daughters being scared of me and that I am responsible for my youngest step-daughter's insecurities, and a lot of stuff that was either "half-truths" but missing important information, or stuff that was taken "out of context". And, the last marriage counselor just sent my wife home last week with some information on "paranoid personality disorder" and told her to give it to me. This was after I had told him, and my wife, that I was no longer coming to counseling.

At the time I stopped going to the counseling, it was then that I started lurking on this subreddit and it has opened my eyes to a lot of sh*t. For the past 5 years, any time my wife wanted something and didn’t get it, she would make everyone miserable until she got it… if she didn’t get it, she would provoke me until I raised my voice or got angry and then she would shift the focus to how I lost my temper… she would record me yelling at her, and then go to the marriage counselor and say "see? He is broken… there is something wrong with him." But, it was convenient to leave out the preceeding stuff to me yelling… her provoking… poking the bear…

Over the last couple of weeks, I've started making some changes to my behavior… I am no longer asking her if I can work late… I no longer ask her if I can go have a beer with my co-workers… If I am going to work on something around the house, I don’t make sure it doesn’t mess with something else she wanted me to do, first. If I want to study, I tell her, I am going to study…. I don’t ask her anymore. I started working out every morning.

Needless to say, this is not going over well. This morning she demanded an apology for the way I spoke to her and the girls about a movie they took the little one to last night that I thought would probably give her nightmares. I was a little toasty from a work happy hour thing I had gone too, so I am not 100% sure of all I said, so, I did apologize to my youngest step-daughter because she said I was being really "obnoxious" about it… but, my wife, after just demanding an apology without telling me what I was apologizing for, and not getting it, finally told me that I was "nasty" to her and the girls and that I moved a bunch of stuff off of the dresser and put it in a jewelry box where it doesn’t belong and that I wouldn’t answer her when she asked me questions… I told her that I was sorry if I was obnoxious about the movie thing… but, that was all I was apologizing for… She tried to continue to prod and poke and I told her it was time to move on to another topic and she needed to let it go. She then brought up that she saw that I had opened a new bank account… She said she felt like I was hiding stuff from her and she started to ask me questions about what my intention was … I explained to her that, from since before we were married, she has had a separate bank account and she had never put me on it, for one, and, that I had told her that I wasn’t happy about not having a say in the girls activities so, I was going to start having my paycheck go into the new account, and then I would contribute what I felt was appropriate, to the girls activities.

At that point, she started to get nasty and that is when she brought out the paper with the info about "paranoid personality disorder". She says "I started thinking back to how things were and when they changed and, when you were diagnosed with ADHD and started taking Adderall, that that’s when things started to change… " I am fuming at this point… all I can think is "this person has lost her mind… ", but, I kept reminding myself to stay calm… I let her go on for about a minute more and finally I just said "you know… I really can't listen to this… I am going to go somewhere and study… you started the conversation with "we need to decide what we are going to do…" and , I think you should use this time to think about what you want to do instead of trying figure out a way to somehow make me the reason for all of our problems… it really sounds like you are unhappy in this marriage…. "

If anybody out there has any words of wisdom or advice… words of encouragement… I sure would appreciate it… The thought of being away from my daughter scares the hell out of me. But, I have a feeling we are at the point of no return.

Sorry, again, for the long post.