It’s starting again

[Mrs123]

Hi

A couple of years ago we were at breaking point. I was often sleeping in an empty house next door for my emotional and  physical safety. He was taking my car keys and threatening self harm.  Things have been better since then. Last summer we both passed bike tests - I never would have believed it the year before.

Since lockdown (UK) I have been working mostly from home. Church house groups have been Zoomed (which he makes me go next door for “Its an invasion of privacy - I don’t want people seeing our house and I don’t want to hear all that sh*t) so I’ve barely been off the property.

Last week I returned to work full time (teacher). I was invited to friends for coffee. First time in months.  I checked with him first that he didn’t want to do anything. He didn’t so I went shopping - a couple of hours- (us and a vulnerable family member) came home and then went to coffee. I was out of the house for two hrs for coffee.

Last night he was foul and accusatory:  I’ve been out all week and want to spend as much time away from home as I can. I do everything I can to ruin the furniture, and the biggie - it hurts that I won’t let him look at my phone. I took it without arguing.

I won’t give him my phone or code since 2 years ago - he smashed my screen during a flare up, and when going through my phone asked me lots of angry accusatory questions about every other picture and message. I have nothing to hide but I can’t be doing with the questions and accusations. Especially right now.

Feeling crazy. Am I wrong? Don’t want to become a prisoner in my own home again (drawing boundaries there was what caused the aggro 2 years ago) but seeing a friend was a huge battle. He has no reason to not trust me but doesn’t.

The worst is I feel nothing but “here we go again”. He feels hurt, I fell wounded and self protecting. I’ve done all my crying 2 yrs ago and was trying to rebuild but my refusal to let his hang ups make me crumble makes him believe I don’t care. I do. I can’t imagine what it must be like to be in his  head but he will only see and believe what he wants to see and believe, which is negativity, blackness and mistrust. It’s hard to live with this battle every other time I want to go out. Since lockdown, which has become a weird skewed version of normality, and since we’ve had a year of relative peace I am o longer sure of what is a reasonable rational boundary (because to him they are all unreasonable and directed against him - because he is reasonable and why would I need to protect myself or spend time with anyone but him).

Feel crazy and lost

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