I need to break free from my unfaithful narcissictic abusive husband, what hold has he over me?

[womanindenial]

I have been with my DH for 11 years, married for almost 9, we have a DS age 6 and a DD age 4, we have had a relatively good marriage apart from my DH constant accusations to me of infidelity throughout on and off never with any proof and accusations that I make him feel insecure etc etc and I always put this down to the fact that his mother emotionally and verbally abused him as a child and I so loved him and at other times he was so loving and kind and generous and made me feel like the most important person in the world. He has always threatened to leave me on and off every time we have a row it's 'I don't want to be married to you anymore' which is horrible and makes me feel terrible. He got some therapy just before our DS was born for his jealousy and insecurity which stemmed from father leave when young and abusive mother but he never finished it as said found it too upsetting but he did improve massively at the time but didn't last.

Anyway years of that up and down but mostly good times but he ruined many nights out and occasions with his abusive behaviour especially when drunk towards me. 6 months ago I had a MMS the second one in 18 months (the first one he was totally shit no emotional support whatsoever, really let me down I was beside myself with grief) I didn't want sex, the day after the D and C he was texting me asking when we could have sex and in not a romantic way either, I felt pressured after 2 weeks to have sex I wasn't in the mood and basically asked him to hurry up because I thought the DC's were coming upstairs and he took this to mean I wasn't attracted to him anymore and really went off on one to extremes where I actually left and went to my mums for a couple of days and during this time he accused me of having an affair with my ex boss and saying we both got sacked!!! he went and told every one he works with, was texting my mum all sorts of ridiculous stuff etc. A month of hell ensued with him lining up a flat to leave me yet again, the kids were devastated, I was begging him to stay he kept shouting at me to admit I was having an affair but how could I when I wasn't and he didn't even have any proof, I really though he had completely lost the plot and I was so scared and worried for him and also so sad at losing him and our family breaking up it was awful.

Eventually he agreed to see a therapist and 3 nights before he is due to go 4 months ago he confesses to me that for 9 years of our 11 years together (and for over 20 years in total) he has on occasion been going to public toilets and has been watching other men (and they watching him) masturbate and has also on occasion mutual masturbated with one another. He tells me he isn't gay but must be bisexual but that he has no desire to sleep with men or have a relationship with a man but that he just likes to watch cocks cum. He did tell me of an encounter he had with a friend of his years ago before we married where he had a 69 but neither of them came and that he hadn't enjoyed it and I just put that down to experience and drink but either way I made it clear then that it would be being unfaithful even going with a member of the same sex and he agreed. This blew my world apart I feel I have been to hell and back ever since and my life doesn't feel worth living, he is still seeing the therapist and says he is making good progress. I didn't kick him out, I screamed and shouted and cried and felt like I was dying as I grieved for my husband the man I thought I knew and tortured myself by looking at photos of our wedding, the birth of our babies, all my life felt like a sham.

I decided I still loved him and I wanted to try and forgive him, he was in therapy so at long last facing his demons, he seemed remorseful and in pain that he had caused me pain and I had just arranged to have some therapy myself to help me deal with the ongoing anger and resentment I feel towards him which comes and goes and is easily surfaced with the slightest comment from him that I take offence to. The problem I have now is that I feel he is obsessed with sex (we have always had an excellent sex life from day one) and since confession we have done it three times because of me I have no trust not because I am worried he will do again because I actually don't think he will but I don't trust that he won't be abusive or disrespectful again towards me and he doesn't seem to be letting me down either. I have told him that love is not enough and his actions have been abusive and disrespectful and he has shown no loyalty towards me, he seems ot have a very low opinion of women generally I feel and rareyl takes responsibility for his actions and has always blamed others (primarily me) whenever anything has gone wrong. Anyway I feel I have been feeling better of late, the bad days are fewer and further apart and I was looking forward to xmas but last week I found he had been on ebay looking for 'cum shots' and porn films, felt sick and devastated, he is also masturbating daily, he has done both these things before in fact we used to watch a porn film once a week together so I am not a prude but with everything that has gone on it feels to me that he is still cheating and I told him this tonight when he got back from therapy as I had seen he had been looking at sex pills online when supposedly looking for me some herbal tablets to make me feel better!!! he went off on one said it was normal why do I need to make him feel like a freak then launched into again he had the chance of a house and he was going to take it (same as always, its his trump card) I feel he has not made as much effort as he could have considering all he has done to me, I would have moved heaven and earth to put things right with him but he says to me now this is who I am more or less take it or leave it when I told him I wasn't happy to know he was doing these things. Why do I put up with it? I have never suffered from low self esteem, I have always been a confident independent woman, I'm attractive funny and am popular. I feel so shit and worthless at the moment, I feel I have made shit choices for my children becuase although he is a good father actually we are now going to be a broken family and I know they will be devastated and that breaks my heart but also that I do still love him and I don't want him to leave, I want him to fight for our relationship and make it better but he always runs always, I have fought on and off for our relationship a;l these years and now it just feels like it has been for nothing and I feel like such a fool I really do.

Are you asking for advice, love ?

Let him go this time.

Don't beg him to stay.

let him go...and make him stay away

For your sake, and for your children's so that they don't grow up with this utterly awful relationship as an example to them

You blame much of your husbands problems on his upbringing and the atmosphere in his house as he was growing up

think on

A broken family is better then one that his 2 unhappy parents shouting at each other. Neither of you are happy or what has happened wouldnt have happened. He treats you terribly, you are nostalgic for what once was but we only have one life to live and its too short to make your self unhappy wishing it was the way it was.

Being a single parent is tough but it is also very, very enjoyable. You can do what you want, eat what you want, only have to tidy up after yourself and DC, it can be lonely but you wont be arguing with anyone and there isn't anyone to make you feel worthless.

I was with my ex for 14 years

he used to treat me like a princess, put me on a pedestal etc, but then he could be so nasty and somehow made me feel like it was my fault

I have never told anyone the details about what he did to me and I never will as I am so ashamed that as a seemingly confident, self assured, sucessful woman ' I allowed myself to be treated in the way I was treated

every time we fought he would say 'right that's it, we are splitting up' and I used to beg and plead with him not to!
it was always me making the effort to put things right, to make ammends for things that I didn't really understand what I was supposed to have done, just that he was angry and I seemed to be the cause of that anger (is any of this sounding familiar)

the thing that gave me the strength to get out of this situation is the realisation that my DD was seeinging it, and also becoming a victim of it

I have been away from him for 18months and it has been hard but so worth it -I finally feel like I am becoming the person that the outside world always saw, and that I didn't believe in

I still can't rationalise why I let him treat me the way he did -I always used to say to myself that the man who treated me like a princess was the real one, and the monster that was filled with hate towards me was something that I created, that I was to blame
I was affraid of splitting up with him, affraid I wouldn't cope because he MADE me believe that

my DCs technically come from a broken home now, what they actually come from is a secure, loving home, where they are not affraid to express themselves and they are absolutely flourishing

only you can make the decision about splitting up but you eed to ask yourself the question -if he hasn't been prepared to put in the effort previously, why would he be prepared to do it now? or the next time? or the next time?

Please don't feel foolish, you are not to blame in all this

you are absolutely not to blame

the shame is his

do not take on his shame

that he could treat you and his family like this, despite knowing how damaging it is...that is the shame

don't stay with him because you feel sorry for him, he is the product of his upbringing maybe

but remember he chooses to treat you badly

he is an adult, he has choice

you cannot fix him, you cannot love him better

you would be advised to leave him, and protect your children from his awful influence...break that cycle

it seems he cannot do it...so you will have to

I know that you are all right in one way or another and yes workshy some of it sounds very familiar especially the 'right thats it I'm off' and I am not blaming all his problems on his abusive mother or his father leaving because I know that whatever happens to you in life there comes a time when you have to take responsibility from it and move on. He has many times been a wonderful husband, very loving and romantic and generous and kind, I wouldn't have fallen in love with him otherwise and he is a wonderful father, very patient with the children, takes them out regularly plays with them and they adore him, he does not treat them badly at all and there is not a horrible atmosphere in the house because we are very civil and things only boil over when the children are not here so for the most part they are sheilded from it and they are very happy. He has made some efforts to be fair to him, much more helpful in the house, not as angry as has been previously and has been open to suggestions to take to his therapist such as me saying why have a problem with taking responsibility and blaming others etc and he has taken responsibility for the way he has behaved and had even agreed that he has abused me in the past and said he is sorry and will never do it again but then when I have a go at him like tonight he lashes out - I am obviously abusing him now and want to cause him pain and I do not blame myself for this situation at all. I am not a helpless female I am solvent and the house is mine and financially we would be OK and I could manage and I have a very supportive family around me but I don't want to be a single parent and I do still love him and I also enjoy us being a family and I think it is that which has stopped me in the past from seeing it through, that and the hope that I have always had for him to change but from what you are saying I am deluding myself on that front??

I do feel ashamed, I have not told anyone what he has done (the infidelity) my mum knows he has been unfaithful but not the details it would kill her plus I was undecided about what to do and I didn't want to taint her view of him if we did stay together. He says he has tortured himself for years about what he has done and would hate himself each time and feel deep remorse and guilt but I told him he could have got help sooner (in fact he did but quit when the going got tough says it was becuase it was a woman he is now in therapy with a man). I do feel sorry for him in some aspects of this because I do feel he is a product of what happened to him in some respects but I agree he had choices and chose to make the wrong ones. I am not going to stop him this time, I can't just be the one responsible for keeping this relationship together anymore it's exhausting. I just feel so so sad that it is ending because it has been more good than bad (not knowing the infidelity either obviously)

does he treat his friends with contempt ?

does he abuse his boss/mates/strangers on the street like he does you ?

he chooses what he does to you

and I am sorry, but what you describe...you begging, him yelling and threatening to leave, "months of hell" will have been witnessed by your children

you are certainly deluding yourself in that respect

so he can be nice when he wants to be ?

of course he can...these men wouldn't get any relationships at all if they were nasty all the time, would they ?

I expect he is nice to reel you back in after knocking you down...but it's just a mask, love. he is nice when you are at full tilt trying to please him. the problem is, you never will because he will constantly move the goal posts

when he has you where he wants you, the abuse will start again

the cottaging in mens toilets ?

is that not a deal breaker for you, even if his abuse of you isn't ?

what is there to like about this man, really ?

how could you ever feel safe with him again ?

there are so many deal breakers here, i don't know quite where to start, tbh

no one man is worth this

the counselling should be for you...to find out why your bar for a decent relationship is set so low, and your expectations of what family life should be all about is so skewed

really

don't do this any more, and don't expose your children to it

you don't have to

nobody has to

I am really sorry x

He is not a good partner, and he is not a good father

The only acceptable level of abuse is none

His sexual issues are just the tip of the iceberg. To be honest, I think this man is showing some rather worrying signs of a deep hatred of women, but I am not a psychologist and that is just my opinion

But I would certainly, in your shoes, be taking this opportunity to get off this damaging hamster wheel

I really must go to bed now

take care, and I hope you some more replies to temper my characteristically rather brutal ones x

get some more replies

What a shit he is. He sounds sex-obsessed and totally manipulative. watching men ejaculate in toilets? Wanking himself off in toilets? ffs. I bet he was privately educated.

His therapy btw, is meaningless bollox. He is only going through the motions to make himself look good/convince you to stay so he can keep the outside appearance of being a decent human/husband/father. He aint any of them and the sooner you wise up and stop exposing your children to his blatant mockery of the set-up and his vile abuse of you all, the better. For you and for them.

Frankly, he doesn't look good to any outsider reading your OP. he looks like a wanker. Which he is. Literally.

If he has somewhere to go then insist he goes there. Calmly, politely and out of earshot of the DCs. Help him pack. Chuck all his durex on the top of his pants in the case. poor little love.

Then get hard, and get hard fast. See a solicitor and get the divorce ball rolling.

I mean, do you REALLY want your son and this tosser sitting in a pub having a 'manly chat' one day - his father giving him the benefit of his sage advice? "Well son, when I married your mother I used to go cottaging. It was great. Another shandy mate?"

Get rid. Self-indulgent, cruel, emotional retard and very abusive 'H'.

I LOVE being a single parent. Of course it's hard but by christ being with a wanking unfaithful emotionally-blackmailing literal-tosser must be way, WAY harder?? I mean, think of the household outgoings you will save on loo roll/kitchen towel/condoms/petrol...that stacks up to two weeks in cyprus three times a year easily.

And anyway if he got run over by a bus tomorrow (sssshhh) you would be a single parent. You would manage. Its great!

I probably havent helped at all. But jeez, I remember being married to a man who wanked all the time like some screwed up schoolboy. Oh - yes - I have just remembered. He WAS a screwed up schoolboy.

I am already celebrating your new-found freedom from this 'man'
I bet he doesn't go to therapy when he says he does either. he will be in some bog with his pants down.

ok, from being in a very similar situation, no one is going to be able to tell you what to do, or what is the right answer

it took me over a year from initially making the decision that I wanted it to stop, to actually splitting up because I was always yearning for what we had when it was good, and I was very good at convincing myself that things were a phase, but the good times were getting further and further appart and the bad times were getting worse

my ex was a SAHD, I went out to work and on the surface he was an excellent dad. when our DD turned 7 he started chipping away at her confidence -it was all done under the guise of encouraging her to do better and achieve but I could see it happening and once I saw it I had to do something about it

my ex and I were on the brink of splitting up several times over the years to the point where we lived in seperate houses for a month -he promised to change, he did change but the change didn't last. And then he would start saying that he had done his part and now it was my turn to make the effort, again putting the blame onto me
I always accepted that it takes 2 people to make a relationship work, and i never saw myself as faultless but there are some extreems of behaviour that cannot be blammed on the other person in the relationship

I think you are in that situation now

only you can make the decision but if you are asking the question then I think you have already made the decision -even if you aren't quite there yet

golly, that was a bit long!

thank you for being so brutally frank it is exactly what I needed, just so so painful to hear it as I have been making excuses for so long I don't recognise it any more, I have my first counselling session on Sat and I spoke to a psychotherapist online for advice when this first happened and she also said that if he couldn't change really for good that I would need to explore in therapy what it was about me that kept me in an abusive relationship ie what am I getting from it? I never would have thought that about myself so that realisation is very very painful too.

UA, I do love you

whenever I think I have been a bit too close to the bone(r) you come along and make me feel like I am a pussycat after all x

WID, keep posting x

g'night

Yes lovely. It is painful. But the pain doesnt last. It lasts about five months. The missing him and the 'OhmygodhowwillImanagewhathaveIdoneHelpHelp' bit.

Then you get over it. And when you go out with your new girlfriends, knowing that your children are safely being looked after for a couple of hours by someone trustworthy, you will have to get used to the words coming out your mouth 'well, my EXH used to go wanking in public toilets and masturbating other men too..".

This is N OT the life you want, it is just an 11 year blip. What a nasty nasty nasty man. I married one so I know. I can look my gorgeous boy in the eyes and kiss his nose and thank god that he is learning about life and love from me. (yes yes i know, i am shit at relationships ha ha but i do make a very good curry, apple pie, i can sew bunting, he goes to zumba, we make clay and paint together, blah blah. Not a single wank-fest in sight)

thank you unlikely amazonian for making me laugh at least! workshy he has already told me that I need to start making an effort!!!! I told him he was obscene and why the fuck should I when it is he who has created all this shit in the first place. I need to be strong and get him out, at least I shouldn't have to push, I'll just calmly tell him to take the apartment in the morning and take it from there. I am sad though, this is my second marriage, my DCs are young, they will miss their dad, I know they will be OK eventually though. Why do I feel in such pain and despair when I know deep down that he is a bastard and a shit though? do you think it's because I feel he must have never really loved me in the first place??

oh, and he hasn't got 'a hold' over you I don't think....you just want a normal loving relationship and keep trying to rescue him. He aint worth it and he keeps pulling your strings with his bleatings. You keep forgiving the unforgiveable.

What has a real hold over you, probably, is the desire to remain happily married and to be a family unit, to not have to go through the shit of a divorce and all that entails - and, oh emotional exhaustion too. When do you have TIME tio kick this sort of twat to the kerb, when he is doing all his 'therapy' and working so hard at cottaging trying to fix the marriage?

Feck it. Bury him and move on.

Bullies are cowards. hit him hard and hit him fast. He wants to live in the loos in Paignton? Say? Well let him.

Men like this only love themselves. They don't love their wives and they certainly don't love their children. Wives are old and ugly enough to cope with that. Children need to be got away from such a malign influence as early as possible.

And i hope you are logging his cottaging antics and when you petition for divorce (tomorrow) cite that he has admitted to masturbating with other men in toilets...
that will sverely curtail his rights to entertain his small children unsupervised.

I really do strongly suggest you petition for divorce on these grounds and do so fast.

UA you are SO right about what the hold is, SO SO right, I just kept thinking that it would be the worst thing for my children to be from a broken home plus I am mid forties and I know I wouldn't want to bring another man into my life not least because of my experiences but also while my children are young and I suppose I didn't want to be lonely either but but but you are right and I know that too deep down otherwise I wouldn't be on here would I? thank you for giving me brutal unashamed advice it is totally what I needed xx

why did he confess do you think? I would never have found out and he says that he stopped doing that two years ago but he has been worse the last two years a total shit more so than before which he cannot explain either!! do you think my children are at risk from him? I hadn't even considered that before tbh...

funnily enough I told him today that the only person he loved was himself because he always puts himself first never anyone else! thank god I have my beautiful wonderful children to get me through this...

He told you because he knows it's over, because he knows you aren't going to do it anymore. Does it really matter why he has told you?

He might do a right number on you now and say (breaking down in tears) "I only said this to shock you, blah blah, you know the trouble I had growing up blah blah, I don't want to lose you or my children blah blah, I am trying so hard with therapy - LOOK LOOK the Therapy is All About ME!!"

Dont listen to a bloody word. These men are parasites... and, worse, they really enjoy it in some self-flagellating, self-wanking-way.

Get up tomorrow, have hot toast with butter, then ring a solicitor and start telling yourself and your friends that it's over. Buy yourself a hard hat because he might turn even more blatantly verbally nasty .. (snore)

Ignore. Then ignore again. Don't retaliate, dont be smug. Just be polite...he is a tedious piece of shit you can't shake of your shoe is your quiet mantra to yourself.

Be hard as nuts about access rights for your children though. I wouldn't allow someone who risked their own personal safety so badly and so regularly, to look after my child unsupervised. No no no. I really wouldn't . Dangerous.

Then start living the next half of your life. Defibrilate your world and your children's worlds, fill them with laughter, bubbles, get a bloody great dog for comfort love and security and hold your children close.

Your H is choosing how he behaves and has no thought for his family. He may even derive some kind of perverse pleasure in seeing your reaction to accounts of his cottaging. He has a hold on you because you are choosing for him to do so. I realise that to contemplate ending your marriage is monumentally difficult (house, money, access, family reaction, the ideal you had etc) but can you contemplate it going on for another year, 5 years, 10 years? Texting you for sex the day after you had a D and C - completely appalling. I agree with whoever said hot buttered toast for breakfast then find a solicitor. So sorry for what you have to endure. Hugs and best wishes x