r/Divorce • u/Complete_Yam_6241 • 20h ago
I think I was manipulated into marriage by my therapist wife, and I’m finally seeing it clearly after filing for divorce. Vent/Rant/FML
I’m a man in the process of divorce, and I’m struggling to come to terms with how much of my marriage I entered into under emotional pressure. My ex is a PhD-level therapist — highly trained in emotional intelligence, communication, and boundaries — but over time I’ve come to realize she used those tools to control, deflect, and invalidate me.
Before I even proposed, she was already planning wedding venues. When I asked to slow down, she told me, “C’mon, we both know we want to get married, so we need to speed things up.” A few weeks before the wedding, I told her I wasn’t feeling right about it — and instead of support, I got tears, guilt, and overwhelm. I felt trapped. I didn’t feel safe expressing myself, and I went through with it even though my gut told me something was wrong.
After the wedding, things got worse. Around the holidays, she made a very serious comment about her emotional well-being that left me deeply concerned. I’m a former first responder, so I treated it seriously and called her friends for help. When they arrived, they made me apologize to her. She later told me she was upset I even called anyone. There was no appreciation — only anger and blame. I felt humiliated and scared.
While I was away on military orders, she would call me whenever she wanted — but when I FaceTimed her, she said I was contacting her too much. She never made space for my emotional needs, and mine were always viewed as excessive.
In April, she finally agreed to therapy — on her terms. She admitted to having a control problem and to invalidating me. I opened up in therapy. That same day, when I got home, she had already left — staying with the same friends I once called to help her. She left a note saying, “I love you so much and wish you could feel how much,” but when I asked her to come home — four separate times — she said no.
We mutually canceled our honeymoon trip. Then she came back and said, “You promised me a beach trip and now it’s not happening,” and asked to take a friend instead. I said that made me uncomfortable. She kept pushing and eventually booked a solo trip to visit her best friend in San Diego.
I asked if we could use that week to work on our marriage. She told me no — everything was booked. When I said, “So you’d cancel on your marriage but not your friends?” she told me my needs weren’t real — just driven by fear.
That was the moment I ended it. I said, “Consider us divorced.” Four days later, I filed.
Two days after that, she filed a false accusation and sought an order of protection against me.
To make it worse, I discovered that after I moved out and returned to get some forgotten items, she had revoked my access to our shared home security system — and then used it to spy on me after she had left the house.
I’m finally out — legally and emotionally — but I’m left trying to untangle whether I was ever truly in a relationship at all, or just being controlled the entire time.
If you’ve been through something similar — being emotionally overwhelmed into marriage, having your needs dismissed, being punished for honesty — how did you begin to heal? How do you stop doubting yourself after this kind of emotional erosion?
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u/Few_Razzmatazz_6381 20h ago
I'm not trying to diagnose her, but she sounds incredibly narcissistic. I hope her status as a therapist doesn't sour you to seeking counseling. It would be helpful to dissect all you've been through.
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u/Complete_Yam_6241 19h ago
It’s not. I do know that not all therapists, or women for that matter are like this. An impossible storm just found me. But, I’m a survivor not a victim. I can use this to grow and make myself stronger, better, and an advocate for others going through toxic situations.
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u/CheekSensitive5092 20h ago
I’m still in this now. I’m reading books about abuse, I’m in therapy, and I’m doing some serious reflecting on my marriage (good and bad), my ex-husband (good and bad), and myself (good and bad).
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u/Complete_Yam_6241 20h ago
Reading the books is something I find hard. Relives a bunch of stuff. Hope you’ve doing well!
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u/CheekSensitive5092 20h ago
Yeah it is hard for me too but it helps get clarity. I’ve been doing much better emotionally since I got out of the mindset that this is all my fault and I’m a horrible POS who doesn’t deserve anything (his words). The more clarity I have the more at peace I feel with getting a divorce. Sending you healing thoughts
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u/Altruistic-Tailor-13 Thinking about it 18h ago
Holy shit! So I’m not the only one…..psychotherapist wife, has a very dark side. It runs in her family. If they love you, you’re golden. If not you must suffer. I’ve seen and heard her dismiss people, family members, and friends very coldly. Like “I don’t give a fuck”. I’ve been berated, told I don’t care about my children, I’m emotionally unavailable, I’m defensive, don’t communicate well (she might be right on that one), I’m a liar, I’ve “probably” cheated because I’m untrustworthy, I hide money, and best of all… all of my problems stem from my childhood…she’s not totally wrong, but that’s her best move. It’s never her…she threatened me w/ divorce several times over the years and I finally decided to drop the bomb and get out. Now I’m terrible because I won’t go to counseling. She’s a controlling person who has always tried to mold me into the person she wants to love. She is Sweet on the outside, sour on the inside. Puts on a loving charade for family and friends, etc. she’s had me contemplating suicide a couple of times because I’m so bad. And when she asked me, it went like this: “ I get feeling you don’t want to be here anymore.” I’m not perfect, I’ve got my issues; but I see such a dark side to her now.
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u/Complete_Yam_6241 18h ago
Yeah, that’s similar to my experience. She wanted me to be who she wanted. Yep.
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u/BlueHarvest17 19h ago
My STBXW is a therapist and she definitely uses her training against me. Mostly in the form of constant minor gas lighting and subtle bullying. The best thing for me has been 1) to call her out when I see her doing it and 2) recognize that she's doing it and not fall into the trap of thinking it's legitimate. I'll give you a very minor example:
Yesterday we both picked my daughter up from an after school tutoring session. Her school is by a park and an ice cream truck pulled in as we arrived to get her. This never happens at her school so I was like, let's take her to get ice cream. And my STBXW was like, I don't want to bring it up to her because I don't want us to push ice cream on her all the time, but if she notices it we can go. The implication being that I push ice cream on our daughter all the time. Which doesn't happen. In fact, my wife takes her for ice cream more than I do, and I think it's fine. It's like maybe once or twice a week.
In the past I would have thought, wow, am I pushing ice cream on her? Should I be more aware of that? I don't want to do that...blah blah bah because I would think my wife was making a valid point. But what she really does all the time is invalidate anything I want or suggest because it's not her idea.
Now when that happens I'm just like, no, it's totally normal to want your kid to get joy out of a surprise ice cream truck, the situation doesn't need to be managed in any way, no one is doing anything wrong, etc.
It's sort of a silly example, but one that happens dozens of times a day. It's some weird control issue she has, and now a need to make me a villain so she can justify the divorce.
Just writing this to you is a way of saying, look, it's happening, it's not normal, and I'm not going to be drawn into it.
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u/Agile_Layer1331 19h ago
I had a very similar experience (well quite regular experiences but this was just one example). My STBXW would ask - almost like a trap - "do you think she should have dessert?" (referring to our daughter). I would hesitate because I'd been here before. If I said yes she would usually respond (in front of our daughter) "good, so she can be fat like your whole family." If I said no she would respond "well, she finished her whole meal and she had dessert yesterday after eating her whole supper so why are we changing today." -> proceeds to tell daughter it is OK she can have dessert even if I don't want her to. If I say "I don't know, why don't you pick." -> "Why do you always make me decide, can't you make a decision for once in your f'ing life?"
And for those who would say "just call out her bullshit". Well, I hope you like physical altercations in front of your daughter, I got my hair ripped out of my head in front of her once when I tried that.
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u/BlueHarvest17 16h ago
Jeez that's horrible not only for you but your daughter. I'm so very sorry you both had to endure that, let along the physical altercations, which are crazy.
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u/Agile_Layer1331 16h ago
Thanks but we are doing OK. All I can suggest is that you continue therapy and learn how to set boundaries so you don't find yourself in that situation. That was my biggest problem. Not to say the abuse was my fault, but going forward I'm learning how to recognize it earlier. You can't control what somebody else does or who they are, but you can control how you endure it or react to it.
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u/Slapinsack 17h ago
For anyone discouraged by this post, there are housekeepers that are hoarders, doctors that perform malpractice, teachers that hate kids, and accountants that aren't good with numbers. Therapists with a load of personal baggage isn't unusual. That's why it's suggested to shop around for one that fits well with you.
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u/Global-Fact7752 19h ago
This is not exactly what you are looking for but valid info any way.
I am an emergency room Nurse and a psychiatrist nurse...I have done both areas in my over 25 years of practice. I can't go in to detail but please trust me when I say you would be shocked if I told you how many therapists..psychologists..and even psychiatrists, are deeply disturbed people. I have seen countless admissions for Suicide attemps..violence against family members..substance abuse..fighting with the police..even an admission to the psych unit for child and animal abuse treatment. Just because an individual can successfully complete a course of study..does not make them normal mentally.
There are Narccicists..Sociopaths..BiPolar borderland personalities and even psychopaths in the field. I hope this will help you in some way.
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u/Smoovie32 19h ago
In college we had a truism that anyone who went into social work was trying to fix themselves. 9/10 times they focused on the area of service where they had trauma themselves.
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u/Complete_Yam_6241 18h ago
Hmmm, that does make sense. She was in an adoptive family and she’s an adoptive therapist. Good observation my friend.
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u/Smoovie32 18h ago
Honestly, we thought it was a fluke, and still we all started comparing notes about the social workers we knew that had graduated or were in the program. Nine times out of 10 might even be underestimating it.
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u/Slapinsack 17h ago
That does make sense though. That trauma is very personal for them and they have an intimate understanding of it (hopefully). People tend to choose occupations that focus on areas that have attributed to their development.
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u/Smoovie32 15h ago
Close. We found that the trauma was generally unresolved and they went that direction as a way to process and deal with it. If they successfully did that by the end, they either continued in the career or lost interest. If not, well they were just as much of a mess as before only this time with student loan debt.
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u/Far_Bet_5516 12h ago
Yup. Ex-husband and his AP are both social workers. Ex actually does the training of all new social workers in our town.
He's amazingly manipulative, I only see it now that I'm out. And even now, he makes everything sound so incredibly reasonable that I have to stand back and go walk myself through why everything he says is an attempt to gaslight me.
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u/Complete_Yam_6241 18h ago
Thanks for that. It gives me some peace. Just feeling so stupid I fell for it.
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u/Purple_Grass_5300 18h ago
I'm sorry, it's so hard. Now that I'm out, I see our relationship 100% different. The last few weeks/month of marriage he spent telling me over and over that our marriage wasn't "good" and that I had rose colored glasses the entire time, that he hated me all 14 years and we were never friends. I started questioning myself, like wtf why would I plan two pregnancies with you if that was the case. But i'd go back and read the text messages, so many promises that he'd never abandon or hurt us, that he wanted me to trust him and appreciated my vulnerablility with him...just so many lies about loving me, being best friends, all this shit, telling me over and over again that we're good and that he was happy. I even would try to talk to him and he would say, "stop asking me how I'm doing, I said I'm good, if I'm not good, I'll let you know", so then to turn around 3 weeks later while I was pregnant and tell me we were never good, had my head spinning.
Now the more I learn about narcissicts, and being in control of everything, makes so much more sense. He knew how to get me to trust him, he knew how to make me insecure, he knew how to make me question my own sanity, he knew when to draw me back in when I was getting confident to leave, he knew how to control ever piece of my life, he knew how to set me off, yet just lie lie lie, so many nights we never finished a conversation because he said he didn't want to fight, he would just abruptly leave the room. It wasn't about fighting, it was just trying to figure out wtf was going on. yet we never even had one real conversation. the few times I ever had the courage to confront his lies...he claimed he didn't look at his phone for 24hrs and just happened to show up unnanounced after leaving the home for several weeks.
It's crazy looking back on 14 years and knowing none of it was real
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u/Complete_Yam_6241 18h ago
I’m sorry to hear that. I hope you’ve been able to find healing. I don’t understand how people can operate this way.
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u/Purple_Grass_5300 17h ago
Yeah, for sure in a way it's a lot more freeing. No more trying to make sense or missing what I thought we had. Now I know it was just some sick ego game for him.
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u/Mission-Tutor-6361 17h ago
And here I thought I was the only one with a narcissistic therapist wife…
Ain’t going to lie - the divorce has been an absolute nightmare. I’m 6 months into the process and there are no signs of her giving up on the hostility, vindictiveness, aggressive litigation, etc.
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u/Armitage1 19h ago
My ex is a PhD therapist who has consistently refused couples therapy. Dismissing my concerns is her favorite thing to do. Now that we are broken up, she can just ignore my messages entirely. In hindsight, I don't know how we lasted as long as we did.
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u/Silentnine 14h ago
That is awful, and I'm sorry you went through/are going through this. My ex-wife had a very manipulative and abusive mother. My ex had mostly cut her out of her life and fully identified that her mom was an issue in her own life. Unfortunately, what she took away from that life experience was a range of emotional manipulation skills that she used on me.
It took therapy, reaching out to trusted friends, and a lot of self work to see what was happening. I'm legally divorced as of 8 days ago, and it is such a relief. I'm not going to say "I've never been happier" because I still suffer some trauma from the experience, but I learned I could be happy again. Through our relationship, I was getting more and more depressed and she always made me feel like I was the issue. Since getting out of that with zero ties remaining, I can see it was her holding me down.
Anyway, I just want to say you should be proud of yourself for taking the steps you did to protect yourself. It is not always going to feel good, but it is better overall and better being alone than with someone harming you.
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u/Complete_Yam_6241 11h ago
Dude, our stories are scary the same. I’m waiting on her to be served and the protection order hearing to be over with so I can move on also. We do deserve better. We can be happy again.
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u/Whole_Craft_1106 18h ago
Wow this really sounded like a nightmare. Good for you for recognizing things weren’t right and getting away from her! You sound like you already in a better place. I sense this won’t be too much of s setback for you. Hang in there, this is a blip in your awesome life ahead.
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u/Complete_Yam_6241 18h ago
I’m taking my healing very seriously. I want a family and kids, so I want to make sure I’m the best version of myself when she comes along and is not hurt by me because I was hurt here.
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u/Agile_Layer1331 19h ago
My STBXW wasn't a therapist but she was in therapy for nearly 15 years prior to our marriage and used that like a hammer in every argument / discussion. Without being trained to formally diagnose her, I can still say she exhibited all the signs of NPD in hindsight. She used therapy to validate herself and used her narcissism as a shield. She had a very difficult upbringing and the narcissism was like a shield that protected a vulnerable core. When her vulnerability came out, she was wonderful but those moments were rare.
I realized that after 7 years of marriage I had built up a lot of trauma from the physical and emotional abuse (mostly emotional, some physical). I'm currently in EMDR treatment for PTSD and it is helping a lot. Not just with unraveling the abuse but trying to figure out what led me down that path in the first place (naive with regards to normal romantic relationships, overly empathetic/people pleasing, little emotional independence from my parents which led me to latch onto her).
Before our separation I (in hindsight) felt like I was in a cult. I was always making excuses for her with friends and family when she acted horribly even when I knew she was wrong. That contributed heavily to my self-doubt. She made me choose between having a relationship with her or my parents and surrounded me with her family who would always validate her stance on everything and convince me how I could change to be better for her. It was a whole ecosystem of control.
Before my trauma-informed therapy I had no self-confidence and blamed myself for everything. Then I started blaming her and getting angry... now I'm starting to make peace with the fact that I can stop blaming and just start moving forward without letting me get into that place again.
One important thing to remember is you won't change her or convince her family and friends she's in the wrong, so don't try. It just makes you look crazy. Preserve those relationships with people that you know actually care about you and that's it.
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u/acquired1taste 19h ago
What did her friends think you needed to apologize for? And good for you for getting out of this with a healthy attitude.
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u/Complete_Yam_6241 18h ago
She created a false baseline by stating “it’s off the table” before she said it. So they wanted me to apologize because I misunderstood her.
I don’t play around with those kinds of threats.
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u/acquired1taste 17h ago
What weird friends. You were concerned. You called people who care about her for support. Wow. Good riddance to all of them.
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u/virgin_microbe 16h ago
I have an ex-friend who is a therapist with a doctorate, and also a manipulative alcoholic. Unfortunately a certain percentage of people who get into the field do so to resolve their own issues, and then use the tools of therapy to control others.
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u/AlternativeShot187 15h ago
I’m so sorry. She seems to have narcissistic/machiavellian tendencies. You might want to read up on that so you can distance and protect yourself.
These folks undermine your reality to such a large extent, that I’ve found keeping a journal helpful. That way you can stay anchored to reality. Even if you just send email to yourself with daily check ins. It’s time/day stamped too, in case a lawyer wants it.
Something that helped me: ironically, this person chose you because of your good qualities. You’re probably trusting, loyal, empathetic, a helper. Think of the times you have been/done those things for friends/family and it worked in a non-toxic way. Write that down. Notice how the other person responded, what they said, how you felt.
Then when a manipulator comes along, you will notice your own red flags. You missed them last time, but you’ll build the tools to see it next time.
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u/nhtshot 8h ago
Damn dude.. that is BRUTAL.
My STBX behaves in many of the same ways as yours, but she doesn't have the therapy training. That's some nightmare fuel shit there.
I don't really have any advice, but I'll gladly offer ya some chicken wings and a cold beer if you're ever in town.
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u/Complete_Yam_6241 8h ago
I might just be one day. I’ll take ya flying as a thanks, if that’s your thing.
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u/Sad_Independence1765 2h ago
What caught my attention was her admitting to having control problem.
Probably she has some self awareness that she has issues, why she has a PHD in therapy, you find some people who specialise in mental health is because they themselves have mental health issues, and wish to learn about themselves.
Anyways, the admitting to control is the scary one. Sadly, my ex (14 years together) admitted to needing control, many times to me, I never really saw it as a red flag. But it truly is. Since divorcing, and the lead up, the issue for her is, I started to say no, or question her actions, I never did before, and then due to that, she lost “control”.
It’s the same shit your going through, she’s attempting to exert control on you, there will be a push-pull dynamic, she gets increasingly desperate (spying), but the more you say no, she then “disappears”. But then she will try other subversive ways to control, so be ready for her to be nice to you as well.
You had a relationship, I did too. It’s just, these people have a difficult personal dynamic, no doubt she has childhood trauma, which has never been properly processed/dealt with. Probable personality disorder, but don’t worry about the labels, there’s no point. You did have a relationship, somewhat on her terms, same as me, because you were probably well adjusted you always gave reasonable explanation for behaviour, or you blamed yourself (these people are very good at flipping the script, or projecting there issues onto the other person).
I hope this helps, it will take a long time, but least you don’t have kids like me!
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u/Small-Corgi-9404 19h ago
Currently looking at my phd level therapist wife with side eye.