Husband Splitting, desperately need steps.

[Amomandwife]

It’s always so hard to know where to start but I find myself in a position where I simply need someone who understands what this is like. My husband and I have separated in the past. He has delusions that I have cheated on him. All based on random texts and emails between girlfriens, silly pictures from harmless nights out in college, things I have told him truthfully that he believes there is more to, from over the past 17 years. It all came out of what felt like nowhere but he had spent months going through old computers and phones, as well as my emails and text messages.  I don't know if it needs to be said, but I've never cheated on him, come close to it, or had any desire to stray married or otherwise.

I left with my three kids when he found a porn/sex tape online and convinced himself that it was me in the video. I actually put up with his accusations of this for months, so confused by all this behavior and his awful outbursts and accusations. It was the first real time that the splitting had happened since becoming adults and having children. Looking back on our early years I see where I missed things. I have been a token caretaker from the beginning. Anyways, I finally left when he told me he had hired a private detective to review the video and that they had determined it was me. I just felt so cornered, horrified, and devastated that I didn’t see any option but to leave. He has never been willing to produce the link to the video for me, or the contact information of his private detective.  I have asked many times.

Our home was so volatile. He would wear sunglasses in the house and just check out completely for days. So once the final straw broke we were gone for ten months. He didn’t fight for us back. Still so confusing. I expected him to come take us home immediately but he didn’t. We lived with my parents for 10 months. It was miserable, despite my family being amazing, I was just so heartbroken and confused. I fell into depression. He fought with me still, about all the same things. Writing this all out, I still can’t believe it’s my life. We went back. He didn’t really beg. He wanted us home, I wanted to go home. Things weren’t perfect, though they slowly improved after I saw a lawyer.  Not as any kind of threat or flex, but because things simply weren't ok.  I have a good family who live far away.  He has a job far from home.  I was exhausted by the emotional stress and knew after 10 months alone that while I'd have a broken heart that I could raise my kids myself. 

Anyways, I can't really explain what happened or why but things improved over the last 8 months after I saw the lawyer.  Reading more and more I realize that it's just the same PLEASE READ.  It's exactly what's in the books.  I perpetuate the cycle.  Any tiny improvement I view as so much bigger and meaningful.  I had been doing a good job at keeping my boundaries but somewhere I just lost everything I had learned.  When he started withdrawing emotionally and physically I knew what was happening but I didn't see it for what it was.  I feel like my defense mechanisms have just totally screwed me in all of this.  When he finally split the night before the kids and I left for Thanksgiving (his plan as he had to work, we were going to my parents...again his plan), it was everything that for some reason I thought we were past, all over again. Why did I ever think we were past it though? Why do I keep thinking that we can survive this?  He told me I made a mistake marrying him, made a mistake going back to him, threatened to take the kids away from me.  He brought up all the things he has gone over and promised to stop talking about a million times, but can't.  He was all the awful that he was before. 

I tried recording the conversation to get him to stop, he wouldn't.  I went into our daughter's room thinking he would never follow me in there to continue berating me, but he did.  I locked myself in our bedroom and he insisted I let him in.  I finally just put my head under my pillow and refused to respond until he gave up.  We didn't talk the next day.  I've tried to reach out to him while down here...using gentle logic and reason...and I know it's all pointless. Now he's just slowly starting to act normal.  Telling me he misses us, completely ignoring any of my messages about what's going on.  He says he wants to take time off in December so that "we can figure out what we will do."  Out of nowhere, he's talking divorce.  I realize this isn't really out of nowhere but it has not been what we've been talking about or dealing with at all. HOW DO WE LIVE LIKE THIS? Tell me there's someone out there who knows what this is like.

I don't know what to do.  I've read Eggshells, when loving him is hurting you, so many others.  Right now I'm listening to Stop Caretaking the Borderline...but I need help now.  l need someone who understands, at the very least. I need a step to take so that I don't keep doing this so wrong.  I've had therapists but I need someone who knows this well and I'll be seeking that support, but nothing can help me right now.  I've signed up for the 12 week family course.  The thing is that I have to go back home with my kids this week.  I'm struggling to keep my sanity.  He does not feel he has a problem.  He believes everything he has ever said.  He thinks I am a horrible person who has cheated and lied and according to him "will do anything to protect myself."  Somebody tell me why I stay.  Why I say I want more for my kids but don't give it to them?  I do love him, at least the good version of him.  I know he loves our kids.  If I leave and we divorce will he turn on one of our kids?  I see it sometimes, it terrifies me.  But then, the anxiety this causes me does not allow me to be the best version of myself, I feel like I am failing my kids all the time.  This is so lonely.  My family and friends will hear, but I think they feel like the BPD is me making excuses for him being an emotionally abusive asshole or far fetched.  I think they also simply don't care and think I need to leave and have a better life, and I don't know...I don't know what's right.

If he will never seek therapy, see how he treats me, and try to work at understanding that he is not the judge and decider of all things...it simply won't ever get better right?  Why do I want to try to make this work?  Why do I still believe there is hope for a life as a family?  And most importantly what do I do?  How do I protect myself from his verbal attacks when he's splitting?

[PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES]

PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members may appear frustrated but they are here for constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[Websters Mom]

I so wish I could give you words of comfort. I, too, am in the situation you are in. It is so incredibly difficult to explain to those who do not understand this condition. I have given up trying.  My heart breaks because I miss the man I thought I married and I grieve because I realize he never existed. I have been an emotional mess since he left 2 months ago. He has been in contact through it all and in many ways, it is making it worse.

We both have to focus on the fact it is an illness. I know how hard that is to do. I struggle with it constantly. My heart breaks knowing there is absolutely nothing I can do to make it better. NOTHING. I begged and pleaded for counseling but he refuses to go. Will your husband consider it or is he too belligerent at this point to even bring it up? I used marriage counseling as a disguise. It was my hope a good doctor would zero in on the issue and be able to help.  He says there is no hope for the marriage and yet he does not want a divorce. I feel like he wants to keep me as a token of his efforts.

 Please know I am praying for you. If you need a friend...I am here and do understand.

[Amomandwife]

Thank you so much for responding. This sounds so similar.  We have been to therapy in the past but it has been a long time.  Our first therapist was good, but retired at probably the worst time.  The therapist we saw after that was not good.  She insisted that I needed to "give him something" which essentially meant she wanted me to lie to him, it was a nightmare.  He still uses some of the things she said against me.  Now I am seeing a therapist and she's wonderful but of course he hates her because she's helped me understand him and our relationship better. 

I left before and I think he can understand that I will again, but like you it's absolutely heart breaking for me.  Not because we have kids, not because I love our home, but simply because I love him.  I know it's so bad for this to continue but I don't know how to process and become ok with exactly what you said, the man I love wasn't a real man.  Sometimes I don't even know if I totally made up his good in my head.  I'm so sorry for you.  I hope you have support.  I don't know what I'm going to do.

I don't have a lot of answers but I have an ear and a lot of years dealing with this.  Let's be friends

[Websters Mom]

I can relate to everything you have said. Like you, I question if my husband was just a creation of my own mind. I wanted him to be "these" things and with him not having a true identity he was more than willing to comply...until he could no more.

I wish I did have a support network. Most (with the exception of one lifelong friend) do not understand or do not want to be bothered with all of it. They chalk it off to marital disagreement or a mid-life crisis. Unfortunately, my husband had expressed his lengthy list of complaints against me to many of the people we knew. (He once got angry at me for making his lunch because he said I was treating him like one of our cats. It is very hard to defend yourself against such things.) He was always charming and sweet to them so that is what they believe of him. Even with his picking up and walking out on me they believe he is that person and it was me that caused it. I sometimes want to scream at them what is really going on but then I think it would be of little use. Their opinion does not matter and they cannot help him any more than I can.

I understand what you are saying about missing him. When it would have been time for him to come home from work, I ache with heartbreak. I find myself walking around in circles trying to find peace. Knowing there is nothing I can say or do to correct this situation has been the hardest part. A simple "I am sorry" will not do it. I know without a doubt, on a conscious level, I am feeling this more than he is. He is in a panic mode and has shut off emotion (as he proudly told me he could do).

We do not have children, so my heart breaks for you having to deal with that as well. You have a lot to deal with and I for one want to pat you on the back for doing it. I know it is hard. I am on the verge of tears constantly. You are not failing your children. You are defining the word "love" by internalizing this to give them the most normal existence possible.

For the record, my husband and I went to therapy years ago. He had a horrible need to keep in touch with every previous relationship he ever had. When we go together, I told him that was going to stop. He then proceeded to throw every disorder he could find at me and demanded we went to counseling. I had just come out of a situation where my sister had passed away, lost my house and ended a 30 year plus relationship (he was an alcoholic). My husband proceeded to tell the doctor that I am bi-polar have abandonment issues, anger management issues, and am just generally unstable. She and I talked and I told her what the last few years of my life had been like. She then told my husband, all things considered, she thought I was handling my life as well as to be expected and appeared stable. She then turned her attention to him. In retrospect, I think she picked up on his issues. He became enraged and as we walked to the car he told me she was an idiot and he was never going back...and he didn't.

I would love to be friends. It does help to know that someone out there understands. I have one friend who keeps telling me that "all of these people" need to be removed from the planet. That does not help any. I love him. I miss him. I am desperate as well to find the "answer". For years I told friends of the unusual behavior patterns (mine does not watch porn that I know of. He buys houses and moves out without telling me instead). I finally got so tired of trying to explain things, I just stopped talking about it. I have lost so many friends. I have even lost a large part of myself through this.

Keeping you close in prayer.  I am here if you need to talk. OK?

PS- Webster by the way is one of my cats. My husband hates Webster. He swears Webster is the reason we did not have a honeymoon. As you probably know, Webster had nothing to do with us not having a honeymoon. We got married on a Saturday and both had to be back at work on Monday. Poor Webster had nothing to do with it. Yet? My husband has held a grudge against Webster for all these years. All you can do is shake your head...






 

Thank you so much for responding. This sounds so similar.  We have been to therapy in the past but it has been a long time.  Our first therapist was good, but retired at probably the worst time.  The therapist we saw after that was not good.  She insisted that I needed to "give him something" which essentially meant she wanted me to lie to him, it was a nightmare.  He still uses some of the things she said against me.  Now I am seeing a therapist and she's wonderful but of course he hates her because she's helped me understand him and our relationship better.  

I left before and I think he can understand that I will again, but like you it's absolutely heart breaking for me.  Not because we have kids, not because I love our home, but simply because I love him.  I know it's so bad for this to continue but I don't know how to process and become ok with exactly what you said, the man I love wasn't a real man.  Sometimes I don't even know if I totally made up his good in my head.  I'm so sorry for you.  I hope you have support.  I don't know what I'm going to do.

I don't have a lot of answers but I have an ear and a lot of years dealing with this.  Let's be friends