Big Mistake!

[ntheyez]

Hello everyone I am new here and I came here for some anonymous advice because I feel like I can't go to anyone that I know. My now husband and I have been together off and on since teenage years, have a child together and one on the way. We just decided to get married. I had my doubts the whole time but I figured since we were not going to be breaking up any time soon I may as well get some benefits out of this while it lasts. I even thought through the whole process of marriage, separation and divorce. (The new baby was a total surprise!) And no I am definitely not the type to think that having a baby will help a relationship! But bcz I am not for abortion, I felt it was meant for me to bring this new life into the world regardless of our situation. I figured I have been a single mom before and would have no problem doing it again if necessary. Here's the big issue:

 

Now that we have married, reality set in that it is not as easy as it was to walk away when we were not married. Mostly because of public view, and I know I shouldn't care what ppl think but sometimes I just do. I feel like I would be the talk of the town getting married just a few months ago after all these years, having another baby after so many years, and then getting divorced. He is so evil to me. He was already a piece of work, but these were things I felt I could deal with because we have known each other for so long. The reality is that during our time apart, I stopped missing him, stopped loving him and enjoyed my new life being single, and even forgot about a lot of the little-but very significant- things that kept our relationship so shaky. Of course they have all come back 2 me and I think that I just made a huge mistake.

 

My mom hates him because of everything he put me through in the past, even though he has changed a lot, but at the same time he still has not. He has never hit me, but he is very emotionally abusive, and has a way of trying to make me look like the bad guy in front of everyone. He can whisper something to piss me off, then I react loudly, so of course I look like I am the one who has snapped. He is the type of person who is one type of way with the rest of the world then comes to me with what I feel is such hatred. I feel like he only married me for the sake of status & image, and not wanting to upset his family by being with someone else when all they know is me. He often talks about how it hurt him that his dad had married another woman after never marrying his mother. In fact, a lot of his actions and beliefs are a reflection of his torrid life growing up.

 

There is so much more and I don't want to overload on my first post, but to make a long story short, I am a happy person, but so not happy with him a majority of the time, like 98% of the time. I was totally happy being single and when he asked to come back I felt regret from the moment I said yes, but I felt like I should give our family one more chance. I feel like I can't talk to my family and friends because I think they are all waiting to say "I told you so" or "You shouldn't have taken him back". And I think he knows this that I really have no one to turn to at this point in my life and uses it to strip away my self-esteem.

[trippi1432]

Welcome to LS...I have to ask...because after your post, I would cut and run from my own emotionally abusive relationship. Image or not, what did he put you through in your past?

[ntheyez]

Same thing but worse - emotional abuse, cheating (we both ended up cheating on each other in the past - we were young), caused me to go into a deep depression and gain excessive amount of weight. Manipulating, making me think I was crazy. Financial issues, lies on top of lies, shooting down everything that made me happy. Oh my gosh I didn't realize that this looks even more awful in print!! We separated for a long time, and just when the thought of him did nothing for me, he comes crawling back into my life. I was single but seeing & meeting other people having fun, living life, getting back in shape, and all because of my strong family values I let him back in, with regrets and doubts as I said yes. *sigh*

[trippi1432]

ntheyez - I know you stated that you didn't want to overload on your first post; however, I feel that people here can help you more than just the typical response of "you need to divorce" if we had more of the back story. Was the emotional abuse present prior to the cheating? You mention his torrid life, can you give more detail into that?

 

I can tell you from my own experience, that I stayed in a 15 year relationship with an emotionally abusive partner and thought I was doing the right thing for our children....if I had it to do over again, I would do a lot of things differently. Please feel free to share more.

[ntheyez]

trippi432: I think the cheating was what caused the emotional abuse. He began to abuse me because felt a need to justify what he was doing. He started accusing me of everything he was doing. He was lying to everybody (me, his family, himself and everyone else he knew). He pretended to have a relationship with his mother and some of his friends and co-workers so that he could use them as an alibi for when he was out cheating. He never admitted these things but I knew all along that this was what was going on. I just could not confront him until I had proof. He even told me a little while ago (after the fact )that it was nothing I did wrong, I was a great person, a great mother and partner. So his selfishness was the abuse itself. I asked him not to argue with me in front of our child and he refused. I felt he didn't love me or our child and wished that he could start a life with her and her children. But again, because he is very concerned with what people think of him, I think that he knows he would have gotten stoned for leaving his family to be with another woman and take care of her and her two kids. I still don't know what happened between them and why they are apart now, which leaves me with insecurities, but I know that they worked together and were at least 5 or 6 years in by the time I confirmed what I had already suspected. He lied so much that for a long time I thought he had a drug addiction. (stopped helping financially, always lying about his paycheck being short, leaving late at night when I was sleeping, etc). Now I don't know which one would have been worse.

 

His childhood.. let's see.. mother ran off with a man and left him and siblings to be raised by their grandparents. He often (regularly) recalls how he witnessed his mom cheating on his dad. Dad physically abusive to mom. Dad was never "there" for them emotionally, only financially. He didnt love himself or feel loved because he always got picked on about his appearance (of course he doesn't have that problem now). Now he seems to throw it in my face all the time about all the attention he gets from other women. I get a lot of attn from men too but I NEVER would treat him this way. He seems to blame me, saying things like "you have always been pretty and accepted so you don't know it feels". I have suggested over and over again for him to seek counseling but he refuses, and says I'm the one who is crazy and needs counseling. Back in the day, he really made me think I was the one who was crazy. Now that I have grown and figured myself out, I could not let him put me in that position again, but the abuse is still there. I always point it out to him. I even tried to get him to read this article about emotional abuse, he refused. I thought if he could see on paper that his actions and words were abusive, he would stop.

 

Lately, seemingly since I signed the marriage papers, he has gotten more brazen with his attacks but will laugh them off as if they are jokes. Now I'm pregnant, mind you, and he will say things like "you can use the exercise" then when I ask him what did he say he will say "i said we can use the exercise". He got laid off from his job so he has had time to work out everyday and get in shape, instead of waiting for compliments he asks for them. I always tell him he has real issues with self esteem that no mask he wears can hide. I don't tell him in a way to hurt him as he does me, but in a way to make him see and seek help.

[trippi1432]

ntheyez - One of the biggest problems in a situation like this is that you cannot change his behavior. Even by pointing out the behavior, you will just get more resistance and more finger-pointing or insincerity.

 

Based on what you have stated about his childhood, here lies the beginning of the toxic environment of influence. First you state that he pretended to have a relationship with his mother to hide the affair, you also state that he witnessed his mom cheating on him. That's very telling on the fact that he keeps an emotional distance to his mother....it could also be where his insecurity and lack of self esteem spur from. Net/Net: he keeps an emotional distance from any woman.....including you.

 

The other side of this is some emotional manipulation...crazy-making so to speak. The blaming, the gas-lighting to make you think you are crazy...the instigating fights with you but wanting to put on appearances as if he has done nothing wrong, this is abuse. Do you ever try to assess how much of this abuse is self-inflicted? I did, thought it was me, thought it was my hormones only because I could empathize with how horrible things must have been for him. But the instigation...some things you stated made the hair on the back of my neck stand up because yes, I do remember these things and how much it hurt because that is not love, it's more like feeling like a fire hydrant being peed on.

 

The difference here is where you try to understand him, but not his behavior toward you, the two are not as interwoven as we would like them to be, where we try to compensate which helps their "appearance"...or under-compensate because they get a rise out of us which was the goal to begin with..the fact is, it is HIS choice to see the ones that love and care about him in front of him or not. I've always believed that when we mature, and can understand and outgrow our childhood, we can grow to become healthy, responsible adults. That does not mean that your husband has gotten there yet or ever will.

 

15 years...how would I have changed things....I would have followed through on leaving him at 8 months pregnant and taken my chances rather than thinking I could be a healthy person for him while being taken down one brick at a time, I would also make him be more responsible for how he acted rather than filtering out everything that didn't "fit" in his life. Ultimately, two people share a life together, it's not a life when it is one-sided.

[ZacThomas]

Trust is the base on which a relationship survive. If you trust your partner then you're giving her/him a chance of continuing with you despite of your several mistakes.