mutual abuse or cause/effect?

[wishingforchange]

I'd like to state firstly that I know for everyone's sake involved that separation is statistically inevitable and logically will hold the most positive results. I will be as truthful as I can be in this post and as unbiased as humanly possible and try to keep it concise but detailed. I appreciate those who read, and even more to those who have an opinion/advise is welcomed etc. 

 

TLDR: My parents were drug addicts and abusive/abused toward each other plus more. She was sexually abused, confined and black sheep of the family plus more. 

A little background info on me and my spouse for context

Me (male 32): I witnessed major physical abuse (dad beating mom, attempting to drown her - usually a result of an argument or him trying to sleep after a meth binge and her antagonizing him/not letting him sleep), emotional abuse of all aspects toward me sometimes and amongst parents often, not sure of exact the term for this but nobody was ever home when I was going to school/coming home as mom was working to support us while dad was in and out of jail, or they both were at work. Both did meth (mom quit after some time before i was old enough to realize, so when dad was not in jail/working he was tweaking on cars, porn or with friends. Mom, I can remember her being caring toward me and making sure I wasn't too hungry, but I don't remember much of my childhood with my parents as I was 100% outside with my friends and tried to stay out as much as possible. If we went out as a family, dad ALWAYS had a Gatorade mixed with tequila for sure remember that. Can add more if someone wants context but that's the consensus of it pretty much. Dad eventually stopped meth when he landed a city job and began drinking which turned very excessive, but he made good money (for then) and supported the family. 

For her I don't know much but i'll do my best 

Her (female 32): Molested by a family member for years till she was I believe 11-12 (this could vary), dad had a gambling addiction which resulted in losing everything eventually from what I understand. He was also very controlling toward mom; she wasn't allowed to work or do anything besides care for 2 children. relationship wise from what I understand dad cheated often, mom i think had an idea so I'm sure it wasn't ideal interactions while together, but I can't say use this as any indicator as it's not enough to go off of, she never told me about any physical abuse. My girlfriend was essentially confined, only allowed to go to school and stay home which pretty much lasted till she was 18 iirc. Girlfriend got pregnant at 15, from my understanding she willing had sex till the act was beginning and then had doubts but was pressured to continue. Again, the information she gives me tends to change the times we have talked about it little by little. Abused by the person who she had sex with for some time (unsure how long) as he would verbally insult her and at one time threw darts at her face. Family found out she was pregnant and gave her an ultimatum, abortion or move out. She moved to her family members for i believe a year till she had the baby and moved back home after. Family would make fun of her in different forms via insults, name calling, etc. That would last until she was in her late 20's and eventually, she gained 75lbs from early-mid 20s and the whole family would fat shame her. 

Definity missing events/details/history but I believe this paints a picture of our past if it even matters after I post our situation. 

Our story: When we first met I would have just gotten fired from my first job, own a car, and was very wild. Street racing every day, lots of smoking weed and id say coke every other weekend with my friends. All of this I was upfront about as well. We met on Facebook while she was commenting to her then ex-boyfriend's post about how she got a tattoo or something around those lines and it seemed she was flirting with him (turned out to be his name on her lower waste in pretty big lettering which I would notice after our first few sexual interactions). I knew him as well from a few blunt smoking interactions but nothing more. I commented sarcastically ''why don't you just tell him you like him lol'' (something to that degree) and then she said I was funny and sent a friend request. Now, I had NO idea of their history and wouldn't know about it till later in the relationship after we had begun talking. 

Started out great, first year lovey Dovey ofc. Lot's of sex, going to the beach, a lot of bonding and it would always be just the two of us. Her parents practically raised her child from birth till he was 3 or 4, until I took over and she moved in with me/ my parents. her family as they would be extra toxic with verbal abuse and negativity. Not really yelling or cursing, but critical, mean and non-supportive. Crab in the bucket mentally, always dragging each other down. Important detail but it's not in chronological order lol, I ended up in jail during our first 2-3 months after I went out with my friend to the street races and out of all cars they decide to stop (like 50 of us grouped up some racing some watching) as I was just on the side watching, they began to block me in and I decided to make a terrible choice and run. To summer size I ''successfully'' escaped but they obviously had my license plate, so they picked me up later the night at my house. Spent a couple days, bailed out after a few she stayed by my side.

The negative behavior started off just before she moved in with me. her cutting school to be with me and I would get upset as she was failing school, even lying to me and saying she didn't have class when I would drive her to school just to hang out with me. I did not condone this at all, but I cannot force her, nor did I start a fight. I expressed how it was not good etc. but fell on deaf ears. Fast forward about a year later or so, I would try to hang out with my cousin for example who before I met her would never leave his side practically and she would call me with whatever she could come up with to get me to come back home to her. I didn't even notice it was a problem till it got to the point later where I never got more than an hour with him or my few friends. She would always be at home for the first year we dated, never outside with friends. If she wasn't with me, she was in her room, whom she shared with her mom/dad/brother/son (1 bedroom with a full bathroom). Things got worse and worse till the point, where I would (for some reason) leave any situation, I was in if she called me to go home (worst time I remember was my cousins bday and I had been there for 30 minutes and bounced). Now, while all this went on I wasn't familiar with being jealous or controlling etc. as this was my first relationship ever, so I hadn't learned any way to love a person really, almost a free spirit. 

I have to add, I know I was super nice in the beginning and that drastically changed after about a year. Her personality was very bubbly, she was outgoing and even on the overly friend/naive side when it came to talking to people. From my perspective, for example she would talk to her male classmates while I would pick her up and it seemed like flirting, but she was unaware? Though I had no reason to be jealous from my recollection I had full trust in her.  Anyways, she disliked my bad habits of smoking weed greatly, but I did not stop. She would join in very rarely but despised it for the most part. Now, this is where my memory started to become very limited, or maybe selective if you will? I can recall us arguing in my mustang, so it had to be the first couple years of our journey and I remember me being abnormally angry, making irrational and dangerous actions in my mustang like speeding off quickly till the car got sideways and disregarding everyone and everything on the road including ourselves because of whatever was the topic.

I've always had anger issues, but the behavior didn't persist until after we got comfortable with each other (I guess), and one would say the real personality would show itself. I do not recall if it was something she said or if I was at fault, no idea of the cause. But the actions were unacceptable and irrational to say the least no matter the causation. I think this is where I began to start cutting my friends off completely because she would complain, make scenarios up or be very needy, which would lead to me being around her to much and not do anything besides watch movies or eat fast food with her. I legit can't recall our history from year 2 to like 4 besides a few things. I know she had a part time job in our 2-3 years and until I had gotten my own job, I would literally drive her to her job and wait a couple of hours while she worked, and I would attempt to express myself via letters to explain what I felt like and why. The contents are unknown, I think it was due to us arguing or something dumb and me blowing it out of proportion. The sad thing is, I can't specifically say what she would do wrong, but my reaction would be to talk it out and if that did not work because she didn't want too or she shutdown or didn't try to fix the problem I would explode yell and curse at her. Her communication skills have always been extremely poor and effort very minimal. That's why I began writing letting, because i figured she would read it and process it without distraction and hopefully give me something of a response so we could figure something out. 

Fast forward, I got a job as a security guard I believe. I started to rebel against her controlling my social life for a couple months and started to do things like go to the street races while doing coke and chillin with my friends while borderline evading police officers, who would break up the event and we would just move to the next spot for the whole night. Obviously, she would be worried, stressed, mad etc., and we would fight constantly about my bad behavior. Sometime during our 3-4 year is when her and her son moved in with me and all 3 of us would be in 1 room, for a long time. we did a lot of family activities pretty much as much as we could from taking our son to the movies to bounce 0 romma, the mall, pool trips, anything. I calmed down once they moved in with all the wild racing for the most part, got rid of my old mustang and bought a newer one. Went through a couple jobs over the years, usually holding it down for a year and then getting fired for something dumb. I legit don't recall, and I don't know if i'm embarrassed, scared of the truth, or possibly smoked to much weed cuz that habit was extremely excessive.

Over the time I would become very comfortable with getting angry over dumb things and she would begin to learn bad habits from being around me/my family like cursing for example. She would start to nit-pick at everything and everything and at the time I was to say the least very unaware of human psychology, had zero idea how to communicate effectively and would later get diagnosed with a mood disorder. Never stayed long enough to know exactly which one but based off the mental breakdowns I would have and how fast I cycled through amongst other info me and my girl would give them it was bipolar 1/2. I would have episodes very frequently which consisted of her doing/saying something to get a rise out of me and I just didn't have the capacity or tools to stop reacting. A lot of details are missing but the bottom line from what I can recall without adding any information that could be false is that I tried to get help many times through the first 8 years because either everyone was tired of my behavior (my mom was almost our consoler for a while, middle manning everything from me freaking out, crying and breaking my walls just absurd reactions now that I look back) or they genuinely cared about me and wanted to see me get help. These symptoms never showed themselves until after I fell in love with her and we began to fight, control each other and be just over all a toxic relationship. Not to mention when we fought, both sides would hurl insults at each other from mental health (toward me) to body shaming (at her). It would escalade as well to me throwing objects around and a few times they would hit her by accident. I say accident because i remember 3 damn times I took my phone, walked away from her and threw it at the ground/wall, and it would ricochet STRAIGHT at her face. I'll never forget those times, as I can seriously truthfully say that in that moment when I threw those items, it was nowhere near directed at her nor was it to harm her and the thought wasn't there. I threw a phone once, straight in front of me at an angel and it went straight passed my head into her face. To this day, i'm not justifying it at all because people should throw s*** ever, but it made no damn sense in my mind how it happened. 

Ok i'm getting tired of typing and I know if I don't submit this I'll never do it so I'm going to be brief and hopefully add info if anyone post/comments/etc. 

Sometime in our relationship in the middle years I would be caught talking to a receptionist from work online. She walked into my room after being logged on my account via a different divice and I had no idea, so once she saw the messages about me complimenting her boobs she lost it (rightfully so) and kicked my door in and started punching me in the face. I knew I f***ed up, so I let her hit me without retaliation. She got a good 5 shots in and then I reacted and pushed her away. 

through the years there would be a lot of arguing and fighting, and a lot of love and support. It was very rollercoaster like and didn't make any logical sense. But that's love sometimes. She would move back with her parents a few times through the years for a little bit and we would hash it out and she would come back. Eventually, I think after like 7 years she stayed with me and my parents for good. However, my memory tells me otherwise because once she moved in with her son, I don't recall her ever leaving with him so i'm unsure on which is true so that could be false.

Through the relationship she would work on and off, which I didn't mind at all. More on the off side if I recall correctly. I would have some very low moments where I would be unemployed and just play games all day long on my pc, which lasted up too a year. Then the fighting would get very bad and the insults would be about how I'm a failure etc. and I would start to feel like s*** so I got a job. When working I would be very generous with the money I made. Money means nothing to me honestly as long as no one is yelling at me and everyone is happy and I can play some video games in peace here and there, smoke some weed and eat whatever I wanted i was content. 

She would eventually through the years secretly have this weird Facebook connection with her ex (yes, the tattoo one), the first time I told her to stop, and she deleted him and I messaged him to not talk to her, he never responded. Second time I believe i just got on her ass which was a huge fight and she blocked him or something. There was a third time I believe but I can't remember the details, but I know the result was the same, sometime of disconnect/block or whatever. I actually never got any proof of something bad, no messages or anything but it's hard to believe if you're that persistent and have a tattoo of the guy's name in which you never made an attempt to cover out of respect for your partner or regret for yourself that there wasn't some history going on. 

 

In 2013-14 I was going through another coke faze, it got out of hand and lasted 6 months. During this time I had a job that would end around 12am, and I would go out with my friends and just do blow all night and disregard the fact I had a family (sadly). I always paid for what she needed, and my rent/bills. at the time she wasn't living with me I think as we got into a fight for a little or something and she bounced, totally get it. She would come to my work stalking me to see if I was actually at work, start fighting with me and I would react viciously. By this point she was essentially trying to get me to stay home all the time, I can't tell if it was good intentions or what the case was because it wasn't like she wanted to talk but rather every interaction was an accusation i was cheating or just flat out insults like coke head, drug addict, dumb ass, etc. In feb of 24, I ended up going to a party on our 8th anniversary, sneaking out of the house after she went to sleep on the phone. Ended up in a terrible car accident, as i was speeding because my friend wanted to see how fast my new mustang could go. Unfortunately, out of the 1000 times I would speed to 140 and nothing would happen, this time he told me to punch it (don't get me wrong, my choice for sure, my dumbass could have said no, no excuses are being made just telling the story) and I lost it at 110. Not sure of the reason, I think hydroplane, but they said it left skid marks so i don't think that adds up and i'll never remember sadly. we 180'd, slid backwards and bounced off 3 trees and hit some car size Bolders. During the ping ponging off the trees, i think the first initial tree crushed the backseat in which my friend was sitting and they never told me the cause of death but from what I saw i think internal damage, rib punctured a lung or maybe it just crushed him not sure but blood out the mouth as from what I remember when we pulled him out of the car and he was doa. This memory is flawed though as my girl showed me a picture and the back of the mustang is literally non-existent, there isn't a back seat so it looks to be impossible for someone to be extracted in any shape or form but I swear we pulled him out to the sidewalk. Anyways. f***ed up and i can never fix that. Went to jail, did 6 months due to my friends' parents not pushing for me to stay longer because it was an accident and the judge agreed it was a night of fun between friends that made a turn for the worse. I got very lucky to say the least. Gave me a felony in the process, which would make it very difficult for employment in the future to say the least. 

 

This would be the beginning of my mental health decline along with a lot more drug abuse and years of self-injury like punching hard objects till my hands were broken and bruised, abuse between me and my girlfriend escaladed because she would never trust me again and this would be an event that would/will never be forgotten as it was on our special day, the anniversary. The abuse pretty much would start out as her saying something negative and I would spiral faster than before. I would cut my legs with knifes till there were gashes, my arms sometimes too but I knew I needed the cuts to not be visible for work, so I was conscious of what I was doing to say the least. I just couldn't cope with her talking s*** to me and I would do my best at this point to not throw, yell, or harm her in any way so my punishment would be hurting myself because I felt I deserved the pain.  I had a job at the time after I got out too, just to add for detail. Bought her a van, I also had a new baby girl when I got out, I got to see her born luckily as I was released like 5 days before she was born. My girl had to go through her whole pregnancy with me in jail, all by herself. Jail visits were horrific most of the time, very emotional and lots of resentment and anger on her side (rightfully so). Lots of regret and depression on my side, of course. I would cry every single time, and every other day to say the least when going to sleep. I killed someone and left my family in a shitty place to say the least.

skip forward, I would eventually seek help via therapy and get a psychologist. They prescribed me medication, which helped tremendously. It took my excessive anger from a 10 to a 6, I stopped freaking out for the most part and if I got mad, I was able to respond accordingly or assess the situation better and that helped everyone around me. 

Sadly like 6 months after I got my job, my girlfriend didn't pay the car payment for some reason and they repo'd it. I literally gave her the money and she f***ed it off, we went down to fix the problem cuz we had the money like 2 grand or something, but they did some shady s*** that I don't remember, and she overreacted started yelling and that was the end of the van. I got fired from my job after about a year, got another under the table job, coke problem raised again after being clean for like a year. Someone at the job offered me coke and folded. Made very good money at this job, lasted 1.5 years but in the background my girl would be very paranoid of me because it was a 10-6 job so she couldn't keep track of me and there was a lot of females there. I never did anything with them, but I get where my history f***s me, and her insecurities get the best of her. She would stalk me once a week and drive through or randomly pop up. By this point, I grew a little and understood why she was like this somewhat. I wouldn't get upset but I didn't reassure her either so, no growth was made essentially. \

FastForward a couple years, still lots of trust issues through the years obviously. I don't recall me talking to any girls for a couple years at this point, but the damage had been done. She evolved her psychological warfare which would include using her ex and whatever lies (or maybe it was the truth? who knows) to hurt me. Basically, he's always there for me or i'm going to talk to him etc. I would react very upset ofc but I don't recall exactly. We had our good days most of the time, with a little bickering here and there. Nothing eventful but some were bad.

At one point I bought her a ring through the years, she ''lost'' it or her family stole it she says. Whatever. Just had to throw that out there lol. 

Stopped my coke habit after i got fired from the night job, clean 5 years and weirdly enough i don't remember where i was employed... I know for sure i wasn't unployed for 5 years but it won't come to me so I guess I have to assume the worst. Sometime in 2019 I think I began pursing an educatuion in psychology as I wanted to be a counselor. I was doing great, nailing 5 classes at a time for almost a year with a 3.6gpa and she was going with me right by my side. s*** was great, but still was accused of talking to girls at school etc. But it was mild at worst, not much fighting at all cuz we focused on schoolwork. surprisingly I was almost 100% sober, just a little weed here and there. 

Well that all crumbled quick. After a Halloween party we threw, drunk as f***, dropped her mom off like 1 street away and turn the corner... Wouldn't you know dude in all black chilling, forever I'll say it was the devil in disguise. I had the balls to hit him up and ask if he had anything to ''sober me up''. wouldn't you know, he said yea and came back out of his RV with a sack. Gave him 20 and that was the first, and easily worst decision of my life. I learned what meth was. Got twacked for 3 days as I didn't know ANYTHING about the drug besides my parents used to do it. This made me crumble into a baby after the high went away. I was depressed for 2-3 weeks majorly and had to withdrawal from my classes. The addiction didn't hit for like another year, but oh boy did it hit. I stopped school, got a job in the meantime as a janitor for a school district and sometime after the first year I went back to that guy and that's where the addiction didn't stop. I would be a active meth head on and off for basically like 5 years till today. 

The last 2 years though, my girl has become so much like me that it's hell. No matter what I do, regardless if I'm clean for a month or high that day everything is a problem. I managed to get an apartment with this job as it pays decent, i've kept it for 4 years through thick and thin even with the drug addiction. I do my best to help out with whatever she asks. Bought her a new car as well. I don't fight with her unless I can't take it anymore pretty much. The times I do f*** up is when I try to get clean, as I have abused my body for lets say 4 months with lack of sleep basically and need to recover. If i'm getting clean, I need about a week of recuperation. That being said, in those days i'm the devil to say the least. I lashout at anything that makes noise and she will go out of her way to f*** my sleep up from playing music to try and do anything to wake me up unintentionally. There have been times where I serious try to quit, clean for 6 months trying to turn my life around some how and in that process she will accuse me of being high constantly even if I offer a drug test. Granted I have lied about being high many times so I understand. If I go out of my way to buy flowers, make differ and help the kids with homework her attitude doesn't waver. She will bash me, call me a drug addict, crack head, whatever she can to hurt me. Use lines like you don't make me happy or I need a new partner etc. Then the next day she will apologize. But the cycle continues and it's never ending now. I've attempted to quit this demon drug 5 times, and every time she will do anything but support me through the process. She is no angel in this situation at all though, she has failed to pay rent setting us back 3 months, even though i give her the cash (only accept money orders where I live) every time no failing. At one point we were 6.2k in debt and I had to basically pull out a loan to pay for partial payment and the rest my whole check or we were out. 

 

While I understand I'm a drug addict, and i'm doing my best to work on it. Sense I went to school I have grown so much in the sense of communication, knowledge, understand human behavior and psychology and my reasoning is non biased. When she has a bad day I ask and communicate that I'm here to listen and talk. I tell her shes beautiful every day before work. I make sure she knows I care very much about her. And some days she's amazing, nice happy and content with our situation, even if I'm high. Sadly, the drug is very helpful for me in many ways. I am patient, no anger, I think about whatever the situation is before I react, if she trolls me I tell her it's ok i love you and come talk to me when you're ready. I help constantly around the high because I don't feel depressed or like a slug with no energy. I like to go to work and perform because I feel good. Literally, only positives when I use and I don't use it excessively for the most part. However, when it gets to the point that I need more and it doesn't work, is when I stop using. She has even been supportive of me using in some situations but it seems only when she wants me to do something she doesn't want to do like clean the house, or whatever big tasks that can be tedious like cleaning the car, taking the kids out to the park, or if we go out to drink she has asked me if I have any so this way I don't get too f***ed up as if it basically manages my emotions. it's weird. but then she'll turn around and start verbally abusing me when she feels upset for anything like for example if I'm in a rush to drop our kid off at daycare and head to work after. oh boy if I forget anything god for bid, i best not come home cuz it's a hell storm. 

so far i'm a month and a half clean, been taking my old prescription medication I was prescribed before I relapsed. I informed my psychologist that I relapsed on meth and I need help, so I figured she would have an idea and she completely cut me off all medication and said i needed a different psychiatrist. I managed to get them from India for cheap and they work wonders. no meth, good energy, no downside so far and they don't get you high so there isn't anything to ''chase''. Helps my depression too and apparently there are studies that show this medication helps with depression and bipolar disorder so that's cool. But this is a problem for her too as it's another drug and she refuse to see any benefits or acknowledge my progress.

 

i left out a lot of stuff now that I look back but this is just some of the abuse I'm guilty of and now I'm wondering if basically I just damaged the love of my life so much that it's irreversible and nothing i do can prove I want to be a better husband, father and person. For the last like 2 years, high or not... I make sure I stop and think before I react, ask her how I can fix whatever problem we are having and talk it out. My main concern is being sober and growth in our relationship. However, i'm hit with a lot of ''i dont knows'' and ''what do you want'' which I get it. I f***ed up so much the trauma is unreal. The history is terrible. But when I tell her hey babe, I think i'm going to take a break and move back to my parents house to give you space and allow you to move on from me she just ignores me or one time she sabotages my plans and take the car from me so I can't leave to prep my room over there. Oh and that ex popped up again this year, of course she hid it from me and I caught them being friends on fb. when I asked what this is about calmy she said ''i just think we're meant to be good friends''. I took a deep breath, asked her to go on a walk with me.. we talked for 30 minutes and I came to the conclusion that if she was interested in this man still, she should persue it and see if she will be happy because that is all i want for her. She refused to acknowledge she had any feelings toward him but some of the questions were sketchy like she had interest but was doubtful of his response.. ''what makes you think he want to be with me'' was the one that hit home the most. 

 

Bottom line, I want to grow as a person, go to a couples counseling class with her at the very least and see if this is salvageable. Anything is possible if two people are willing to work toward it but honestly it looks like shes given up to an extent or seriously has depression which I believe she has had for years and this is just a waste of both our time. I want to be clean off meth, that is my main goal right now. I am holding my job down, pay all the rent, pay the car payment, don't ask for basically anything from her financially and do my best to understand where she is coming from before I say anything stupid. I even tell her I get it, i've hurt you and you don't have to be with me it's ok. But she refuses to break up with me and won't take me serious when I say i think I should go back to my parents. and then we have some really good days randomly where shes nice and I don't have to worry about being verbally assaulted for 20 minutes for doing something like forgetting to take a trash back out. man there is so much more but after typing all this it just seems like yes, i am the problem and even if I want to grow now it's impossible to believe a drug addict, liar who has fallen so many times. But i mean if she isn't going to support me, why stay with me?? it's so confusing. 

 

comments i appreciate, this is a huge post and I think i know what I will get out of it but I'm hoping someone can offer some real advice because it seems like the last 6 months the rolls have switched and when i'm being nice and understanding she is a demon out for blood 24/7. it's so sad to see what i've done to someone so sweet that now they are just as evil as me when it comes to verbal abuse and psychological abuse. she gaslights me constantly it's insane. i could pour the dog food, drop to pieces and she'll say all i do is dirty the house and say im useless but if I react like bro stop talking s*** to me why are you trolling me? she will say see, you f***ing crazy your mad for nothing.. it's wild. 

 

Edited April 26 by wishingforchange