Completely insane and ridiculous. I know.

[ScaredKittyCat]

I will try to keep this short. My husband is a horrible, selfish, cheating, lying tosspot and I hate him. I despise him.

I dream of a life without him. I dream of a life where I am not married to a sleazy cheating dirtbag.

But, as ridiculous as this sounds, I can't leave him because I am scared of being in the house alone at night. If I leave, I will have to do this. And I absolutely can't.

I can't see how I can ever do it which means I have to tolerate infidelity, lies and his vile attitude. He knows this. He wins.

Will live ever get better than this?

You won't be helped if you don't make the choice to be helped.

Is this a fear that is borne out of something that happened at night when you were home alone once? Or is this an irrational fear?

You don't sound mad at all. What you do sound like is someone who doesn't have the courage to leave the husband you claim to despise and is using this fear of being home alone as an excuse to yourself.

What is it you are actually scared of? Burglars? The dark? What makes you think that having someone else in the house makes you anymore safer than being on your own? Does your husband never go away over night? What will you do when your child is grown up and leaves? And your husband leaves? You'll be on your own then, what will happen?

You either want to leave him or you don't. Don't kid yourself by using this fear of being home alone as the real reason you can't leave.

Tough I know, but you don't need pandering too, or wooly hugs. Either seek the help you need to leave or put up with your husband and stop complaining.

"This sounds mad but I actually don't think anyone has ever been as scared of anything as I am of being alone at night. I really mean that. I don't think I can be helped?!"

Hypnotherapy? Counselling? CBT?

There are ways to tackle this, though it might be a long and difficult journey.

But which is worse: living a life of misery with someone you hate who treats you with no respect, or tackling the one (solveable) barrier to a new life?

*struck a chord not cord - sorry so tired this morning.

Perhaps it would help if you got a dog? You might feel more protected then. Could a friend or relative stay with you for a while after you leave? I understand phobias are terrible but if you stay in a miserable marriage you will lose your sleep and your health another way. You MUST find a way not to let this fear rule you because it will cause you to waste your life with a despicable person.

I am going to try to scrape some money together so I can move out and get a dog and alarm system. In time, I know I will probably have to get some help with my phobia. But too much is going on at the moment to deal with that.

My son is very tiring - bad, bad sleeper - and my husband is a heartless pig. I think I need to concerntrate on finding a way out asap.

You say therapy wouldn't work. How do you know? Why wouldn't you try it? What have you go to lose? You live with someone you hate, because of a phobia. There is readily available therapy which has been proven over many years of research to deal extremely effectively with phobias. I don't get why you would write this off without attempting it. Sounds to me that if you don't attempt to do something like this, you're actively choosing to remain in this situation. Which is incredibly sad. At least go for an assessment and then decide. All you need to do is Google IAPT in your area, you may be able to self refer. Antidepressants may help too. Ultimately you need to start to believe that the way out of this situation is within your control

Well, I'm no expert, but I'm wondering whether this terror isn't anything much to do with being alone at night, but rather extreme anxiety through being in a terrible relationship. Get rid of the bloke and you might find that the anxiety disappears with him.

You may think therapy wouldn't help, but it could do no harm at all to try, could it?

That was my though too clam. Op see if Dr will refer you for hypnotherapy?
You can and will escape, keep that thought

Love, you aren't well. This level of anxiety and fear is a treatable mental health condition. There is help and it will work. Please go to your GP and ask for a referral for a MH assessment.

When I left the tossweasle and moved back into my old flat, I had an alarm fitted that was directly wired into the local police station. I had never felt the need for such a system when I lived there before, but the tossweasle had managed to work me into such a phenominal state of anxiety that I felt more unsafe than I ever had previously.

I was always an anxious person - the few times I slept in my parents house on my own, I had to sleep with the landing light on, round the wrong way in the bed, so I could see the light. When I was living in a terraced house more recently in the height of summer, I refused to have the windows open even in the room that I was sleeping in...
Fast forward a few years, I've got to know my neighbours, and the alarm system doesn't get set when I'm in the flat - it's more trouble than it's worth. Get this - I sleep in a different room from my handbag these days! For the first time probably ever, I feel safe. I have windows that lock open, so if I wanted fresh air, I can have it.

I wish I could have told me back then how much better life will be, but I wouldn't have believed me.

Life was hard when I decided to move back, I went to my GP thinking sleep was the problem, but actually anxiety was the problem. CBT solved it. I was focussed on the sleep, ignoring everything else that was actually the issue. It was bonkers when a professional asked a few questions of me - and I do think that a trip to your GP might be a good first step.

Good luck lovely - posting on here is a fantastic start - I wish I'd discovered MN when I started to realise I was in a shitty relationship

I would go to the doctors and ask about therapy ASAP, and get a plan of action for leaving him. I would talk to someone about all of this, and what your best course of action will be. A women's refuge actually sounds like a good solution for you, definitely not alone! But to be honest, if you can hang on any time at all, tackling your fear will make this all much much easier. But I don't want you to delay if you think you can get it all sorted to your satisfaction!

Anxiety is a hard thing, and CBT certainly helped me. I have sleeping issues, and they are linked to depression and anxiety. I need to reemploy some techniques, as I know I've slipped back into old habits again now (checking everything multiple times, not sleeping etc).

Op I can completely understand how you feel about being in the house alone at night.

I used to start getting anxious when it got dark early in winter. Looking back I can kind of see how I was being irrational and the chances of anyone breaking in were quite slim. Having said that, the anxiety I felt was definitely real.

Is there anything you can do that would make your feel better?

I have two parking spaces outside my house and only one car, my neighbours vice versa. I offered my space to my neighbour and he was delighted as he had a young daughter and his wife was pregnant so it meant the didn't have to park away from the house.

Would it help you to feel less anxious if you got good quality licks for your windows and doors?

I too was in a marriage with a man I can only describe as a cunt. He spat in my face five times, one after the other once in front of my three little children as I made their breakfast. I thought I would never get away from him and I knew that it was the only thing to do. I tried so many times but always went back until the last time when I didn't.

It's hard isn't it? But you know he makes you feel like you can't survive without him to trap you. When you do finally find the courage to leave you somehow end up going back and it gets harder and harder to leave. Harder to tell your family because you think that they will just roll their eyes so yo tell them less and less and the abuse gets worse.

Your husband is no different. What a fucking horrible way for you to live! Can you imagine how horrible it would be to feel like you do now every day. Fuck that op.

I left my husband almost a year ago and I haven't looked back. I was waiting for that feeling of panic that had sent me back to him every time but it didn't come.

I am seeing someone lovely now. He's a single father with one son. Mother has no contact. You will find happiness again, don't worry about that. But you have to leave first.

I really feel for you op

ScaredKitty, I am worried about you!

Right now, you say there is a lot going on so you can't deal with your phobia and that's perfectly reasonable. Beware though. It is never the right time to deal with something you want to avoid, and you may find that in a couple of years, or five years, or ten, that there has always been too much going on and you haven't had a chance to do it. And before you know it, your son has gone off to Uni and you have spent over 20 years with this shit.

I'm NOT saying this is what you will do, just that it is easy for it to happen; so just keep an eye on yourself for it.

Meanwhile, keep a diary of what your vile h does and says. Just so that when you do feel able to kick him out you have some sort of paper evidence of long term abuse.