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I don’t know how to start this. My head is a mess. I’m so confused and I’m in the fog. I’ve been married for 14 years. The first seven years seemed idyllic. The relationship move quickly we bought a house within seven months, were married within a year, and we had her son within two years. We used to brag that our marriage was perfect, our friends were jealous. We had known each other as friends before we got together. He was always the shy one, the quiet one, the one who got friend zoned. I was the younger, pretty blonde. We were an odd couple. I was raised with a malignant, narcissistic father, and a covert, narcissistic mother. I thought by choosing him I was choosing the opposite of what I was raised with. I thought I was breaking the cycle . The generational trauma. And so it was for seven years. Then we lost the house, the SUV, the middle class perfect existence. I didn’t care about those things, I was never raised with material possessions. But he came from a nice middle-class family, and that was his dream. When we lost it all, he slowly started changing. Our three year-old found porn on his tablet. He knew how I felt about porn. I don’t care what other people feel about porn. Everybody has their preferences, but for me, it’s the equivalent of cheating, and he knew it going in. He promised never to do it again, and I believed him. Over the years, I would find it again and again . He knows how do use incognito mode, and the amount that I found was minimal. Just enough to let me know that he was doing it then he started stealing my pain medication. He’s an addict. I knew that going in. But he had been clean , for almost 10 years. But he stole my medication, and would convince me that I was using too much, or that I lost it. Then, he would watch me be in pain because I didn’t have it, all the while he was high from injecting it , I eventually found out, and he made all the promises to go to rehab. He even went to a private rehab that his mother paid for that cost over $30,000 for a month. At that point we have been together for about nine years. We’ve never been apart. He didn’t even like going to the grocery store without me. He had no friends. He said I was all needed. I was his wife, I was his mother, I was his friend, I was his therapist, I was everything. At this point, I realized he lied to me constantly. About everything. He would go to the store, but he would lie about which store he went to. I don’t know why, I don’t know why it would matter. But He would lie, and I couldn’t trust a thing he said. I think this is what broke me the most. I pride myself on telling the truth. I ask that he told me the truth, I can handle the truth, as long as you’re dealing with the truth you can fix a problem, as long as you’re dealing in reality, you can work on it. But if you’re dealing with lies, there’s no foundation to work on. Lying is such a fundamental betrayal, it goes to the heart of marriage. And once it starts happening, there’s really no going back from it. our arguments started to become predictable. He would turn everything around on me. If I was upset with him about something, somehow, it would end up with him being mad at me and apologizing to him. Whatever I have been upset about forgotten about. He would forget things. His answers were constantly I don’t know or I don’t remember. The gaslighting just got continually worse. He would try and tell me that my memory was false, even when I had hard proof that something was true. I could have a text message where he said something and he would just deny saying it. If I confronted him with it, he would just say he didn’t remember saying it, and that I’m crazy. When he was away at rehab, I got a call from family services. It turns out that our son saw him doing drugs in the kitchen. Family services, then got involved and we’re monitoring us. I told him he had to come home that I couldn’t handle this on my own. He left rehab five days early. He’s been relapsing on and off for the last five years and he blames me for bringing him home early from rehab. Like those five days would’ve kept them clean forever . He blames me for everything. He shifts the blame for everything on me. All his emotions are my fault. If I didn’t get upset with him, he wouldn’t get angry. Etc. However throughout all of this, He’s always idealized me. He tells me I’m perfect. He never raises his voice at me. He rages, but he rages internally. He rages at himself. He’s always found ways to hurt himself. But he started cutting seriously. He uses it as a way to manipulate me. He’s admitted it to me and to the police when I’ve called them. There’s nothing the police can do because he doesn’t really want to kill himself. He’s cut himself in front of me for hours. I used to try and stop him, but there were a few instances where I got hurt, so I stopped. I also saw a video, where it says that if you give them the attention, that is what they’re looking for. So I ignore him. I don’t know what to do. I never know what the right thing to do is. Our son started acting out against us when he was five. He had rages. A crisis line told us to take him to a children’s hospital to have an assessed and get him services. He was taken by family services from the hospital and he’s been gone now for 2 1/2 years. I lost my son because of my husband. It gets very complicated after that. He triangulated me with his mother. A lot of things have happened in the last three years. Things I’d rather not talk about. The things I’ve said so far enough really. The things that have happened last three years are a lot worse. As it stands right now, I have gotten my husband out of the house . He is living in a room. I have blocked him on everything but email. I am struggling. I don’t know how to survive on my own. I was reliant on him. I have a lot of health issues and I’m struggling physically. I’m getting my son back June 28 . Family services has wanted to give him back to me for a long time but I wouldn’t leave my husband. I thought I was doing the right thing keeping my family together. My son loves his father. He wants us to be a family I didn’t want to break his heart . I didn’t realize what my husband was until a few months ago. Since then, I’ve been devouring videos and books and articles. I can’t believe I didn’t see it. Knowing what my parents were, I can’t believe I didn’t see it. But he was so insidious. He kept it hidden for so long . His mask didn’t come off until a few years ago. And it came off gradually. The cognitive dissonance is driving me mad. The trauma bond that’s been created through the intermittent reinforcement. He did so well I’m finding very difficult to break. I keep going back-and-forth between Knowing absolutely that I don’t want to be with him, that I can’t be with him, and needing him desperately. I’m trying to run a business, I’m trying to take care of a home on my own for the first time, I’m trying to be a single mother for the first time, I’m trying to be on my own for the first time, I have no friends because he made sure of that. It’s impossible to explain to people what happened, what he is, because it’s so subtle, So gradual. It happened over a long long time. And I defended him for a long time. So how do I now explain to people that I was abused, seriously seriously abused for so long? How do I explain to the people that I’m barely functioning? How do I explain any of it? I don’t know if I can handle this. I have no one to talk to. No one who understands. Thank you to whoever read this. I know it’s so long post. I know it’s a bit rambling. But if you read the whole thing, thank you.
