My therapist has helped me see my wife is a narcissist

DEAR DEIDRE: A counsellor has made me see my relationship for what it truly is. Now I know, I can’t see past it.

I’m a man of 41 and I’ve been married for 13 years. My wife is 40, self-obsessed and controlling. She never takes my feelings on board. If I am worried, she tells me that her problems are bigger.

She’s hardly ever affectionate and we only have sex when she says we can.

She’s always telling people that I’ve said a certain thing or behaved a certain way that isn’t true, and the more she makes up stories about me, the more I start to believe it.

My mother died suddenly and my wife didn’t seem concerned. While I was online, sobbing and arranging her funeral, my wife was worried about having to cancel a weekend away with girlfriends.

She didn’t care how I was feeling.

I went to see a bereavement counsellor who recommended I see a regular counsellor.

After five sessions, she told me my wife had a narcissistic personality and she was gaslighting me. I didn’t know what it meant until I looked it up then the penny dropped.

I now know our relationship is abusive but I haven’t told my wife that. I need to leave but our kids are ten and eight. How can I?

DEIDRE SAYS: If this is what you want then you can still be a good father, even if you are separated.

It would be less damaging for the children to live without tension in the house.

You can find advice through Families Need Fathers (fnf.org.uk, 0300 0300 363) who will show you how to manage co-parenting.

If you still love your wife though, a good couples’ counsellor would help her to hold a mirror up to herself so she can start to appreciate how damaging her behaviour is.

If this marriage is to survive, she’ll need to change but only she can do that.