Husband is being so cruel

[Confused7888]

Posting here for traffic and have name changed. I don’t have anyone to talk to about this in real life so I appreciate any help you can give me.

I married my husband a year ago (been together 6 years). I’m 34 and we have a mortgage but no kids.

we have had a few ups and downs in our relationship with him sometimes becoming a bit distant or making the occasional mean remark about my looks. Nothing too awful but there were a few red flags along the way but I still went ahead and married him as when we’re good we’re amazing together.

over the last 6 months our relationship has been utter hell though! He told me he wanted to divorce and he only loved me as a friend and had never found me attractive. A few weeks later he back tracked and said he didn’t mean anything he said and he was just sabotaging things as he’s depressed. We stayed together and things seemed to get back on track. 2 months later the same thing happened again. I made arrangements to move out for a while but the day before I was due to move he starts saying he’ll kill himself if I go and he doesn’t know why he keeps trying to sabotage things.
Another month passes by and we are back on track again and he is really trying every day to be a very loving partner. Suddenly out the blue he tells me yet again that he isn’t in love with me and he just wants to be friends as he doesn’t feel any spark or chemistry with me. The previous days he had been telling me how in love he was with me and how beautiful I am etc so as you can imagine my head was in bits with his confusing behaviour. I don’t think my mental health has ever been so low! Again I made plans to move out and he freaked out and begged me to stay and swore he would never treat me like that again and would sort his depression out once and for all.

well another month has passed by with us seemingly starting to sort our relationship out but on Friday he did it again for the 4th time! I was hysterically crying as he told me coldly that he doesn’t feel any spark with me and he can’t keep living a lie. I went to sleep and a few hours later he got in beside me and was cuddling me saying I’m the most important thing in his life and he never wants us to split up. The next morning I had barely slept and was feeling extremely low and confused with his hot and cold behaviour. He came downstairs crying saying how much he loves me. He’s now acting like nothing has happened and making out we’re happy together again but Im extremely tense just waiting for him to do it again.

I know I need to leave him but I feel at rock bottom and am struggling to even get out of bed let alone start being proactive in finding somewhere else to live. I feel close to having a complete mental breakdown over his behaviour towards me. it feels like complete mental torture and emotional abuse!!

sorry I don’t even know what I’m asking for help with on here but it’s just good to let it all out and see if anyone else has been through anything similar and come out the other side? Does anyone understand why someone might behave like this? Thanks for listening

Stop being so distraught when he says he don't love you.

Leave and love yourself.

Thank god you have a way out of this ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP.

I was about to ask who you have who can give you real life support @Confused7888. Do you feel you can disclose what has been going on to your DM? Could you ask if you can stay for a period beyond the ‘few nights to think about things’? If you could arrange with her to stay for 2 weeks or a month and ask her if she would help with gatekeeping so you can have a break from his gaslighting (answering the door and saying you’re not available, that kind of thing). I would be none specific with him and avoid communication with him and start to up your contact with supportive friends and family and with reading material and organisations that have been suggested on this thread. Use the breather to reach a more objective picture of what he is doing. So don’t just think about things but actively do things differently and put things in place that are enjoyable that don’t include him. Try to fill your time with things that don’t include him, perhaps things you used to enjoy or places you used to go or people you used to see before you knew him.

You are not responsible for his mental health but you you are responsible for yours. It’s so hard to walk away from the emotional investment you’ve made and so easy for outsiders to say leave but you know that if you stay he won’t change, this is who he is. Whether it’s motivated by another woman doesn’t really matter, all that matters is the outcome for you of his behaviour wherever it comes from. You are ideally placed to put things in a bag and go. Please do it. Put yourself back among people who care about you.

Please leave him, OP.
It's not going to get any better. Trust me on this.

He’s an abusive piece of shit.

Prepare to leave and for the love of god if you are still having sex make sure you don’t get pregnant

Oh OP I really feel for you, his behaviour is atrocious.
Go and stay with your mum, you deserve better. Whatever happens to him after you’ve left is on him, not you.

Hugs op. He is abusing you horribly. I hope you have a few days to formulate a plan on leaving him. You are worth so much more than living like this. If he threatens you call the police or ambulance, you are not responsible for him. ❤

You need to leave.

You need to stop tying yourselves into knots trying to understand him or figure out his motivations. What difference does it make what the reason is?

Staying with his is basically giving him permission to carry on head fucking you.

You just get yourself away from him and his dysfunctional head fuckery.

I feel like a saw this exact same post a few weeks ago
Leave this man. He is HORRIBLE for your mental health

You have only one life ! You are waisting it on him.

I would ask the GP for a double appointment for him.

I would go in with him, with a piece of paper detailing all the signs you've noticed of his ill mental health including suicide risk.

Leave it with the GP and walk out to let him have a private conversation with the GP. You cannot go out like this, you got married over a year ago and have been together 6 years. You have some responsibility for his wellbeing, I would have no idea if his Jekyll and Hyde personality is his nature or a symptom of serious ill health.

Get him to the right place, work it out from there. If you have private health through work etc let the GP know.

I am another who thinks you should just leave. Regardless of his own issues he is destroying you and that will only stop when you get away from him. Maybe you should see GP, explain situation and get signed off with stress for a while so you can stay elsewhere and recuperate before clearing all your belongings from the house. I would totally ignore the suicide threats, you cannot live with him and that is what is most important for you. He sounds like a controlling mindfucker to use somewhat impolite language, but I cannot think of a better way of describing his behaviour.

This times a 1000000, I’m so sorry OP, it happens to be best of us- we become the target of a controller and next thing you know it’s a few years later and we are heartbroken and confused. They are very good at what they do. Do read that book. There are far better days ahead, that much is certain. This is not your guy, someone or something better is waiting for you, but you have to clear a space asap.

I wouldn't. She's not his mummy. If he needs to see a doctor he can sort it out himself.

That sounds horrendous. He's incredibly abusive. Don't tell him you are going, just go. That gives him no time to use emotional blackmail on you.
Don't worry about the reasons just concentrate on you and don't fall for him pleading for you to come back. He needs to get help but it's on him to do that not you.

You know what you need to do, it's up to you when you do it.
He won't kill himself, his sort never do.

Agreed, this isnt just behaviour he can’t control because he’s mentally ill either, it’s getting him what he wants and he doesn’t care how distressed he makes OP in the process. She won’t be able to help fix him, not because people can’t change but because he gets too much out of it. It’s sad, but true.

This.

Google 'the cheaters script'. You will see him writ large.

He is trying to get you to do the dumping to assuage his guilt.

I haven’t got past the first page of this thread yet, but I needed to write asap as I have gone through something hugely comparable in the past 7 months. It was jarring to read something that sounded like my life. I just name changed to write this. I am so so so sorry you are going through the same. It is so confusing and so heartbreaking. I won’t make this thread about me but I just want to say I feel for you so much. And in my case - there is and was absolutely not another woman not on the scene. I haven’t read your thread in full yet as I said, but this really can happen without an “OW”.

so sorry - lots of hugs. Try and remember how brilliant you are and how you deserve to be loved absolutely fully and without doubt.

I see people saying things about affairs, or him deliberately trying to wear you down and be cruel and make you second guess yourself. In my case, neither of these were the case and was far more complex, linked to mental health, than any of those theories. I’d be careful about MN theories that could make you feel worse about the situation.

Why he behaves as he does is irrelevant. What matters is that he will destroy you by treating you like this.
Run and don't look back.

He is a narcissist (believe me I recognise the behaviour, especially the as if it never happened).
He knows full well how it makes you feel.
he enjoys hurting you.
Is he worried he will make suicidal…? Of course not.
Depressed people do not act like that (I have been diagnosed with depression and it’s the person who feels destroyed, sad, in fear etc that is depressed not an abusive cunt like this guy).
DO NOT go for couples counselling- it is strongly advised against when there is an abusive partner.
Does he bold hot and cold in his commitment to his job?
Friends?
Does he taunt co-workers?
Thats how special you are to him. He only abuses you

Could it be possible that he is worried about how much he will have to pay you because of divorce??

He wants to leave but doesn't want to pay and is angry with himself that he got into this marriage when he could have had you without marriage? That would have left him free to pursue the other women? Now he is bound by a contract with you, it's much harder for him!

You need to leave, your number 1 priority is you, if you're not well, you can do nothing for anyone else either.

So get out, get yourself safe.

Is he being abusive intentionally, is he suffering serious mental health problems - only he knows.

It could be he just doesn't do sexual attraction or emotional connection - some people don't. If he doesn't know thats even a thing, he could be masking it and could have been doing so for a very long time without any way of putting it into words... and that could explain the flip flopping back and forth - he doesn't feel the love and attraction he thinks he should... but equally doesn't want to lose you and what you have together...

Or.. hes a total arsehole who likes controlling you via your emotions.

Or he is cheating, or about to cheat or.. who knows what.

The point is - his MH, his behaviour, his feelings - they're HIS problem. Not yours.

The fact he has done nothing to address any of this seriously, seek help anywhere, in any way means he's not really ready to make changes.

Whichever it is though, you need to look after yourself first, and to do that, you MUST leave!

IF he kills himself.. then he was going to do that eventually anyway. I won't tell you that people who say they will kill themselves never do because that is not true, some of them do. But if they do, when they do.. thats their decision, it has nothing to do with you.

When you leave and he contacts you and does the inevitable 'im going to kill myself' then your response MUST be to call the police and ask them to do a welfare check as he's threatened suicide. Thats it, nothing more, don't reply to him, just contact them and let them know where you think he is.

It feels like torture and abuse because it is.

So you have to suffer with the hot and cold treatment just because of his MH?
What about yours?

You said there were red flags before you got married.
So you always knew this was a risky bed to get into.

You have a vote, too.
You can choose to leave, he doesn't get to make all the decisions.
It doesn't have to be about what he chooses.

Choose life, get out.

I’m so sorry you’re going through this. Thing is we all know why you need to do and you know what you need to do but it’s only down to you to make it happy.

if you want to be happy you leave, if you want to be miserable for the rest of your life hoping he will change then stay.

you say he stops you from leaving, emotional blackmail ect….. you need to leave when he isn’t around because him being there is stopping you from doing what you need to do because he knows exactly what to say to manipulate the situation.

please leave when he isn’t around, get out of there before he really does suck anymore life out of you.

good luck, don’t be afraid of being happy.