I can’t tell you how amazing it feels to be able to share this anonymously, and to get such an overwhelming amount of support. I do appreciate all of your responses. I normally would be apologising for going on about it, but I know that anyone who wants to can just ignore. It’s very freeing.
RSAcre: Thank you so much for your post and your insight. I did go back on the one week space. But to be fair I can’t blame him for that. He said “I don’t know if you want to say anything, or want me to say anything” and I genuinely, genuinely did. So I just went for it. I regret it, but he didn't make me.
I don’t feel at all insulted or belittled or upset by your words. You haven’t said anything I haven’t wondered about myself, so if anything, your post is an affirmation. The problem is, this whole event has put such a massive question mark in my own mind on my own ability to judge people and situations, that in an objective sense I can see and agree with what you’re saying, but there’s a simultaneous “Yes, but” conversation going on in my head that contradicts all of it and I don’t know which of those conversations is true... I’m not sure if that makes any sense, reading it back!
You might look at it this way: I am an innate people-pleaser. It’s not a good trait. I seem superficially very “nice,” but sometimes I’m being nice because I don’t know how to say “no.” Sometimes I’m being nice because I’ve instinctively weighed it up and you’ll probably be ever so slightly, and very briefly, pissed off if I say no, and I’d find that genuinely harder to deal with than doing whatever you want in the first place.
And that’s with everybody, not just my husband, and it’s my whole entire life, long before he came along.
If life was a pub, I’d be the type of person who says “Here, let me get these in” and if you say “No no, it’s my turn” and we dance the merry dance of who gets to pay for the drinks, then all is well with the world. If on the other hand, you say, “Ok, if you’re offering” when in fact it’s your turn, I then stand seething at the bar: “How bloody rude. Why did I even offer?” But I still get you your drink. Then if, after a few rounds I say “I think I’ve paid for a few too many rounds” and you say “No I don’t think so,” well then I’m absolutely fuming at the bar, but still I continue to get the rounds in.
I can see the ridiculousness in my behaviour, but find it hard to change, and actually I’m not sure I want to change. I just want to surround myself with people who are queuing up to have a fight about whose turn it is to pay.
This doesn’t excuse my husband’s behaviour and it doesn’t mean he isn’t a self-serving, potentially violent narcissist. But then again, maybe for the most part he just said "yes" to a few too many free drinks, because I was offering.
That's why this sex video is such a gamechanger: I wasn't offering.
I’ve watched a friend go back and forth to a massively psychologically abusive partner. I’ve read the Bancroft book. I’ve (thanks to a post on this thread) read the Freedom Programme book. I am asking myself all of those questions.
I’m just not sure what to think.
It feels entirely possible that I’ve done too much, and demanded too little from DH until I felt resentful, then complained about it in a kind of unhelpful way, then he’s reacted in his own shitty way, not to the situation at hand but to my own tone of self-inflicted martyrdom, and dug his heels in. And now, because I’ve heard about abusive men, I’m kind of convincing myself that he is one.
From day one, I said I wanted to lead the conversation and have final say in parenting decisions. He agreed without hesitation and has kept his word without exception. I want to do on-demand breastfeeding? He wants that too. I want a barefoot baby? So does he, and when some family members make snide comments, he supports me. I want to try controlled crying? Let’s try it then. I don't feel comfortable with it after all? Let's stop then. It's me doing most of the graft, but he does contribute somewhat and he's totally in agreement with pretty much any parenting decision I make.
If he really wanted to control me and hit me where it hurts, he could have gone for the jugular. He could have joked to friends “I earn it, she spends it.” He could have scrutinised the credit card bill and quizzed me about what this or that payment was for. He has never questioned me about a single penny that I have spent, and when I have been upset about my lack of monetary value, he has bolstered me and told me what I am doing right now is worth so much more. (By the way, I had grown to hate my job, love being at home with my little boy, and am now hoping to change career direction when time permits.)
It feels entirely possible that DH is, in fact, a deep-down quite nice man with an inexcusably shit side that he is genuinely prepared to work on.
It feels possible that this is a cathartic moment for both of us, and that we can move forward from this.
It also feels entirely possible that I’m deluding myself into staying in a relationship with someone who could potentially ruin me.
I have no gut instinct.
I know I need more time, and I agree that I could get a lot out of counselling. There’s other equally big stuff going on in other areas of life that I won’t go into, and it’s a lot to deal with all at once. So yeah, counselling.
So DH is off away to work for a couple of weeks soon, and has promised to leave me completely alone during that time, and I WILL hold him to it.
I’m going to take a bit of time off from thinking about it soon, too, and reconnect with the people and parts of life I feel sure about.
Thanks again. X