At during times over the past 5 years I've spent time on this site. I know of no other community of people with shared experience.
Today I must have a conversation with my husband that will end with us 'passing through that gate' on the other side of which is separation of a 20+ year relationship.
My Dr. Jekyll: supportive, tender, deeply loving, romantic, caring, intellectually stimulating with shared passions. I still get excited in anticipation of a date night after all these years. He brings me coffee in bed, shares a cocktail on the porch in the evening. He expresses respect, love and admiration.
My Mr. Hyde: berates me, talks over me (literally won't let me speak), uses blaming-judgemental words (I am controlling, manipulative, do whatever I want with no regard to other...sometimes- 'full of lies and bull
PLEASE READ'). He calls in the negative advocates ('just like all of our therapists have seen', my mother/uncle told me I should never have married you'). No matter how unbalanced the situation (no matter how much I can not be blamed), he will hold this state for days. He emotionally abandons and withdraws. Earlier, he could come back and own his behavior but this is happening less and less frequently. This dysregulated behavior has escalated. In the past 3 years he has 'ended our marriage' twice. We have physically separated twice.
In the first decade of our marriage, we fought often but Mr. Hyde would take over maybe once or twice a year (the nuclear ones). Then, I noticed the transformation happening maybe quarterly. In the last 3-4 years, something has shifted. The dysregulation is happening weekly. I trigger him all the time. His ability to hold a different perspective has grown increasingly limited. His narrative (primarily that I won't own my 'stuff' and can only blame him for all that is wrong in the marriage and it's 'our dynamic' to blame- nothing organic within him) has grown more impenetrable. Dr. Hyde and Mr. Jekyll seemed to be locked in an all out battle with Jekyll gaining considerable foothold.
I stayed because we have two children. I stayed because I remain in love with Dr. Hyde and desperately bashed my head against the wall year after year after year- determined to crack the code and hold on to the man I loved.
Fast forward to today. In early October came the worst yet. He abruptly stopped the SSRI that seemed to help his anxiety. He lost all control and verbally attacked our 17-year-old daughter (in front of me and our 14-year-old son). The next night when I asked him to stay somewhere else until we could 'figure things out' he screamed at me that he was DONE with me and the marriage and I could no longer 'control' him.
We have been physically separated since then (4 months). There have been a couple moments since that he was able to let in the pain and damage that his behavior caused (expressing extreme remorse and understanding my need to draw a boundary), but...for whatever reason...he can NOT sustain this. He is now back to the narrative that it is 'our dynamic' to blame. He is 'working on his stuff'. I am not. He is done 'pointing fingers' (code for- we are not to talk about what happened or his behavior).
A week ago, came the ultimatum- he wants to move back in together effective immediately or be freed to 'pursue other relationships' and no longer be in limbo. This man who wrote me 100 love poems, calls me his soul mate, and accepted my love and support across two decades- is suddenly over me. He is cheery, polite, upbeat. He is on a meditation retreat and believes he is the healthy one and I am fragile and not grounded.
I am here because I believe he has some form of personality disorder. Undiagnosed of course. 'It' has subsumed the marriage and left me with ashes. The very hardest part of this entire experience- no mental health professional has EVER validated my experience or suggested that my husband seek help. We have had 5 couples therapists across the span and only one (briefly) suggested that Will's behavior was emotional abuse. HE PRESENTS SO SANE. He is a great, 'normal' guy to soccer buddies, neighbors, friends, other coaches, his family and the therapist (individual) he sees maybe once every few months. As I try to describe my experience and ask for help in setting boundaries, I have been told that I 'focus overly on my husband's behavior' and even that I 'sound like an attorney in court' instead of a vulnerable partner (the times I tried to audio tape a few of our conversations after having reality twisted so many times).
Phew...THANK YOU to any/all who read my story. I am sorry to be so wordy.
Today, if I say what my husband demands of me, I can have my family intact again, I do not need to be away from my son half the days of the week, I could vacation with my husband in Baja in March, I could have financial security...
Instead, I know what I must do today. I am scared and heart broken. The quote I read somewhere that resonates at this moment. "Death is irreconcilable grief. Divorce is reconcilable grief." To be free of Hyde, I must say goodbye forever to my beloved doctor and the life we had built together.
Wish me strength. And then, healing and deeper understanding.
