u/Actual-Mark-6291

I'm wondering if other people experience this as well. I am mid 30s so a lot of this happened almost 20 years ago now. My parents were extremely abusive and I told many adults, but no one who had any power to do anything believed me. And the one therapist who believed my sister refused to report the abuse to DCF because he didn't want to cross my mom.

My mom is dead now so in some part the pain of her abuse is receding. But I'm so hurt everyday by how the other adults left me helpless and in many cases made things worse.

My wife and are mid 30s. We have a very loving, supportive relationship. That being said, she often (or at least it seems noticeable) has emotional outbursts.

For example, we were making some cards online and she couldn’t find the design she wanted. I wanted to show her an idea but she seemed to spiral about how the design wasn‘t what she had expected and then got angry at me when I tried to take the computer to show her a different way that might work. Or I dried the some clothes but some sheets were still wet, so I hung it over the shower so it could fully air out. She got upset because she ‘didn‘t want to come home to see the bathroom looking like that‘.

Recently she‘s been trying to work less and took the afternoon off. I came home from work and we were sitting in bed talking. At one point, I started to get a little tired and stopped talking. She got really upset that I wasn‘t talking to her and that she‘d been alone all day and was lonely. I understand what she meant that she was lonely, but I was also tired and just happened to not be speaking at that point. It seemed out of nowhere and I didn‘t know how to respond.

She‘s struggled with depression for a while but I‘ve been realizing that her outburst are very draining on me for a day or two after they happen. Has anyone with an emotionally dysregulated spouse? How did you handle it?

My mom was a truly vicious, miserable person who did everything possible to destroy my sister and I. All the while my father did nothing and played the victim/bystander/enabler.

My mom died recently and even though we told him we could have a relationship with him after our mom died, my dad has not reached out. Instead he's getting married to one of my mom's former colleagues.

We always held out hope he was different. It feels so terrible to be abandoned like this. But it's also a fact that if the enabler actually cared, they would have protected you in the first place.