I have changed, I love you, will do anything to keep us together!!

[Funnyfishface]

Married 25 years. 2 grown up DS. Couples counselling 16 months.
Dh is controlling, EA, VA etc.
4 weeks ago I told him that I couldn't go on like this anymore. I care for him but I'm falling out of love with him.
He is in complete denial. And for the last 4 weeks I have the 'changed man', he says he loves me. He has seen the error of his ways and will do anything to keep us together.
Of course we have been here hundreds of times and each time I get reeked back in.
How do I know for sure that THIS time could be different.

I have seen a solicitor, I have spoken to DS and my family. Lots of RL support. No financial worries.
It's just that dilemma - what If this time he means it. My head is saying there is no way he can keep this going. But I'm surprised it's lasted 4 weeks.

Any advice welcome.

After the tears he will try and convince you he wants to put you on a pedestal.

The pedestal is of course a trapdoor. Once you are persuaded he is genuine he will revert to his nasty old ways.

Living in the same house while separating, even with the best of people, can be very damaging and difficult. Let alone with an abuser.

You really should separate and then decide.

I have been there to some extent and they are relentless. Even after separating, the supposed conversations were so, so hard. I have come to the conclusion that the best way is a clean quick break, band aid type.

WRT Counselling where there is abuse, while in simplistic terms I too often state that you shouldn't ever enter counselling with an abuser, it IS possible to engage in counselling where the therapist is trained in DV treatment.

it appears to me that the counsellor didn't fall for his snot and tears routine so therefore may be more qualified than usual therapists.

If she has been supportive to you OP, then i would think that it's been OK and you have been in safe place.

Main thing now is that you don't do anything you don't want to do anymore and that you concentrate on your own therapy and recovery from this abuse.

keep posting, MN is brilliant in supporting those of us who have emerged from the FOG of domestic abuse.

Adorably you need to get out precisely because of your small children

Indeed, as Hissy said. Get out before they get more damaged.
You may think they are not, but being in the middle of an abusive relationship will affect them.

Living in the same house "for the sake of the children" can be deeply damaging too - I knew of a lady who divorced her H on the grounds of his abuse (including marital rape) when her DC were around 8 and 11, but they both stayed living in the same house, albeit in different bedrooms until the younger one went to university at 18, at which point she told them that she was leaving the home and going elsewhere. She'd done it to provide them with a stable home etc. but they were both, especially the younger one, absolutely livid that she had stayed (and kept them there too) when she could have left 10 years previously. Probably angry that they had been lied to for 10 years too - she'd kept the divorce secret from them - but more because they could have been living without their father full time and hadn't been given that option.

In a similar situation. I have started the divorce proceedings and ever since ,he says that he will change. I have tried to explain that even if he did change all the bad things in the past have killed any love I have for him.
He just can't except that it is over and I feel I am forced to stay in a marriage I don't want.
My solicitor is away till 21 Oct so everything is on hold. He still hasn't signed the papers and is now suggesting a trial separation instead of a divorce.we are still living in the same house which is really hard.

Not distracting from OP's thread but conway if he can't accept it's over that is his prerogative. But if you have reached the limit of endurance he can't make you stay married; it's not for him to call the shots.

Remember words are cheap, it's easy for him to say oh but things will be different, because he knows when you get free his old lazy ways are going to be challenged, along with that old chestnut later on,
"We can sort things out financially ourselves, you trust me don't you, why throw good money down the drain making solicitors rich?" good luck conway

At some point you'll just have to bite the bullet and go to court, or move out.

He isn't eating. Moping around. Texting me ' he loves me, he can't live without me, he says I'm gorgeous'
I know, I know it's all to reel me in.
I can't bear to see him upset. He says I have broken his heart.
He is begging me to give him a chance.

Oh god it's soooo hard.

You are going to fall for it again

We are all wasting our time and energy and so are you

Move along folks, nothing to see here

See you next time, Funnyfishface

conway, no one is forced to stay married

you can divorce that pillock whether he likes it or not

it may take longer than you planned, but if you really want it over you can make it be over

Funny - why in fuck do you give a shit about his "broken heart"? Why are you again subjugating your feelings and feeling upset about this loser? Is it because you are such a people pleaser that actually, you can't bear to be thought the "bad guy"?
I suspect this might be more the case than you actually caring about his feelings - and it's something you need to work on for you.

If you fail to leave him this time, then for goodness' sake go and get some assertiveness training or something - learn how to say no and not care about upsetting someone, or how they perceive you!

My dear, you have been giving him 'chances' for the last 25 years. Every time he kicked off and you stayed, that was you giving him another chance. Just because HE doesn't realize how many chances he's had doesn't make it any less true that he's probably had hundreds, if not thousands, of chances.

And how many times has he broken your heart in the last 25 years? Sure, maybe it mended itself a bit but it was still broken. He has caused his own broken heart by the way he's treated you. After all, if he'd been decent to you all these years you wouldn't be leaving now, would you? So he's responsible for his own heartache, you certainly aren't.

Yes, it's hard. But since when is doing what's best for ourselves always easy?

He's a fucking liar. He doesn't have a heart. If he had one he wouldn't have been able to treat you the way he did.

YY to what Annie says. It is hard. I get Mr Nice now at handovers, but some of the things he says, you realise there is still no self-awareness, it is still all about him. Everything your man is saying is actually about him, because he is losing control of you. It is another form of control and manipulation.

Anyfucker is right. You are wishing on a star if you think what he says anything. You have 20-odd years of experience to tell you it means nothing. It is a cycle, and the only way to break it is to change your behaviour, what you do. If you need help with leaving, contact Women's Aid, and I mean, help with working out exactly what hold this man has over you so that you cannot leave, and why you are happy to settle for desperate declarations of love from a man who has so badly abused you. I know you have seen a counsellor but you need to speak to someone who understands the dynamics of domestic abuse and coercive control. Please, if you do nothing else, do this.

• if you think what he says means anything, that should have said

Watching & listening here. Nothing helpful to say right now except I know him. Not in real life, you understand, but I know another him. They cannot keep up the facade for long. Run, run, run & then when you have the peace & space & strength & safety you need you can really deal with this once & for all.

Anyfucker - I don't believe that you are all wasting your time and energy!!!

I get that you are impatient with me. I am impatient with myself. Every post on here is helping me. I DO know that I have been in this situation so many times before. This time though I am further along. I feel different. I am more in control.
However
When it's your nature to care, to soothe when someone is upset it is so awful to see the man you have loved for half a lifetime cry. Whether the tears are real or not.

For all these years I hoped he would change. That he would be the husband I need. Now he is offering that I know it's too late. But I will always care for him.

I am not being reeled back in. I feel sorry for him. I can't help it. I know in my heart the right thing to do is to have distance between us. I'm working on it.

Please continue to offer me encouragement. I am getting there. Slowly I know.

Themidwife - thank you. They all read from the same script. Xx

Thumbwitch - no it has nothing to do with people pleasing.

It's about spending 25 years with someone who I have loved with all my heart. And I thought that if he loved me as much he would change for me. Stupid I know.

I am an intelligent, kind, outgoing, assertive, loud, bubbly and most of all caring person. On top of that I am a fantastic mum who has raised two gorgeous young men.

funnyfish are you actually me??? you whole situation is almost identical to mine. I am inthe process of leaving after 23 years, like you I believed that he would change if (a) I showed him I loved him enough and (b) he really did love me.

The bottom line is (a) I don't love him enough anymore and (b) I don't think he ever really did love me, just his "idea" of me. That person doesn't exist - I am loud, outgoing, sociable and sometimes highly inappropriate (in a good way) but never malicious and never uncaring.

I have always wanted to find a way for us to be happy together which is why he has been given chance after chance after chance but it's just never going to happen and I have finally reached the end of MY line. But I know exactly how you feel - my thread is entitled "Embarrassed to be posting again" because I have been here before, received excellent advice before but decided on "one more chance"

While some people in RL are waving little flags and cheering for me, I am desperately sad as both of us are hurting right now - but I will stay on this path as I know it's the right one. I don't believe I have ever fulfilled my potential while with him - but a small part of me is excited to find out what I am actually capable of.

Good luck, you can feel sorry for him but others on here are absolutely right, he has caused his own sadness with his behaviour, not you

In that case, if you're not worried about being seen as the bad guy, FGS stop worrying about hurting your H! He ISN'T hurting, it's a ploy.
IF he loved you like you loved him, then he wouldn't have been like this and it certainly wouldn't have taken him 25 years to wake up to how foul he has been. The ONLY reason he is claiming now to have changed is because you look like you're about to escape from his clutches. He hasn't changed, he won't change.

But you're not going to realise that because you're going to keep on hoping and believing in the "husband construct" that you've overlaid on him for the last quarter century, and probably the next one too.

"But I'm surprised it's lasted 4 weeks. "

It's lasted four weeks because it hasn't worked yet. When it works, it'll stop all right.

I can't begin to adequately express the weirdness that happened on the final day of my Ex being with me, as I drove him up the motorway to the airport .

He started asking me why I had not ‘had a drink with him’ the previous night. (he meant had sex with him) he asked over and over about it, ‘Why didn't you have a drink with me last night?’ “You should have had a drink with me, really you should have done”

Then he started saying about my having decided to go for an old/older man next time.

Then he got nasty saying that I shouldn’t ever have put his stuff in bin bags and told him to leave the house, that my treatment of him was horrible and that no-one else would put up with me.

Then he got sad – all the years we have been together, how I will miss my son blah blah (the son he is PROUD to have never, ever changed a nappy for)

Then he got desperate again and went back to the having a drink with him business.

I told him in the end that I could see what he was doing, gaslighting, emotional blackmail and threatening behaviour and to pack it in, cos I was well ahead of him on this and it wouldn't work. I also told him that if he didn't fancy getting deposited on the hard shoulder that perhaps the best option for him was silence.

Abuse is borne of weakness and insecurity, not power and strength. When they sense they are losing their victim they go into total meltdown panic and want to drag you into it too.

This is what your H is doing Funnyfish, he’s trying to suck you back in because he needs you to fulfill his power and strength vacuum.

You know in your heart that you have to get distance from him, get away from his clutches. That is all I knew when my Ex was going. I knew that nothing would ever change if he stayed, that it would only ever get worse, and my life would shrink to nothing if he was allowed to remain in my life. I knew that my son would learn how to be a man from him and that I would raise an abuser. I knew that would kill me. :( I had a real tangible pain in my throat for a week prior to this, it was the pain of tears you are holding in, it was excruciating and completely untreatable as it was all psychological not physical.

In the end when I stood there outside the terminal building and he again started on the why didn't I have a drink thing, and I had already retreated into my car for refuge from his wittering on at me, I realised that I had no reason to stay anymore, so I wished him Bon Voyage and started the car and left. Took me almost the whole journey until I realised I was away from him and free.

He did me a favour, I didn't recognise the man I had spent over a decade with, he totally freaked me out. I never thought of him as anything other than the pathetic character in my car. i never missed him, because I could see that the person I knew in the beginning never existed, the person I was so terrified of never existed, and the only person that did exist was utterly insane.

Please don’t feel sympathy for your H. There is nothing for you to feel sorry about. What he is doing is a tactic to make you do what he wants. What he wants is for you to be miserable and under his total control. the minute he thinks he has you back on side, he will revert (and worse) to the man you are struggling so hard to be free from.

Follow through with staying apart. If he genuinely does change – and you will need a good year or 2 of blemish free existence before you can see he genuinely has changed – you can review the situation. You are free to change your mind if you are sure of why you are changing it and have the evidence to make that decision responsibly.

Don't feel sorry for him.
He is already feeling sorry enough for himself and very little for you.