EDIT: I've been terribly unclear. We both know she needs counseling. How do I find a counselor? I have never in life even started to search. Also, I'm almost certain our insurance won't cover it. Got so solid advice on a DIY plan. Anyone add to that?
Said I'd never date a jealous woman, married her anyway, eyes wide open. Only real issue, everything else about our relationship outweighs it. But fuck me, it's like a drunk beating his wife and crying he didn't mean to, won't ever do it again. I can be minding my own business and take an ass beating at any moment.
I cannot overstate how bad this is. My PC is in the living room on a 40" TV. Browser pics automatically expand (Imagus extension). I have to be careful to not touch anything with a pretty woman in it. If I switch screens while she's looking, I'm guilty of hiding something.
She goes through my phone, I find apps I never opened. She's checking FB, which I don't touch, only Messenger for Marketplace replies. She's checking my email.
Monster fight last night where she produced a phone pic of my screen with a woman's name and asked why I replied. I didn't. My email address was shown as which account I would be replying from. Whole screen shot: woman's name and my email. Searched all: $womans_name right in front of her. Nada.
Had a recruiter almost score me a sweet job. Wife hated her guts because she's cute and sounded perky. Y'all. The recruiter was in NYC, we're in NW Florida.
I have to lock my PC to take a shit. She would birth live kittens if she saw this post, thinks you people are personal friends, like FB. "These people are strangers, don't even know what fucking country they live in."
She's asked our friends if that's normal. Now I look like a controlling asshole who's hiding something. I have never done this with another partner and have told her that many times.
We've been through this shit three dozen times, and every, single, fucking, time I've proved to her what was up, nothing, she's crying and apologizing, rinse and repeat.
We're 54 BTW, not exactly teenagers.
Anyway, she comes to me today and says she might have a problem and what should she do about it. Fuck I know! Told her to stay the fuck away from me the rest of the day, don't even want to look at her.
How would you reply?
The book „Feeling Great“ by David Burns is a good first-order approximation of therapy. It has lots of „exercises“, too, which I recommend doing (both on cases from the book, and then later on yourself).
What differs David‘s approach from most other therapists is that he sort of weaponizes your own internal resistance against change against you. He makes you write down the POSITIVES of your pathological behavior (and trains you to notice them); and then asks „well why would you want to change if there are so many benefits“?
This works wonders to getting people to say „ok I see that but I am really suffering please help me change“.
I found it helpful, though be aware that I had therapy in the past so I kinda know my way around my own feelings and what usually happens in a therapy.
That is to say, this book does not replace therapy.