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My Mom's husband was very similar. He used to be a very good man (or at least appeared that way), but a few years ago he turned pathologically self-centered and became a toxic influence to everything he touched. He ended up destroying his very successful business (which took him years to build and a few months to destroy) and his marriage with a mixture of cocaine use, reckless spending, and a string of affairs with some downright hideous women (my Mom is in her 50s and overweight, but she is Cindy Crawford circa 1990 compared to the abominations he bedded).
He would also whine and ask to be waited on hand and foot whenever he feel ill and would constantly guilt trip here.
I don't know everything about your marriage and I hope I am wrong, but if it is anything like my Mother had: Run. Don't walk. Run the f--k away because it's going to get real dark.
My Mom's husband was very similar. He used to be a very good man (or at least appeared that way), but a few years ago he turned pathologically self-centered and became a toxic influence to everything he touched. He ended up destroying his very successful business (which took him years to build and a few months to destroy) and his marriage with a mixture of cocaine use, reckless spending, and a string of affairs with some downright hideous women (my Mom is in her 50s and overweight, but she is Cindy Crawford circa 1990 compared to the abominations he bedded).
He would also whine and ask to be waited on hand and foot whenever he feel ill and would constantly guilt trip here.
I don't know everything about your marriage and I hope I am wrong, but if it is anything like my Mother had: Run. Don't walk. Run the f--k away because it's going to get real dark.
It's been dark, I'm just really good at management. When it's bad, I take him out to the backyard or garage and sit for hours letting him talk at me, so the kids don't have to hear it. I know all the right things to say to get him over the worst moods. Unfortunately this only makes him cling all the tighter to me, which really isn't the goal. The one thing I do not worry about is him cheating...if anyone is apt to do that, it's me. Mostly because I am DONE but don't know how to sever it properly so that I can move on. Women have cheated on him in the past, his first 2 wives did, and I sure know why. They, too, were done...but getting him to let go is very difficult. My biggest fear is that if I managed to get away, he would stalk me, with one of his many rifles, waiting to see me speak to another guy so he could blow him away. That's precisely the kind of thing he'd get up to.
In fact I WISH he would find someone else!
Recently, I have some new friends I like a lot...a household, a family, and a guy who rooms there...and I stop by occasionally. I told him I wanted the freedom to have friendships without having to defend or justify that to him, and this is one of the reasons marriage is getting difficult for me. His answer to that was to attempt to start tracking my phone. I found out when a charge showed up on our bank account, and I Googled it, and asked him about it...he lied and told me he was trying to track one of our kids. I knew he was lying, he's not very good at it, but I eventually let it go. A few days later while he was asleep, I checked his browser history and found a whole page of "Track GPS phone" searches and one on how to place a keylogger on a phone, which actually included my phone number in the search. So, while I already knew, this confirmed what I suspected. So at this point it's like...both of us are snooping and neither trusts the other, although our mistrust is about different things... The games are getting old.
And I'm getting closer to just telling him I want a separation and I'm considering getting my own apartment, and seeing what he says to that...letting the chips fall where they may. He might run off into the hills with his guns, as he has threatened to do (I missed work to talk him out of this last time) and I might just let him. I don't even know anymore.
It's been dark, I'm just really good at management. When it's bad, I take him out to the backyard or garage and sit for hours letting him talk at me, so the kids don't have to hear it. I know all the right things to say to get him over the worst moods. Unfortunately this only makes him cling all the tighter to me, which really isn't the goal. The one thing I do not worry about is him cheating...if anyone is apt to do that, it's me. Mostly because I am DONE but don't know how to sever it properly so that I can move on. Women have cheated on him in the past, his first 2 wives did, and I sure know why. They, too, were done...but getting him to let go is very difficult. My biggest fear is that if I managed to get away, he would stalk me, with one of his many rifles, waiting to see me speak to another guy so he could blow him away. That's precisely the kind of thing he'd get up to.
In fact I WISH he would find someone else!
Recently, I have some new friends I like a lot...a household, a family, and a guy who rooms there...and I stop by occasionally. I told him I wanted the freedom to have friendships without having to defend or justify that to him, and this is one of the reasons marriage is getting difficult for me. His answer to that was to attempt to start tracking my phone. I found out when a charge showed up on our bank account, and I Googled it, and asked him about it...he lied and told me he was trying to track one of our kids. I knew he was lying, he's not very good at it, but I eventually let it go. A few days later while he was asleep, I checked his browser history and found a whole page of "Track GPS phone" searches and one on how to place a keylogger on a phone, which actually included my phone number in the search. So, while I already knew, this confirmed what I suspected. So at this point it's like...both of us are snooping and neither trusts the other, although our mistrust is about different things... The games are getting old.
And I'm getting closer to just telling him I want a separation and I'm considering getting my own apartment, and seeing what he says to that...letting the chips fall where they may. He might run off into the hills with his guns, as he has threatened to do (I missed work to talk him out of this last time) and I might just let him. I don't even know anymore.
Wow. This is worse than I thought.
Is he the violent type? Like has he hit you or the kids or strangers? I know you said that he has a temper, but there is a difference between having a temper and actually being violent.
Whatever happens, I hope this works out well for you. It sounds like he is putting you through a lot. I wish I could say that this is or even could get better, but based on the experience my mother had with her husband, this is probably going to get worse. The only thing is that maybe you can pitch the separation as something positive for him as opposed to "I can't deal with your s--t anymore". Like if you can convince him that his life will be better (if he is a Narcissist, this approach might work) if you two aren't together than he might be less willing to do something rash.
So I didn't want to put this in Relationships but a thread kind of resonated and well...I did. Here's what's up right now...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sonic_Spork
Wow. This whole thread, and several posts (including the OP) resonate so strongly for me, even though actual cheating (sexual acts) isn't in the picture right now.
So my marriage has been a balancing act since day one. I was 18, didn't know my behind from my elbow, y'know...didn't really want marriage and kids. He was 29, just coming off his second divorce, with massive baggage, and decided I was his "soulmate." I thought he was just another boyfriend, he latched on and never let go. I got pregnant by 19, and we wound up having 2 kids. THEY are what committed me. We have now been together 18 years, which is half of my life, and the boys are 13 and 16. Our relationship only works when I am tending to his needs, as his caretaker. My needs are not important, not heard, he is blind to them. Whether we are just talking to one another, or other friends are around, he has to dominate the conversation and won't let me speak...actually raises his voice to shout me into silence if need be. He cut off my mother, and hates her and doesn't want me to have a relationship with her, he used to freak out if I had any friends that weren't primarily his friends, we have had to work hard on that, and in recent years he lets me "out of the cage" to attend concerts and stuff and it's OK for me to have my friends, as long as he doesn't have to see or hear them around. He's been out of work since Nov. 2012 and it's taken a toll on his mental health, I have missed work to "talk him off his ledge"...well in early March, one of our sons backtalked him and he just lost it. I should probably mention that anytime he's feeling upset and insecure, the first thing he does is get out all of his guns, or at least one of them, and loads them up like he's ready to go to war. Well I took the kids to school that day and by the time I got home, all the guns were out (again) and he was going to pack them up in the car and "go live in the hills until he died." I talked him down. Got him ok again. But that day, something broke inside of me. I was so tired of draining myself, to maintain this crazy person. It's killing me.
And incidentally, we have this friend, who is my age, and shares a lot of my interests, and has been staying in our guest room weekends... Well, I started spending a lot more time with him, talking...he actually LISTENS. I began to have feelings for him that I knew I shouldn't have. A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned this to him (the friend) and he pushed me back (figuratively) and told me no, he is my husband's friend, too, and he is not in a position to have a relationship, and it is just me feeling that way because of my problems, which I should be telling my husband instead of him. Well, at first, even though I think I knew deep down that he would do this and it did put things in perspective...it felt like a rejection, and it hurt a bit. I moped. But I got over it. No cheating of a physical nature occurred.
In the meantime, husband has suffered several anxiety attacks (mostly about me spending all this time with my friend) and also a severe episode of back/leg pain from his degenerative disc disease and sciatica...I took him to the hospital and cared for him through that. The other night I was particularly troubled in my mind though, and he wanted me to talk to him, when I was short, he demanded I tell him why. It all just came out. That I'm having a hard time continuing to be in this marriage, that I had developed feelings for a friend, quite innappropriately, that he rejected that, quite appropriately, but that I see it is a symptom of the unhappy state of things. I have wanted therapy, but can't seem to get a therapist on the phone to actually make an appointment, they don't return messages, or aren't taking new patients, I've failed with several attempts. This whole thing was something of a cry for help from me. I wanted so, so much for him to care what I'm going through and help me...help US...get through it before the damage continued or got worse.
Well, in the wake of this, he has decided that I'm a lying, betraying, backstabbing, deceiver, like "all women" and first he tried to throw me out, then he tried to leave, then he came back angry and threatened to punish me daily until I gave up and left...neither of us want to leave the kids, you see... The house is for the kids, and neither of us wants to be the one to go. If he were "normal people"...if I thought he could raise the kids on his own, I'd move into an apartment and just see them sometimes, still be part of their lives...but I don't trust him to be stable without management. And now he doesn't trust me, feels I stuck a knife in his heart because I can no longer promise to grow old and die with him, and he is, today, talking suicide. The other night when all of this went down, he yelled at me for hours, sitting across from me in a plastic chair in the garage, with a loaded pistol strapped to his leg and "flagging" me (gun people will know what that means) for hours. If I call the cops to deal with his threats to harm himself, he will shoot at them. Our local police are good people, and I don't want their safety on my conscience. I especially don't want bullets in the air when my kids will be coming home from school, nor for them to come home and find their Dad dead from killing himself. But he has threatened this before, and before it has always been a means of manipulation...he wants me to leave work and run home so he can punish me emotionally right now. But I have missed too much work and I can't leave today.
Sometimes, "just leave the guy" is so, so much easier said than done.
I didn't physically cheat on him...but I understand why women do. Some people can't handle the truth.
And yes, I've been trying to talk to him about how I feel for YEARS. If I manage to get across that I have issues, he immediately has bigger issues so I have to stop worrying about me and care for him.
I have no idea how all of this is going to go down...but I'm so, so tired of the hell I'm in.
This actually sounds more like Borderline Personality Disorder to me, or possibly Histrionic Personality Disorder. Regardless, people like that will not get treatment because they don't think there's anything wrong with them. Everyone else is crazy. Counseling, marriage counseling, whatever will make no difference. Take those kids and run for the hills, and get yourself a damn good lawyer.
After days of highs and lows, anger and despair, "I'm leaving," to "I'm throwing you out," to "I'm going to torture you and make you feel the pain I do," to "I'm going to kill myself," to "If you leave I'm going to pick up women and use them" he finally reached, "I can't live without you and I want things to be like they were before."
So basically....he made it so terrible and all about his pain, tried to shout and punish me into submission, and just when we reached the point where I wished I had never said a thing, gave me a place to retreat to and make everything into the relatively painless holding pattern it was before. No...that's not manipulative behavior AT ALL.
And still it is all about his "dream" which is both of us growing old in the house, waiting for the Grandkids to come visit. I gave up my youth. I gave him...or rather our kids really...half of my life thus far...and he's telling me he is shocked that my idea of happiness is not sitting in a house that he chose, where I have no space of my own to do anything, because it's all set up for him and his activities, and basically sit there physically letting old age claim me as I wait for him to die, wait for the kids to need a place to come stay, wait for them to bring the grandkids by to visit...I will wait and wait until I drop dead, then get buried next to him and cross over, where he will be waiting for me. That is his idea of a perfect future, and I'm a monster for denying him his dream.
But...for the moment, I am taking the place of retreat and I am going back to stand there quietly. The kids still need me, need him, and need me to keep him reasonably sane and functional. He had our youngest lay a lovely guilt trip on me last night. The issue with everything that went down, the whole blowup, is that there was no plan...no script...it was all out of control. No one was ready to deal with the fallout, not even me. I'm going back to my corner to keep waiting...and it might take a few more years. But this time...I'm making plans.
You still have all the power over your own actions. All of it. You don't have to surrender. What you are planning to surrender into isn't a quiet corner. I'm sure you wish you could tell your 18yo self to run and not wait for the kids to get older or whatever was keeping you there. I'm sure your 52 yo self would tell you the same thing. Leave now. Your boys are being negatively affected by this man. They are not better off having him in the home to terrify and manipulate them. They are probably already suffering from a little PTSD. Also, you aren't keeping him sane. I don't mean that in an insulting way, I mean that all this song-and-dance of letting you talk him down from the ledge is for his enjoyment/fulfillment. He is acting in a particular way specifically to bring about the song-and-dance. This dance you both do is not helping either of you. I think continuing to believe that you can control his emotions is lulling you into a false sense of security about how dangerous this man is. I remember once reading an article about Adam Lanza's mother and how she stayed in the house with him as he got increasingly bizarre because she thought she had a special connection with him and could contain the situation. Obviously, that did not work. Resign from this full-time position of crisis counselor and go and enjoy life.
The problem is that I set this all off by letting my emotions run my mouth, which I almost never do. I'm known for being eternally patient, and calm, and everyone's stable rock. It's just right now I'm having issues with a lot of stuff, I'm trying to get back into college full time on top of being full time employed (the only one working) and dealing with my role at home, too, and a little crisis of the kids getting older and me not being there so much...it feels like my boys are growing up and don't need me as much. All kinds of me-stuff. But in this relationship it is not generally "ok" for me to have "stuff." Or at least if I want any kind of support or whatever about it. I tell him things, it's "What do you want me to do about it?" or "What can I do to fix it" and while I get that men are fixers and solvers, not comforters or nurturers...it gets to feel like, "What can I say or do to make you shut up about you right now? I don't want to hear your voice."
Thing is, the kids don't know any different, and my youngest son is very attached to him despite the fact that they often don't get along...because they are extremely similar people. He also tends to make everything about his own personal tragedies and is quite a drama queen. My older son is far more level headed and just wants to be left out of all this drama. He's a little more mature...only natural, as he is older.
Anyhow. The mistake I made, besides letting my feels run off with my mouth, in starting this...was doing so without a plan. He kept saying he wanted truth from me, but he really couldn't handle it. Only if it's what he wants to hear, can he handle the truth. Well unfortunately, the truth is NOT anything he wants to hear. Since he reacted this way, he has guaranteed a rather different end to all of this. I am indeed retreating quietly back to my corner. And the next time I come out, I'll have finished this degree, I'll be making twice what I make now, I'll have a very good lawyer and another place to live already rented. In fact I imagine quite a bit of my stuff will already be there. I'm sure there is more to this plan, but I imagine I'll have it all worked out by the time we get there.
I've kept up the "everything is fine" facade so solidly for 18 years that everyone except the friends I kvetch to, and my Mom, believed it...I can keep it up another year or 2.
Also...I DO maintain him. He hasn't been in a single fight since I took the leash. He used to go around getting in fights all the time. Even when we fight, we don't get further than raised voices and nasty emotional stuff, no throwing of objects, putting fists through walls, or anything like that. He is a violent person underneath, I do think, but he controls it pretty well because I've forced him to learn how.
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