'My husband is a psychiatrist, but he never accepts when he is wrong'

Dear AmoMama,

I have been married to a man for fifteen years and I can't tell you whether it has been a good marriage cos I am not sure. My husband is a psychiatrist, but he never accepts when he is wrong instead convincing me that I am at fault.

There have been a number of times when I was absolutely sure I was right in an argument and he just turned the whole thing around and made me doubt myself.

As a psychiatrist, I thought he would be better at handling conflicts, but he just starts ranting and going off on a tirade accusing me of things and blurring the whole argument.

He is also very moody and can blow up for no reason at all. Other times, he stops returning my calls or replying to my texts, and when I get upset about it, he calls me petulant and childish in such a way that he makes me think I am and I end up apologizing.

My friends call him a narcissist and they say that he is gaslighting me, but I think they just don't like him very much and are looking for an excuse for me to get rid of him.

I don't know what to do anymore. Years ago he convinced me that "we" didn't want to have children. I agreed at the time, why I don't know, but it's not true.

I want to have children. And I want to feel like I belong in this house and not have to step on eggshells around him, agreeing and apologizing just to appease him.

He convinced me to stop working when we got married and to break ties with most of my friends saying they held me back and were jealous of us – I have such regret about both. I feel like a prisoner in my home.

I have had reason to believe he was unfaithful, but couldn't find proof that he wasn't able to refute. I also had a call early on in our relationship from a woman telling me to leave him and never look back. She said he was dangerous. I thought she was jealous and ignored her.

I have so little trust in him, or myself, I'm slowly beginning to suspect he may have got rid of my cat when we started dating since he was allergic and she just suddenly went missing one day. Or maybe I'm becoming overly paranoid.

I have requested that we see a marriage counselor but my husband, the esteemed psychiatrist, calls them community-college-quacks and told me he was disappointed in me for even suggesting it. I apologized.

I think my friends are right. I think he is a narcissist and he is slowly driving me insane. Is he right? Am I crazy?

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