Man tells wife she got fat, woman who has had too much therapy thinks this is trauma, drowns herself in psychobabble

Had a random epiphany today, about the times(s) he complained to me about how badly I have “let myself go”…

It's not just that it was a shitty thing to say to a woman that he allegedly “loved”. The first problem is that he said this thinking he was showing me some “tough love” by telling me a “hard truth”. He told himself that he needed to say it because I needed to hear it “for my own good”… In his mind, this makes him a “supportive partner”, and this feeling strokes his ego.

I have been haunted by his words every day since the first time he said the following (and I quote…verbatim):

“I don't know if you've realized this, but it's getting really hard to ignore how badly you've let yourself go.”

OUTCH. Ever hear something, and it just… knocks the wind right out of you? Is that really how emotional support is supposed to feel? I don't even remember what I said in reply. Cortisol flooding interferes with episodic memory storage in the brain, as I now understand. It's part of the many ways emotional trauma tends to make people physically unwell.

Sometimes, trauma causes the opposite problem, and certain memories become indelibly imprinted enough to cross the mind multiple times every day, forever. His words do that to me. It occurred to me, as i ruminated again while brushing my teeth this morning, that what I should have said to him was this:

“No, just NO, Motherlover… you took my selfhood away from me. I never “let go” of shit. Every day you tore off more and more little pieces of me, you never stopped cutting me down to size. Now you're mad that my Self is gone? Frick you.”

Felt like this was a bit too heavy to post on /r/showerthoughts, but it also felt like too big of a breakthrough not to get it off my chest.

Edited to add:

Wow, I am overwhelmed to receive so many supportive comments! I mostly posted this so I could purge some of the really big feelings that came up for me this morning, because I still had to go to work and be in a clear enough headspace to get through my day. I think I'm going to start journaling more, writing really helped me process my thoughts and feelings about what I've been through. I was really touched to read so many thoughtful and caring comments… even though it sucks that so many of you have been through some similar shit. 💜