thanks bogeyface. sorry you are going through the shit also.
want to add some thoughts i have been having: copy and pasting from a word doc i typed earlier, which just gives some examples:
First sign of trouble in paradise: 1998: first dc born. during final trimester i had been frantic/fixated on 'what if i make the bottle up wrong, i could poison her' (i.e. i must put water in first, to level on bottle, then powder, measured to scoop ) to the point where i got him to practise with me/together, making up bottles while i was still pg -at that stage i was considering bg, pls no comments about why not - anyway, at a few days old 'you relax, i will make the bottles'. i wandered into the kitchen 10 mins later to find H putting scoops of formula into bottles, then cooled boiled water. i went ballistic (postnatal/hormonal). i registered a slight smirk on his face as i pushed him around the kitchen. however, at that time, all else was good so i put it down to a mistake and thought no more.
dc1 has sn so this was a distraction for a while, i.e. we were forced to do a lot of things together and with hindsight, i think he liked this. although that didnt stop him from getting a job around that time which requires him to work away mon-fri (not always, if close enough to travel home, but often enough for my life to be totally given over to dc's - i dont mind for them, but .....)
2001 ? pointed out while on a shopping trip that pushchair wasn?t locked open, went mad and stormed off. Couldn?t find him for several hours. At this point, i thought he was depressed but was just starting to realise that this was just his personality.
in 2002 had 2nd dc. then it all started to escalate. just some examples below, to give a picture of daily life:
2007 ? friend and her daughter visiting for the day on a Saturday. Pretended to be ill but didn?t take himself off to bed ? sat on the floor, literally in the middle of the living room so that the children playing had to step over him, while still pretending to be severely ill.
2007- same friends, different weekend. Went on computer while they were here and was found to be viewing porn by me. I waited till children were playing in the garden then challenged him about it, he stormed off and didn?t speak for the rest of the day ? yet remained in the living room. Didn?t speak to me for about 3 days and treated me as though i was in the wrong. I eventually tackled him about it and he woke daughter up shouting at me that he was leaving and pretended to pack his bag. Didn?t actually go anywhere, just sat with bag then stayed. Daughter was extremely distressed and this had a long lasting effect. I felt obliged to have sex with him to smooth the situation over for her sake (other daughter was not old enough to be aware of it at this point).
The weekend following that week, daughter and i went to a pre-arranged event where we stayed away overnight the previous night. (I thought about not going, but wanted to stick to plans we had made). When we returned home on the Sunday evening, i found that he had wanked into a drinking cup in the shower room and left it within the sink. I realised at that point that not only had he done this, but the timing was designed to show me that he could do whatever he wanted and i realised that I did not dare to say anything at that point. It was left within easy view or reach of younger daughter. I think this was probably the point of no return for me.
Christmas Day 2007 ? up early for kids opening presents so i went back to bed for a quick nap afterwards. Then i heard a mobile phone ringing in the room, i didn?t know what it was but i could tell it was the alarm and wanted to switch it off, so i followed the sound into his wardrobe. It was a second phone. The screensaver was a porn picture. I switched the alarm off. Next to the phone was the box it had come in, with paperwork showing that it was registered to him at this address etc. Again, i didn?t dare to say anything at the time and had to go through Christmas day feeling distressed but masked it for the children to have a normal day. (Only in 2009, when we were having a proper discussion at last, did i tell him about it and even then, he still lied ? said it was borrowed from a friend at work or something like that. I felt sick because i hadn?t mentioned about the paperwork that was with it.)
2008 ? through diet/exercise i lost a lot of weight and every other person i knew told me how good i looked, congratulated me etc. He never, ever mentioned it. He pretended that he hadn?t noticed that i had shrunk from a size 20 to a size 12/14, although he made sure that he mentioned the weight loss of fern britton and Johnny vegas.
In December 2008 things were very low. He talked about leaving again. This time i didn?t say no, i said yes. The next day i received a phone call from him telling me that he was on his way to hospital because he had had an accident at work. The accident turned out to be that he had dropped a moving drill onto his upper lip, splitting it. Of course i went to the hospital and supported him etc..
2009 ? things came to a head and i finally decided that something had to change. I tried to talk to him about incidents as described above and he tried to say it wasn?t him (until i pointed out that if someone other than him had wanked into a drinking cup and left it in the sink, there must have been another man in the house) then he said okay it must have been him but he couldn?t remember it etc. Still denied the other phone and said it was workmate?s.
He became extremely distressed and begged to keep trying. I agreed but with conditions. One thing he said when he was distressed, i.e. panicking, was that it would be okay for me because i was still attractive and could easily find someone else, but what was he supposed to do, and he gestured ?look at me? (I took this to mean that he has got older/fatter/whatever like everyone). This made me realise that that is what i am to him: i had not thought about meeting someone else, but that was obviously his first thought. He wants to stay with me so he doesn?t have to bother finding someone else. Not nice.
We had separate rooms for about a year while we were supposed to be trying to work things out. During this time he was supposed to be going for counselling but didn?t/lied about it. All he did was behave extremely nicely towards me, over-doing the niceness but avoiding actually tackling anything. He waited until the week that daughter was about to start secondary school, which he knew i was very worried about, then came into bedroom and said that if i didn?t let him back in, he was going to leave. I felt that i had to at that point, because i couldn?t put daughter through any extra stress/upset at that time.
Immediately after that he started pressuring me into booking a holiday for the following summer, i said that i didn?t want to go but he then told the children that we were going so i felt that i had to.
December 2010 ? by now he had internet access on his phone. Sitting with the daughters one evening, he claimed to be searching for a music video when porn noises suddenly came out from his phone. Normally there is no sound from the phone at all as he has it on mute: he immediately became angry and when the kids had gone to bed i asked him what it was and he was instantly angry and turning it round, ?you don?t trust me? etc. I said that previous events have done that, plus i am entitled to ask. I feel it was deliberate because he normally has it on mute anyway.
2011 ? went on a first aid course over two evenings. On the second evening, returned home at 10pm to find the house in darkness and the front door locked from inside with the key left in so i couldn?t get my key in. Sadly i knew that i had been expecting ?something?. I think i was supposed to panic and bang on the door etc., i didn?t though, i just rang him on his mobile and asked him calmly to open the door. He was in bed, he came down and behaved as though it was 3am ? hardly spoke a word to me and stomped back up to bed immediately with the parting shot ?so now you know how to put a plaster on?. No reason, no previous argument earlier etc.
Autumn of 2011 ? going to bed then getting up at about 1am or something, spending all night downstairs on his own then claiming he can?t sleep ? even daughters have said to him that yes you can sleep, you are just sleeping at a different time !
Lack of interest in what i am saying/doing, can?t remember anything i have said to him etc because not listening. Sitting in chair doing nothing/sleeping etc. Right up until a couple of weeks ago, asking me for things sexually and then saying ?oh don?t? when i tried to kiss him instead. I think he realised that he had overstepped the mark again and the following week was spent being bombarded with over-the-top niceness, to the point where i felt uncomfortable/nervous: because i don?t feel it?s real, i feel it?s because he knows we will be in trouble again and he wants to smooth it over yet again.
Working away during the week but speak on phone: can hardly speak to him on phone at the moment and he knows something is wrong. I predicted to myself last week that an ?event? or ?crisis? will happen and sure enough ? he phoned and claimed his mum had had a stroke. She has not had a stroke, she has been seeing a doctor about strange happenings in her body due to ongoing health problems ? before our latest crisis, he told me the results of her latest tests were just that she must give up smoking and take some medication, now he needs a ?crisis? it?s ?a stroke?.
sorry for length, just my rambling thoughts. what do you all think? is it me? obviously i have many faults, like we all do, but.....
thinking of making the leap now, as bogeyface calls it :) but absolutely terrified after all this time, of what will happen, how it will affect children, will i manage for them financially (i know i will manage emotionally/practically because that's what i have been doing forever!) and what will he do? thoughts on a postcard please.....
H is extremely passive aggressive and has many issues from parents/childhood. e.g. he alleges he has never had a dream, therfore cannot tell me any of his dreams. i doubt this. anything to avoid intimacy.
his dm is alcoholic. his df is just not really very nice, aggressive etc. but still with dm - co-dependent? oh i don't know what i'm talking about, just trying to give background. anyone?