to feel he should have told me about this health condition before we married

[RachelWardd]

We met when I was 23 and he was 30.

I was swept off my feet at first meet, he was tall dark handsome romantic funny kind gentle brave .....etc.

We dated for two years and married when I was 25, my parents were strict catholic and I never lived with him back then (we're talking 20+ years ago now) before we married, just dated , never went away together really either.....stayed over at his at the time, he lived very close to his parents, but said it was cos he loved that part of the city /country growing up and all his friends were there etc so that made sense at the time. I moved in with him after we married.

Long story short. In the first two three years, I knew I had married someone with a very very low fuse (as I called at in my twenties) - prone to anger, somewhat selfish, very focused on his needs, very quick flight or fight responses to any changes in plan

Turns out one of the many reasons he was popping in every evening at his parents' for at least 10 minutes on way home was - they were (well in to his 30s) still monitoring and administering sodium valporate pills to him. I opened the packet once when his dad left it out accidentally and I had popped over.

Slowly it came out in the open that he had been diagnosed with a benign reflex form of epilepsy ( he got partial focal type seizures when taking a hot shower or hot bath and almost always or always only then) from when he was less than 10 years old. But 'DH' still said it was fully under control with medication and he had been 'episode free' since 2001 and we met in 2002 and married in 2004.

Eventually he got off the meds completely in 2008 and as far as I know has not had any more episodes just by being careful I think while in the shower or bath
I still think he should have told me - he grew up going to epilepsy clinics, top neuro consultants, thinking life would not be normal as he was still having seizures, falling in the shower leading to head injuries (multiple) , trips to hospital in the ambulance as a teen.

A big part of his life for the first 30 years - and defined his relations with his parents and siblings - and his outlook on life. At the very least he should have told me as he knows this is sometimes genetic and there is a 30pc chance yet that our teen DC could still go on to develop this and have to go through the same to find the right meds and then to learn how to self limit it.

with all the knowledge we have now online, I do think all his flight or fight dysregulation, responses to stress, conflict, self focus are linked. At least armed with this information, I could have approached our marriage with more empathy and compassion if nothing else.

AIBU for me to still feel angry now and then when I remember this lie by omission and his excuses that it wasnt relevant information to tell me.....I am 48 now, he is 55

For whatever reasons, religious or personal, you seem
entirely convinced that this is all your fault. It is not your fault.

I repeat: it is not your fault.

You have been a loving and caring partner. You have tread very carefully around him for years in the misguided belief that his medical issues excuse his violence and bad temper. You mention original sin and atonement, again, putting the blame on yourself.

Blame rests entirely with him. He should’ve been honest with you from day 1 even if he did not fully know things himself. He could’ve shared what he did know. He could’ve shown remorse and concern for you following his violent outbursts
but, again, it was all about him.

Catholicism aside, I wonder why you feel you deserve to be treated like this and blame yourself. Did you see anything similar with any other family relationships like your own parents? I also wonder if your ‘D’ H has historically made disparaging comments about your faith to belittle you and make you feel inferior to him.

(I recall an old school friend’s father who constantly belittled his lovely Irish Catholic wife. Had convinced her (as his parents had) that she wasn’t good enough for him. He treated her badly, she let him and it was plain to my, then 15 year old, eyes that he had crushed her soul. When he was away with work, she was a different person.) I digress, sorry.

It is possible he has manipulated you and made you doubt your self-worth. You deserve to live without the fear of incurring his wrath.

Sending love and strength to you @RachelWarddxx

OP, you poor woman.
I feel shocked and full of sympathy for you.

At 25 you were naive, so was I despite living abroad, well travelled in a great career.

Without the Internet we couldn't check things out the way we can today.

You married an angry, violent, liar who has a personality disorder.

You have been misled by him and his awful parents.

He has abused you emotionally and physically.

I can absolutely imagine that you must regret your choices, but I certainly don't think you should.

They are a family of liars.

At 48 you have so much more living to do.
Get therapy and find out do you want to really stay with this vile man.

You deserve so much better.

I think we always try to attribute abusive behaviour to something - I had an ex who had a very abusive childhood, I used to talk about his "paraysmpathetic nervous system too". (He shouted at me, hard a short fuse, called me names, didn't hit me).

I realised it didn't really matter. My ex didn't even acknowledge he was an angry person. And while I might have been sympathetic to his awful childhood, in the end I had to put myself (and my children) first.

of course you are reasonable to be angry at his lying to you. Although I'd say you should get counselling for that. But isn't it MUCH MORE important that you've been hit by this man hard several times, that you're constantly on egg shells, that you have to reassure him like he's another of your children? Your psychobabble about why he does this is just not relevant - he won't get help, and actually I agree with the pp, he's likely just an abusive bastard. If you were getting counselling, you'd find out why you feel the need to stay, why you are constantly rescuing him, why you have put your own needs (and those of your children, if you have any) second to his for so long. Honestly, he sounds fucking awful.

Do you know how offensive this might sound to people with epilepsy?

You seem to want to blame his behaviour on something you’ve read on the internet and by constantly repeating it you are basically stigmatising a whole group of people who have to live with a really shitty and debilitating health condition.

Why can’t you just accept you married a violent and abusive man? Can you not bring yourself to acknowledge that? Why are you trying to absolve him of his actions by claiming he was wired wrong?

People with epilepsy aren’t wired wrong or “not pathologically correct”.

I’m pretty sure 99% of people with epilepsy go through life without choosing to be being violent and abusive towards other people.

Thanks @InspectorDuckedCantBeFooked , @Pinkdayss and @HelenHywater

My dad was one of those gentle souls and I never saw this dynamic of an abusive and/or angry man growing up...he did have a stroke in his 40s that he recovered from and went back to work within 2 months fully mobile and active as ever ....but I did see personality change I suppose, him dull and quiet during those few months, apathetic - my mother was fully supportive and his rock. I never witnessed any aggression from him toward her or us during this time, but he did seem far less eloquent with his words, no nuance etc.

I guess there is history of brain damage - personality affect and family needing to support through - my anger still remains more that he did not tell me beforehand and give me a chance to be supportive and let me find my way in the dark, rather than anger about the temper itself.

Going to do another post with the violence incidents for further context, as the responses on here have been so insightful and made me think on new pathways that I had not considered before - he still maintains that any man , even a saint would have been driven to violence with my shrew like behaviour in those incidents, though he also had bouts of crying and apologising and pleading

Some of the violent times for context -

Incident 1 -

I Questioned, like 3 months after the wedding (remember I was only 25 this is so embarrassing) 'what the eff is wrong with your parents? why the co dependency? why do you need to see them everyday? Are they using you making you stay nearby? What the eff is going on? why did you not marry them instead of me? YOU OWE it to me to be a better husband than this, you are a shit husband. You dont even come home to me , you go to them every evening first. He then slapped me and pushed me away, I fell. He walked away. I cant remember what making up looked like, I think the same evening (you cannot make this stuff up), my sister called and said my dad was admitted in hospital with what we thought was jaundice (turned out obstructive jaundice, Pancreatic cancer etc.). Therefore, I never dealt with the above incident appropriately and normalized it , but a stronger person than me would not have done that, I do see that.

Incident 2 -

He then decided only spending time with his parents every single evening (weekday and sundays) was too kind on me, and started eventually the next year, also hanging out with a female colleague after work. He got mentionitis, again just a year after our wedding and six months after my dad passed. He and she started hanging out together after work at the office cafeteria , for coffee. along with two other colleagues , who were dating each other (since married). One day , on a sunday or saturday, he said he was going to meet her for lunch with the other two colleagues aforementioned. He said he and them were going to buy her a dress (?!) as a birthday gift and present it to her at the lunch. None of these ppl worked in the same team or department, so not a work thing. I said if nothing romantic was going on then he would have no objection to me coming. He said I can't come and I should trust him, and it was sick how untrusting I was. I barred his way (Oh God) saying if he left , he may not find me still there when he came back - he pushed me out of the way so hard I fell and hit the table nearby and he did not even wait to see if I was okay and he left. I think I did pack my stuff ,but he talked me out of leaving when he got back saying the suspicious person I was , I needed help

I am sorry if it was, I am only going with instinct that he is one of those 1% of people with a co-morbidity.

You see based on those above two incidents, why it took me a very long time to first off all forgive myself (work in progress, actually still) for escalating instead of walking away in quiet dignity

But I do now believe nothing justifies physical violence

I think you probably have a lot more prejudices and unpleasant views about the condition than you are prepared to admit.

But if you want to tell yourself that your husband was aggressive and violent because he had epilepsy and it was all his bad wiring that caused his behaviour as opposed to it being his own free-will and his choice to treat you like that, then you do that if it makes you feel more comfortable.

At least you had the balls to admit to us that you wouldn’t have married him if he had been open about his diagnosis with you.

I’m glad you are finding the courage to leave him though. Violence is never ok.

But if you want to tell yourself that your husband was aggressive and violent because he had epilepsy and it was all his bad wiring that caused his behaviour as opposed to it being his own free-will and his choice to treat you like that, then you do that if it makes you feel more comfortable

@ScaredButUnavoidable , I did not say that. I said that studies show that in a very small percentage of people with certain types of epilepsy, AEDs can cause aggression. And the condition itself has a higher co-morbidity with psychological illnesses IN A VERY SMALL PERCENTAGE and that my instinct told me he could be in that small percentage from the fact that I know him for 20plus years !

What part of that is to make me feel more comfortable? Have you ever been hit? Its not comfortable.

It’s in the past now but it is possible the ex girlfriend story is a lie. She may have experienced some of his anger and dumped him. Lying bastards love twisting the truth to present themselves more favourably. Some men don’t have the capacity or humility to be honest and admit they were dumped by a woman.

I did go through a phase of asking for a divorce about 10 years ago, a short lived one. I did not state this as the reason , ie his lie by omission, not the illness itself. But just said it was obvious i was not what he needed. He had chosen wrong and then gone about lying to get me.

He said I was leaving with no grounds to leave and he would never let me take his kids away from him

Our youngest is now 17. Do I still need to worry about a custody battle at this point if I left? I know he would battle for the sake of it if he could, as he will be furious I am trying to take back my agency and leaving ,instead of staying in my corner

@InspectorDuckedCantBeFooked , any thoughts on the two incidents? It is a grey area for me as I was so foolish and horrible myself in my emotional intelligence that for many many years I did fully believe I deserved to be slapped, pushed, hit. After the fact. I believed him when he said someone who did not trust was a sick person

I was just making the point that despite him not having seizures during your marriage, or even being on medication for the huge majority of it, you still seem to want to cling to the belief (hope?) that he’s in that “very small percentage of people” rather than accept that he was just an abusive and violent man of his own free will (like the vast majority of all violent men are).

It is the other way round.

I could and would have left if not for the empathy and the protectiveness and love I still feel because I have got the two linked causally, wrongly or rightly so.

If he had been through all those years of trying to get the right meds, seizures, accidents with head injury, stigma from social prejudice, so much gratitude for his parents monitoring him being his carer when not yet controlled seizures, taking him to all appointments, the safety he felt living right down the road from,

then OF COURSE, me coming skipping along talking about how wonderful the weather was, and how exciting the wide world was to travel and explore and my whole 'never set foot in a hospital' in my 25 years and assuming it was the same for him SO SO SUNNY persona MUST HAVE GRATED.

And that angers me too. If you had FUCKING told me what you had been through, we could have dated longer I could have grown more mature and BEEN A BETTER WIFE , if and when we did marry.

I am sorry the shouty letters werent directed at you @ScaredButUnavoidable

Can you be 100pc sure he is abusive of his own free will???? are you not even 1pc in doubt - he often used to say 'I should be lobotomised' in reference to himself - maybe he was? can we be 100pc sure?

Hence, my focus on the part that was within his control and agency for sure, the choice to tell me his med history. That shows premeditation not poor impulse control.

But he didn’t even have severe epilepsy. He had HWE which is benign and usually outgrown, and he has actually outgrown it. I doubt he was even on a high dose of SV.

Why on earth would you think that his epilepsy or drugs would cause him to have the sort of damage to his brain that those very few that you have read about in studies have had??

You are reaching to find conclusions that suit you. That is not your instinct talking, it is desperation.

His wiring may be wrong. We all are wired differently. It still does not excuse the violence towards you.

Is his reaction to you after being violent always the same; crying and having to be soothed by you? Does he apologise profusely? Is he apologetic?

My ex boyfriend had a very short fuse. Any disagreement led to things being thrown and damaged. He never touched me. The more heated it got, the more he became like an angry big man-child. I saw that twice and that was two times too many. Your husband is not alone in this respect.

Why does it feel like leaving a child?

Dare I suggest because he has behaved like one and not like an adult.

He came up to me just a half hour ago and said he panicked every time someone at work did not reply promptly on Teams app - and also that he felt disrespected. I soothed with ' don't worry it's not a sign of disrespect, they were probably busy, breathe'

I am the only one he has ....in a way ...if I had left right away, he would have had the past 20 years to find someone too......

I am his victim but also his only support except an almost 100 year old dad, and a sister who lives all the way in America thousands of miles away.

If I wanted to leave, I should have left ages ago........

When he was young , 20 years ago, he was very handsome, I was sexually attracted for sure, charming when he was in a good mood, if he had opened up , he still would have had any number of candidates, I think ...I do not understand why he denied himself support by keeping it under wraps for so long, forever if left to him

Anyway.....

Thanks to all those who handheld me today......I am very grateful.....

I imagine his illness and the way his parents treated him (shamed him?) probably led to his anger issues which he then took out on you, but that is not the same as his illness being the cause of his anger and violence.

I’ve had seizures for 24 years, it has ruined my life in ways I can’t even explain. I hate, hate HATE, living with this condition. It’s affected my childhood, my relationships, my independence, my career, my freedom, my friendships,….. just everything. I live in fear every day of having a seizure….. I wake up every morning and wonder whether I’m going to make it to end of the day alive or whether I’m going to randomly wake up surrounded by paramedics or in a hospital bed. I take 4 different drugs a day to try and control my seizures (which don’t work and give me horrible side effects that I have to put up with every day) and I have endless therapy to try and help with my anxiety, which doesn’t work either. Most days I am an absolute ball of rage, I am so angry that I have to live like this, I feel like screaming all day everyday because of how angry I am about what my life is like……… but I have still never hit anyone.

And nor do the huge majority of people who have epilepsy and have to cope with all this crap every day.

Yes your husband may have been in the very small percentage of people who have angry outbursts related to their epilepsy, but it is unlikely considering he wasn’t having seizures during your marriage and nor was he on any medication (so no aggressive behaviour side effects to blame etc).

I’m very sorry that you stayed with a violent man because you assumed his behaviour was probably related to a health condition and your love for him made you feel you needed to stand by him.

Plus, this is in no way your fault! His violence towards you was nothing to do you with you not being a good enough wife.

Violent and abusive men are like that because something within them makes them think it’s ok.

You could have been the best wife in the world (whatever that would look like) and he’d still have treated you exactly the same because that’s the kind of man he is.

“Even a saint would have been driven to violence with my shrew like behaviour.”

This is absolute bullshit.