First Post -- Feeling Terrified and Depressed

[onlyjan]

Hi --

I'm here because my therapist advised me to buy "Stop Walking on Eggshells" three years ago, and I'm only now reading it.  I wish I'd done so earlier, because everything I'm reading is like being hit by lightning bolts, it's so illuminating.  I'm sorry, given I'm afraid this will be long.

I'm 47.  My husband is 48.  He's been part of my life since we were teens.  We were best friends for 9 years, lived together 6 years, and have been married 13 years.  28 years.  Four years ago, he just did a 180 degree about-face.  Up until that point, he had loved me intensely.  I felt beloved, and I loved him so much in return.  For our anniversary that year, for example, he took me and the kids to Chicago, and on the day of, he gave me a bunch of small love letters I was to open at timed intervals.  Each contained a loving message and a surprise (ie. a booked, kid-free session to the gym, and two hours later the next note revealed he had booked me a massage at our hotel etc.).  Up until that point, he was always thoughtful and attentive and loving (eg. he would prepare several extra meals before he left on business trips so I wouldn't be too overwhelmed at home (3 small kids, I have a high-pressure, full-time job).  I never questioned our love, our friendship, or our commitment to one another.  I felt what we had was rock-solid.  I loved him so much and my favourite time of day was just lying next to him in bed and talking and laughing about our days.  

In the winter of 2016, however, he just started getting angrier and angrier.  I didn't understand it. He would come home from work and grab my arms and shake them and say "I'm not happy J, I'm not happy."  Like it was my fault.  His face would be like an angry storm cloud and he would kick things and toss kids' toys etc.  I was so bewildered and so hurt.  He was going through a very stressful stretch at work, and his job was on the line, which meant he was travelling non-stop for three months (he was going from Vancouver to Texas and everywhere in between in North America).  I was struggling to deal with the kids on my own (he was gone most of the week every week, and home weekends), and I would tell him I needed more help.  I was honestly feeling very overwhelmed and beyond that, I missed him intensely.  I just felt this hollow emptiness all the time that he was gone, because he wouldn't even make time to call us at night before bedtime, many days.   But if I said anything, that would only make him angrier.  It was so unlike the man I had known for 25 years.  He was being so mean, and I couldn't understand it. I told him after two months of facing this anger/criticism, that we couldn't continue like this, I was so miserable, and I even mentioned divorce.  At that point he ended up asking me to do marriage counselling.  We went to two sessions, he was completely unempathetic.  When I talked about being overwhelmed, he taunted me and said "you have hired help! Please, oh woe is me!" I replied that our nanny worked until 7 pm. but that's when I would get home from work, so I never got a break.  I was doing bed-time duty and baths and stories and homework and putting all 3 to bed.  I was making their lunches and trying to prepare some dinners late at night before bed) etc.  He just couldn't see it (still can't) and he couldn't see points the MC was making (he said that trips were an escape, to an extent, and that I never got a break) but my husband was dismissive.  And then the MC got somewhat angry and told him point blank -- "you're being belligerent".  And then he turned to me and said "onlyjan -- you've got a lot to mourn.  This is not the person you married."  It was shocking and disappointing.  I couldn't believe a therapist would say that after only two sessions.  We left, and my husband had tears in his eyes.  I just felt shell-shocked.  That weekend, he took me and the kids away for a staycation at a local hotel.  We had a great time.  Frolicked in the pool and saunas and went to local restaurants etc.  And then that Sunday night, he left for another work trip for a week.  And then the man I loved never came home.  

At one point during the trip my kids all got stomach flu and I really was struggling and I called him four times one day.  This was apparently the "tipping point" for him.  He got home from the Las Vegas convention he was at with colleagues (they had been partying and he stayed an extra day, so he was gone 6 days in total), and he was so angry that Saturday night.  This person who had always been full of sweetness and joy was just so full of rage.  I picked him up from the airport with the kids, and his face was this troubling thundercloud.  Once the children were all in bed he just turned to me in our room and said -- "You're the only wife who calls their husband four times in a day.  How dare you?"  I said I didn't know how many of the mothers had three kids and a full-time job and he just kept raging at me.  And then he announced he was leaving me, and that he would move out for the first of the next month (which would be 3 weeks later, Feb 1 2017).  He said the kids would be fine since they're "resilient" but he was young enough to start over (he was then 44).  He was up and down, acting alternately euphoric and then angry.  At points he yelled at me in a frightening voice that "the sound of my voice made his skin crawl", and that he "felt no more for me than a stranger on the side walk."  In fact, he added he "felt more for a person he just met in a bus shelter" than he did me.  He was so enraged he said I was not even allowed to sit any closer than three feet away from him on the sofa.  It was beyond anything I could comprehend.  His face was almost unrecognizable to me.  His eyes just looked so evil and squinty and vicious.  He was either acting devoid of emotion, or hyper or angry.  It was like watching him coast up and down all day long on some strange wave.

The next six months were so horrific, it's like the stuff of nightmares.  He never moved out, but he immediately took $18,000 out of our bank accounts, and didn't put any money into the accounts for almost two months.  Our bills are high, and I went deeply into debt.  (Money has continued to be very stressful for the past few years, and despite a combined household income of more than $450,000 we have bounced the mortgage countless times given he refuses to contribute any more than I do (which is all my income) despite making three times my salary). Beyond that, he moved to the sofa and just seemed happy watching movies by himself all the time, but when the mood would take him (at various points most days) he would follow me around the house (for up to eight hours at a time), berating me and hissing at me about old slights.  He would go off for hours on end about how, six years earlier, I'd tried to throw out (18-year-old) shoes of his from the garage (failing to mention I had not done so when he told me they were important to him), and how a friend of mine had called him a "garbage man" once 14 years earlier (he used to own a commercial cleaning company, before he went into software, where he is now a V-P at a large international company).  He would bring up old issues like they had just happened and would rage about them.  He would tell me he could feel like they had JUST happened, he could remember his anger so clearly.  He would tell me I had abused him for two years, and then it became five years, and then it was 12 years etc.  He would consistently threaten to leave, and when I would say -- "fine, then go!" out of desperation for some kind of peace, he would never do so.  He would just come at me incessantly every day, yelling at me about where I had put my purse (every day I would try a different place, and every day the new location would enrage him), about the kitchen mess (three grains of rice on the counter would make him have an apoplectic fit), he'd scream about what a slob I was, what a terrible mother I was, how incompetent I was, about the sight of our piano driving him into a rage (because I wasn't teaching the kids piano at the time, given I was in a deep depression at that point and having a hard time functioning).  He would kick our puppy, and my nanny and I were so frightened of his anger, we would keep the dog on a leash tied to the door in the kitchen while he was home, and the second he left we would set up baby gates on the main floor so the dog would have space to move.  We always took them down and hid them before he returned home.  He hated the dog so much since I had "pressured" him into buying it so he kept calling the dog "my punishment."  (He continues to do that).  He would walk into our closet and start throwing out clothes (some still with tags on them), go through our linens and want to toss everything because he wanted "all white" towels etc, and he would throw things and be angry and just bark and bark at me until I would cower and go to the bathroom and vomit.  He would stand at the door and laugh and say "oh wow". In this time frame, I dropped 22 lbs.  I couldn't eat.  I couldn't sleep. I'd wake up every day at 4 am and be sick. I was having nightmares.  I was crying almost every day at work, and I'm an on-air TV reporter/anchor so this was wreaking havoc on me professionally.  My colleagues were worried about me.  My nanny was crying she was so worried, she would keep trying to get me to eat (the husband was travelling two weeks a month at the time).  I had started seeing a therapist and my family doctor (and he would call me on my days off to check in on me).  Both were urging me to look up bipolar disorder (my doctor printed me a checklist).  They were concerned he was manic (husband's sister had bipolar, and they told me he had a 33 % chance of having it as well).  I was told I had clinical depression at this point, and my doctor recommended I take a leave from work.  He was very worried about my weight.

While this was going on, my husband continued being so cold and cruel to me, and was essentially sexually abusing me.  He was after me sexually non-stop, despite treating me like I was distasteful garbage at all other times (using me like a prostitute and throwing me on the floor afterward etc) and I am so ashamed to admit I permitted this, given I was so desperate to reconnect with him in any way.  I wanted my old husband back.  He was so vicious with me, I remember finding his cell phone camera video recording us after he had brutally used me and tossed me to the hardwood floor violently ground again, and turning to him and asking him what he was doing.  He looked at me and grabbed the phone and smiled.  And he said, "Oh that.  I wanted to show you how cold and distant I was."  I said -- "What?"  I was completely confounded.  He said, "I was going to send it to you to show you how cold and distant my face was."  I said, "you were going to send porn to my work device?  And to show me what?" I was so shocked and hurt by what he had said, and he just walked away smiling. I was in my newsroom the next afternoon and I was crying at my desk.  One of the live-truck engineers (an old friend) saw me, and whisked me to a private audio booth and I bawled. I was crying so hard I was hyperventilating.  This friend started crying himself, and he told me to contact my husband's family, given his behaviour was so aberrant, I clearly needed help.  So at his insistence I called his mother.  She sounded upset about the video, but then got angry with me, saying she felt so deceived, because she had always thought our relationship was "peaches and cream" and that she hadn't known we'd had so many problems for so many years.  I said -- that was all news to me as well.  She also said she had always felt her son did too much for me and cooked too much.  I remember feeling helpless. I had turned to her about this crazy sex video recording and she turned it on me.  I do remember begging her not to say anything to my husband at that point,  because I was so afraid it would enrage him and I didn't know what he would do to me.

Around this point, I started to get suspicious he was having an affair.  I found viagra and condoms in his bag.  He had excuses.  Then (sorry if TMI), we were being sexual and I tasted latex on his penis.   I was horrified.  I called a PI the next day.  Within two days I had all the information I needed.  I heard audio recordings of the two of them tittering on the phone in his car, with him saying, "Are you nice and clean? are you nice and clean?  great, I'm coming over to make you dirty."  He was also cooing about how "jaw-dropping" this woman was, "how beautiful" etc.  I was devastated.  I literally got out of my car and vomited.  Then I confronted him.  We were at my daughter's ballet recital.  The PI had advised me to wait a few days so he could collect more info.  I just couldn't.  My husband was being hideous and threatening me during the recital, and I just turned to him and hissed "I know.  Your children will know.  Your parents will know."  I stormed out, and he followed with my two boys in tow.  I remember reciting the conversations he'd had with the woman, and he kept denying it.  It was looking like a sly stranger, he had a bizarre smile on his face.  He kept denying it all. By the next day, he still had not admitted it, and he had to attend a conference with my brother (they have a side business).  I had played the audio recordings.  My brother began to cry.  Given my husband had yet to admit anything, I called his mother.  I went with my boys (aged 3 and 5) to her house and started reading the transcriptions with the other woman, .  He zoomed up in the car and the admission was on his face.  It turns out the affair began in late March/beginning April (I found out in June).

In the following days, he was crestfallen; I was catatonic and bedridden.  He said he would never talk to the woman again.  Said it was like being hit by lightning, and the second I found out, his feelings for her all evaporated.  He put me on the scale and was shocked by my weight loss, saying, "I can't believe I hadn't even noticed you wasting away" (I was down to a double-zero in clothing at this point).  He was pounding his chest and saying "I love you."  He apologized to my family and my nanny, who tearfully told him, "I have never seen a woman suffer so much." He continued to be up and down, until his cousin in Montreal told him to get a psych evaluation (3 weeks later).  The psychiatrist told him he'd had a psychotic break.  He promised me he would continue to get treated.  That was a lie.  

The years since have been hellish.  He was himself for six months.  After that he snapped again.  One night in Dec 2017 he almost strangled me to death.  I remember standing in our driveway in my underwear. He'd ripped my clothes off after blowing his nose on my shirt and I had no phone, he had crushed it.  It is my undying regret I never called police then.  He needed a mental health evaluation.  And I was triggering non-stop. I was ricocheting off the crazy horrible things he would do (taunting me about screwing the other woman, saying kissing me was like kissing his sister, calling me fat and thickset and insulting me about my appearance and parenting non-stop).  I've behaved like a crazed person.  I'm ashamed to say I've screamed and hit him back.  Thrown his clothes on the lawn.  I've since received treatment for PTSD.  I was ready to leave last December, until I found out I would only get 50% custody.  He vici So I gave up.  And then this November 5, he served ME with separation papers.  I'm now floundering.  My friends say this is my chance.  But I think -- I could escape, but what about my kids? If I'm not around to be his whipping post -- who protects the kids? He threatens to destroy me but still tries to have sex with me.  I'm so scared and sad.  I don't know how to survive him.

If you've read this far -- thank you.  

Onlyjan

[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.

[onlyjan]

For what it's worth:  I think he has borderline because he is so up and down, so critical, so endlessly blaming and angry.  He flies into rages.  He attacks my appearance non-stop (and I make my living partially due to my appearance, and work out a lot so I'm actually in excellent shape.  My VO2 max is in the top 15% of women my age.)  But to him I can do nothing right.   He treats me with such hatred, but if I try to leave the house to get away, he will literally chase me (barefoot in winter once).  This past weekend I tried to leave to go for a drive and he bodily carried me back into the house, and took my keys and hid all the other car keys in the house.  He's also going insane with jealousy about a divorced father in my daughter's class who has professed interest in me (he read my text messages) and he's put a tracker on my car and caught me going for a walk with this man (I have NEVER done a thing with him, not so much as held his hand) and he confronted us on the street and began screaming at me.  This is the person who filed to start divorce proceedings! My divorce lawyer is so confused by his antics.  He also asked me over and over to do counselling. But when we finally went, he was so belligerent and angry and then the counsellor finally said she couldn't do Marriage Counselling, only separation counselling, which made him even angrier (this was the day I went for a walk with that divorced father, because I was reeling and didn't want to go home).   It's the classic "I hate you -- don't leave me dance."  But he's the one who started the divorce stuff.  I'm so torn and tired of being on his rollercoaster.  I'm scared of how erratic and angry he is being now as well.

[formflier]

I'm so sorry you are going through this. 

 

I'm very concerned about your safety.  I am glad a lawyer is involved.  Does the L know the entire story?  Has you discussed protection orders with the L?  (even if not to file one now, but what events should trigger you to call your L and get a protection order going)

Do you live in separate houses now?

Is there a separation/custody agreement?

Do you have a therapist?  What about children and therapy?

Are you actively working with a counselor doing "separation counseling"?  Has physical safety been discussed with that counselor?

I'll check back soon.  We are a group of people that get it and can support you in sorting all this out.

Best,

FF

[onlyjan]

Hi FormFlier —

We can’t even agree on a date of separation.  He’s told his lawyer we’ve been separated in-house since June 23, 2017 (the day I discovered his affair).  I contend it was the day I received the paperwork on November the 5th of this year.  It makes no sense.  We filed our taxes every year as “married” (not separated) and our 2019 taxes were completed in August this year.  We also went on 4 vacations this summer as a family, one of which celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary.  There are pictures of us holding hands at the table, and he’s posing with his arm around me in several other pictures.  We even celebrated at this lodge with another family we were bubbling with! 

As for his behaviours, the lawyer has expressed concern and wants me to reach out to his family.  He has also told me to call police if I’m scared.  The problem is my husband makes a lot of money.  Detectives I’m friends with (journalist for 20 years) have told me never to report or he will spend the night in jail and lose his job (which pre-Covid, had him travelling across the border several times a month).  If we do actually divorce, he will be on the hook for $8,100 a month as well as 73 per cent of all child-care costs, so the sum he would be contributing is not negligible.  Beyond that, I’m a well-known on-air presenter in my city, and he could make counter-accusations and the whole thing would become public and dreadful.  He’s also so crazed he has threatened to post sex videos he has made with me (without my knowledge).  He’s also accusing me of child abuse, which consists of me yelling at him in front of the children (admittedly, I am very ashamed of that, and I have apologized profusely to my babies).  I was in the midst of very bad PTSD at the time, and I had yet to have been medicated/treated (i did a 9-week intensive in summer/fall 2018).  I was so emotionally dysregulated by the abuse during his first psychotic break/affair I was not myself for 18 months, I will admit, but I gradually healed and I went through treatment and also started to realize the issues didn’t originate with me, but with someone whose thought processes were clearly disordered. 

We are still living in the same house.  His violence dropped significantly in the last year, although he is still controlling, and tries to block my way out the door etc.  He does little things now, like crushingly step on my foot (he’s 6’2” and does Ironman so he exercises like a fiend, he’s so driven),  or open the lower oven door on my foot etc.  But nothing like when he was at his worst at the end of 2017, the first half of 2018.  At that point my cameramen were so worried, one bought me a burner phone, and two gave me keys to their homes if I needed to escape.  My therapist at the time also made me learn some self-defence moves (curling into a ball and putting myself in a corner) and contact the local abused woman’s shelter (I couldn’t go through with much there, I didn’t want to give details as to who I am).

Right now he’s just angry and mad at me.  But also saying I have his permission to be with another man, since they’ll “give me what i need”.

Does anyone here understand why he wants to have sex with me all the time but won’t be intimate in any other way? No touching my hand, or hugging, or holding me? I don’t understand.  It’s been like this since his psychotic break at the beginning of 2017.  I’ve really just been so lonely and so scared and depressed.

Oh — and as for this sex video — he made one I discovered in October 2017.  It was the “smoking gun” for me.  He had hidden a camera on our fireplace.  In the video you see me go toward him for a hug.  He refuses me.  I leave the room.  A minute later you see him bringing me back into the living room.  We start being intimate.  My back is to the camera.  He started looking toward the hidden camera as if having a conversation with it.  His eyes were boggling out of his head in rage.  He kept going back to look at the camera every 45 seconds or so.  Making sheer expressions of rage.  At one point he even shakes his fists at the camera.  He walked in when he saw me watching it.  He went ashen.  Said he had found the video 3 weeks earlier, couldn’t remember making it, couldn’t remember what his motivation was, and that it didn’t sexually arouse him.  I don’t understand this. Is this consistent with BPD, or something worse?  I believe he has BPD, but I also think there is far more going on with him.
 

[Notwendy]

onlyjan,

This is a tough situation and I know it must be devastating to have your husband turn around like this. Whether or not he actually has BPD, I think posting here can still help you manage your part in this situation. Many people here have undiagnosed parters who still fit the behavior patterns. We are not qualified to make any diagnoses.

However, reading your posts does make me wonder what is going on with your H. While some posters have reported a stressful event being the trigger for BPD, I think it's unusual to have no signs at all and then what seems like a drastic turn around.

When I first began reading your posts, I too wondered about an affair, for him to devalue you so quickly, is there someone else he's "painting white" and there was. But take heart. It's important to understand this is not about whether you are sexy enough or exciting enough. It's his issue and what goes around comes around, someone painted white is likely to be painted black again. These affairs thrive on illusion. I also wonder if he picked up some new maneuvers to take back to try on you. He may also be getting ideas from porn.

The bottom line- he's seeking thrills and excitement, not real intimacy, much like someone might seek drugs. It is possible to have a sex addiction just like a drug addiction and this might explain why he both devalues you and seeks constant sex with you.

As with all relationships, BPD ones too, we need to have strong boundaries- and stay true to ourselves. You do not have to be his sex provider. This is not the kind of intimacy you want in a marriage. You don't have to have sex with someone who is abusive to you. I assume you are afraid to say no so you don't provoke a rage or also cause more distance between you but consider that when he is rewarded with sex after treating your poorly, he learns he can do that.

But also you need to be safe and you can't really say no if it means he is likely to harm you. Domestic violence is a serious situation. There needs to be an escape plan, to stay safe. You may need to be able to call the police. I am not an expert in how to do either of these, but it's something to work out with your therapist.

Rather than focus mainly what is going on with him, I think it's important to work with your T on an escape plan and a way to keep yourself and your children safe.

[onlyjan]

Thank you Notwendy.  I look back now and wonder if there were signs I just didn’t notice.  He’s always struggled with shame.  Always felt I was too good for him.  Always felt he had to prove himself to me (I found all of this out AFTER/DURING the affair).  He was obsessed with being my caretaker.  He said (again in therapy) that he had “worshipped” me.  That he worried so much about me, he wanted tried to do more for me (than I ever knew or asked for) to make sure I didn’t get postpartum depression etc.  He’s also always had to be the “best” at everything he does.  He’s obsessed.  He walked across the country when he was 18 to raise awareness for a medical cause. He pushes his body so hard now and will do an Ironman every weekend. He has to be the most intense “best” guy at work (was awarded a Porsche for being top guy some years back).  His grandfather also had Borderline Personality Disorder, and I remember him blasting my husband about old slights from 20 years ago like they’d just happened, just like my husband does currently.  We went to two MCs and they said his behaviours were largely inconsistent with an affair, and said he sounded like he’d “gone completely off the rails.”  And then he had the psychiatrist/prof do the analysis on him in August of 2017, and he was told he had had a psychotic break.  He was supposed to go for more treatments/analysis, but cancelled 3 subsequent appointments.  I only found out when I emailed the doctor after finding the crazy sex video where he was raging at the hidden camera.  I don’t know.  He may have sex addiction too.  I have no idea.  I just know he’s very “off.”  My psychiatrist said she believed he was very ill, but she mentioned bipolar, like my family doctor (he has these phases where he isn’t sleeping and wakes up at 5 to exercise and has insane business ideas where he’ll sit around drawing up logos etc and brainstorming).  My EMDR psychologist thought he had BPD and NPD, though.  I really don’t know.  I just know there is something very, very wrong with him.  He keeps telling me I hate him.  Saying I never loved him, he could never be himself around me because I would judge him (although we were best friends and used to talk for hours and hours a day).  He says he has stacked his resentment so high.  I just don’t know.  The affair ended when I discovered it in 2017.  I’ve had extensive conversations with the other woman’s husband, and spoke to her as well.  The AP had no idea we were still together, thought we were separated, and was horrified to find out he was still sleeping me throughout their affair (I showed her texts where he was being very lewd with me).  She also saw he had taken me to a favorite restaurant of hers.  She kept gasping and saying, “I’m so, so stupid. I’m so stupid.”  So while it may have begun his devaluing of me, I don’t believe the affair has persisted, and I know they are happily reconciled because her husband told me so when we last spoke in the summer (at the time of the affair he had told her he was leaving, so she was flailing).  So it doesn’t explain all his horrid behaviour since the affair.  It just doesn’t explain it.  Plus his rages.  He even kicked in someone’s door and dented it at Costco for taking his parking spot, and threatened to send him home in a body bag.  His sister has bipolar, which is why I think the doctors thought he has that (33% chance of bipolar if your sibling has it).  He is so secretive about his family’s mental health, however, but I think she has now been diagnosed with schizo-affective disorder.  She currently doesn’t believe their mother is her mother.  The only time he’s really ever explained to me why he isn’t in treatment (after I asked him why he’d cancelled his appointment with the psychiatrist who told him about his psychotic break), he tearfully whispered he was “afraid he was going to be told he’s like his sister.”  His father is also mentally ill, but I don’t know the diagnosis.  He’s never worked in the 28 years I’ve known my husband.  He converted to Islam when my husband was 18, and began proselytizing to all and sundry.  He’s a 6’3” Irishman, with a Catholic priest for a brother.  But he dresses like he’s in the Middle East, and is constantly berating us for not being religious.  I wish I had taken heed of my mother.  She strongly disapproved of me marrying into his family. 

[Naughty Nibbler]

Hi Onlyjan:
I'm so sorry you have been through such stressful events.  Notwendy and Formflier gave you some good input.  Just adding a couple of comments/questions.

I wish I had taken heed of my mother.  She strongly disapproved of me marrying into his family.

His grandfather, also, had Borderline Personality Disorder.

His father is also mentally ill, but I don’t know the diagnosis.  He’s never worked in the 28 years I’ve known my husband.

His sister has bipolar, which is why I think the doctors thought he has that (33% chance of bipolar if your sibling has it).  He is so secretive about his family’s mental health, however, but I think she has now been diagnosed with schizo-affective disorder.     

Vision is always better in hindsight.  That's a lot of genetic history of mental illness.  You indicate he was secretive about his family's mental health.  How much did he share with your before marriage? 

Does anyone here understand why he wants to have sex with me all the time but won’t be intimate in any other way? No touching my hand, or hugging, or holding me? I don’t understand   

Some men are up for sex only (no affection), and can process it as a bodily function.  They support that logic, by NOT be affectionate.  Most women, on the other hand, want affection in order to be interested in sex.  I'm thinking he can paint you black/devalue you, and want to have sex without affection.  It could be thought of a degrading act.

He’s 6’2” and does Ironman so he exercises like a fiend, he’s so driven. He pushes his body so hard now and will do an Ironman every weekend     

His family history of mental illness explains a lot.  I was wondering that with his extreme drive for Ironman competitions, if he could be taking steroids?  Some men, who are obsessive with some form of athletics, take them.  Thinking that mental illness combined with steroids would be a terrible mix.

[onlyjan]

Hi Naughty Nibbler.  I knew my husband's father was "eccentric" and they didn't speak.  He was actually terribly, terribly embarrassed of him, and didn't even want him at our wedding. When he did come to the wedding, he was hours late, was not wearing the tuxedo my husband had rented him, and had some nasty cut on his head.  . His grandfather lived in Florida, far away from us, and I'd only met him on vacation when we visited.  He was certainly a little odd (he had newspapers piled to the ceiling along all the walls of his condominium) but I wasn't too worried (naively) since he was an old man in his 80s.  I failed to take his illness seriously.  I knew he had deserted his entire family in Montreal at one point in his early 40s. That's when his illness surfaced. He'd abandoned his whole family (wife and two young kids) in a French city, where they didn't speak the language.  The rest of the family tracked him down in the U-S months later, and forced him to come back after his grandma had a nervous breakdown.  As for my husband's sister, she was starting to show signs of eccentricity in her late teens.  When we got married, she'd already started to have episodes.  She'd already been institutionalized once for stalking a gay man in the triathlon club at her university.  But I loved him and he seemed totally "normal", and we actually had what I thought was a pretty great life. 

As for the degrading me through the sex...I hadn't thought of that.  It's a good point, though.  Thank you for that.  Thinking of what you wrote, it makes me think that it's also a way of exerting control.  It's just so hard to reconcile with the "old" husband.  He was so affectionate.  He was always touching me and holding me.  We always sat on the sofa entwined around one another.  When he had snapped out of his first psychosis, he was back to trying to hold me all the time.  And then he snapped again the following January, nearly a year exactly after his first break, and he has NEVER been the same.  It's been a downward spiral of him trying to humiliate and hurt and criticize me.

As for steroids -- no, I would 100 per cent rule that out.  He's obsessed with his body moving faster.  He says every pound slows him down 1.5 minutes.  He is so ridiculously anal about his food consumption.  He's currently vegetarian. He's gone through keto etc.  He's worked out all the macros (fat/protein/carbs etc) and is so controlled he won't let any junk into his body.  He also hasn't had a drop of alcohol in YEARS.  He wouldn't even try marijuana when we were in Amsterdam together.  Beyond that he fought taking an anti-cholesterol drug for two years and did umpteen cardiology tests every six months for the last two years, but finally started taking them because his cholesterol continues to be high, despite all the fanatical exercise and the refusal to eat anything bad for you (he won't even eat more than a couple bites of birthday cake).

[formflier]

So..is it fair to say he is a man of extremes?

Can you take a moment and describe your medical and mental health team to me?  What are they advising you to do in your current situation?  How do you feel about their advice?

Best,

FF