Hello RPChristians,

I've married about 8 months and it looks like we're probably getting divorced. I've talked with mentors, pastors, counselors , but I'm starting to think I'm being gaslighted at this point. I'll try to keep as short as possible, but I appreciate anyone who reads it all and gives their opinion.

About me: Age 32. Before I was married I was 5'9" about 180', 425 bench, 565 deadlift. Now 220, 365 bench, 450 deadlift, the weight gain is my fault, but my strength down mostly due to training BJJ instead of lifting as much. Lots of daddy issues growing up. Listen to a lot of Stephan Molyneux and I agree with his DeFOO and a couple years ago I told my parents I don't want to be in the family anymore and moved across the country, though I did let them fly out and spend a weekend to meet my wife. Been "RP" for maybe a decade or so, read most of the stuff on the side bar and lots of other stuff as well.

After about a month of marriage things started to go bad. At this point I acknowledge that it was mostly my fault as I was pushing her away due to a lot of the family abandonment issues I had growing up. I told her I loved her and I would seek counseling for the behavior and be try to be conscious of it. Since then she has been pushing me away too. For example, I planned dates and she would cancel them at the last minute to do something else, or she'll sometimes stay out until she comes home too tired to do anything but go to bed. Or she'll refuse to keep a sleep schedule so we can see each other in the morning, and sometimes sleeps 10-11 hours or more leaving no time together on most evening weekdays.

I've talked with my mentors, pastor, counselor several times, sometimes alone and sometimes and a couple, and and it has now I've started to think I'm being gaslighted. Every conversation is the same. My wife lists some things I did, then they ask me or tell me what I could have done differently, I agree, come up with suggestion on doing things differently (an example is I don't like to talk when I'm upset, and my wife said that if I just say I can't talk right now and ask for 5 minutes to cool off and then we'll).

All of that seems normal conflict resolution from what I can tell, but when I bring up something I'd like my wife to do different (for example, when she's upset she'll raise her voice or storm out of the house in a huff instead of telling me how she's feeling), then I start getting all the speeches about "marriage isn't about keeping score" and "you need to chase after her" and "you need to be the strong one".

I understand there is an element of truth to those statements, but I don't understand how me simply not wanting to be yelled at equates to "keeping score", or how "chasing after her" means that anytime she yells and leaves the room or storms out of the house because she doesn't want to talk means that I need to go apologize and ask her to come back home, or how "being the strong one" means I need to take whatever emotional abuse she dishes out and never get an apology or some kind of indication she wants to change the behavior.

I can go into more specifics if that helps, but that's really what it comes down to from my perspective. Every time we talk to resolve conflicts we can never get to a point where we both come up with things to do to improve, it's always just me being the one needing to do things differently. I'm willing to admit that I might be most of the problem, but I certainly do not bear 100% of the blame. It has gotten to the point now where she and the mentors have basically implied I'm the problem, and I need to make all the changes, and if she's unresponsive and doesn't feel like participating in the relationship on some days then that's somehow my fault too and I should just be grateful she hasn't divorced me already.

Like I said, at this point I think I'm being gaslighted, but I wanted some MarriedRP opinions. Do you agree, or do you think I should stay in the marriage and accept more responsibility for the state it is in?