Morbid/Delusional Jealousy - Any sufferers out there

[Sshhbear]

I am keen to hear from anyone who suffers from morbid jealousy. My partner of 16 years seem to have developed it over the last year and I am desperately researching information on the subject in an attempt to get him to realise that he has a problem. At this stage he's in complete denial that there is anything wrong with him and believes it's up to me to prove him wrong and earn his trust back.
I'm particularly interested in hearing from sufferers as I would like to be able to read some stories from others to help him realise that he needs help.
His main symptoms are:

• Believing whole heartedly that I have had and may still be having an affair. He knows I'm a bit of a prude and he knows I have never cheated in the past with him or anyone else.
• Controlling my activities - at the moment he has asked me to go two months without leaving the house unattended (by him and/or the kids). Previously this was 'until we get married'. He believes this is the answer to making sure I'm not up to anything.
• Thinking irrational things - he thinks I'm getting up in the middle of the night while he's sleeping and having sex with another man on our front deck. Important to note he's a light sleeper, I'm a heavy sleeper and our deck is not at all private from the street.
• Threatening me (aggressively saying "look out if I ever find out I am right") - he is not violent and has never layed a hand on me
• Walking around swinging a baseball bat for exercise - most of the time to help him get his strength back post shoulder reconstruction but other times, when he's feeling frustrated. He never threatens me with the bat but it is still intimidating.
• Blaming me for his feelings. He doesn't believe his gut feelings could possibly be wrong. Says he's not stupid and for him to feel this means that I am to blame because it is my actions that have caused it.
• He is toying with the idea that maybe I'm schitzophrenic and that's why I keep lying to him about my perceived infidelity.

I am 47 and also going through early menopause symptoms. I am nervous and jumpy and while I know anxiety can happen with menopause, I think it's because I'm worn out and emotionally spent after 11 months of accusations. Unfortunately, he sees my anxiety as caused by the emotional stress I am under managing two relationships (the second one being the one that doesn't exist).

I took him to his dr and she referred us to their psychologist. This didn't go well. He walked out after half an hour alone with her saying she couldn't help. He says this is because I had already spoken to her first and she wouldn't give an opinion on who was right.

I posted back in November 17 asking for advice on this same subject as I was getting married in March 18 to my man. 16 years is a long time and I love my other half dearly so despite some people suggesting I didn't go through with the wedding, I did anyway. Don't judge me on this please.

Years ago my DM had a friend whose husband was accusing her of cheating and was very very very paranoid. They had 4 sons and I knew 2 of them well as we were similar ages..

One day we found out that DMs friend and her eldest son were found dead in a park.

Her husband is serving life sentence. Two boys I used to know were taken in by the remaining brother( he was an adult already).

Those things happen. Mental health issues are serious. You owe it to your children to get out! He needs to see a psychiatrist and only when under professional care you should consider a relationship with him. Your first duty is to protect your children.

You should go to a psychologist yourself. You need impartial advice as you have lost perspective. Most people would not put up with what you are putting up with. You need to explore why.

As Hellsbells says "there we have it". He does smoke marijuana - most nights to help him sleep

ShhBear do you really think it is okay to have children in a house where an adult is a habitual drug user?? Stop minimising. No one on here is going to tell you what you want to hear. You need to get strong and tough and take control and get your DC out of this situation. Your DH is an addict and needs help. His drug addiction may be causing the delusions and paranoia but his drug abuse (and the reasons for that) is the root cause. He needs help with that first and foremost. At present you are actually enabling him. (You may want to explore if you are Co-dependent)
Please, please contact a drug advice charity. See your GP for advice too and be honest with them about the drug taking. Leave and take your DC to your folks or anywhere you can.

Wise up and protect your DC.

The baseball bat thing - no he isn't threatening you with it. It's flexing his muscles. You can see it. Classic. Some men leave knives on the bedside table as a reminder.

This is abuse! He seriously needs to get help and you need to get out of that relationship. I’m not judging at all but it doesn’t sound like things are going to get any better for you.

You do know Othello kills his wife, Desdemona, in the end, don't you?

Driven wild with jealousy with almost no evidence. Although Iago, jealous of his black general's position did add to the mayhem.

Get out and get out very carefully. Someone with your husband's condition is extremely dangerous.

Honestly op, he's really ill. He's accusing you of getting up in the middle of the night to shag on the front deck. He doesn't want you toto leave the house alone. He's very ill indeed. You can't guess what will happen next. And you need to protect your children and you need to either walk away or get him help and uou all cant be in the house with him.

You said you'd hope you'd know when to stop, I think you're past that stage. And only just starting to come to the conclusion.

As the only healthy adult here you need to take responsibility. He cannot.

Your husband is very ill. Get him help and get you and your children out, today.

I’ve NC for this as it would out me to people in real life.

My partner of 10 years developed extreme paranoia. It didn’t focus around cheating, but was instead fixated on black magic and his perception that people were causing him harm. He was also a habitual marijuana user.

He was never violent to me, and most of his delusions focused on other people. He did accuse me a handful of times but always profusely apologised afterwards.

I did eventually leave him, not because of his mental health, but because he couldn’t accept he had a mental health problem. He did have times when he accepted he had a paranoia problem. I continued to see him periodically because I was so concerned. A few months after I split up with him, he attacked one of the people he was paranoid about with a screwdriver.

Your situation sounds so much worse and more dangerous. Your husband isn’t having lucid moments. People suffering from this type of delusion are dangerous, and your opening post made my blood run cold. I think you’ve become so accustomed to his paranoia, that it’s become normal to you (not said in an accusatory way, I was the same). Please know that as an outsider (with experience) looking in, I’m very worried about your life and the lives of your children. You can’t mend this man when he won’t accept he has a problem.

"Unlikely" people do all sorts of violent things. Memorably my uncle chasing off up the motorway threatening to throw caustic soda over someone he suspected of an affair with my auntie. He was a marijuana user too.

If this was to come to the attention of social services, you'd possibly get two choices-separate or lose the children. If I was in your shoes, I'd know what I would choose (and I don't have kids.)

What, exactly, are you getting from this relationship? And what sort of life is he showing his children?

I am genuinely worried reading this OP. I understand that you don't want to give up, but I think maybe you should move in with trusted family or friends with your children and tell him you won't be back until he sees a psychiatrist.
I don't know if that's the right thing to do though. It all sound very scary.
You think it will never happen to you, but women are killed by their partners at a disgusting rate and I don't think a lot if then think it will happen to them.
Its important to keep you and your children safe. He is not the man you know right now. He's in the grips of a serious mental illness. You don't know what he is capable of.
Please keep safe.

Yeah you definitely need to escape this situation xx

OP - Do not get wrapped up in defending your relationship to people accusing him of deliberate abuse etc.. you have been together 16 yrs, this issue has only been in your relationship for 12 months. As the psychiatrist in the pp post said , he is clearly exhibiting signs of morbid jealousy. He has a serious psychiatric illness that is very very dangerous. I know it's not 'him' , I understand you want your husband back and I also understand you want to 'fix' him.
You can't.

What you can't do.
He needs a full psychiatric screening, the care of a mental health team and medication. None of this can you do.

What you can do.
Go to your GP.
Tell them what you have told us.
Don't play it down.
They will ask you if he is a danger to himself or others. The answer is yes. You feel scared for yourself and your children.
They should make an urgent referral to a crisis team. Or a fast response team.
If this does not happen then you have to go to the police and tell them you are not able to leave the house, are tracked etc. He should be arrested for coercive control. It's not right, but mental health services are so appallingly underfunded that this is often the only way to get the help he needs. When he is arrested you have to tell the police officer that he needs a mental health assessment as soon as he is booked in to custody.
You have got to put your great big pants on OP and do this for him. He is delusional and has no self recognition of what has happened to him. Enhanced by marijuana smoking, a well known trigger for paranoia.
I have been there. Not psychosis or MJ but untreated bipolar. I had to have him sectioned. Cried alll the way Home. He shouted and swore he would 'never see me again' - he came home 3 months later. Balanced medication and has held down a good well paid responsible job for 6 yrs. we have been married for 15.
It's hard to do OP but if you want him better it's the only thing you can do.

What part of Australia are you in? You will have a mental health crisis/assessment line you can call- the people will listen to you non-judgementally and determine what sort of help is appropriate. In Adelaide there’s the Mental Health Triage service, phone 131465. You can even call Lifeline on 131114 if you just want to talk. Please get some help xx

The thing is Sshbear, you say you want to help him, but how are you going to do this? What effective plan do you have to help him?

It seems the only plan you have at the moment is just doing more of what you're doing now, and go along with his bizarre behaviour and deluded thoughts. This risks yours and your children's safety. Everyone on here, even a consultant psychiatrist, is telling you what a dangerous situation you and the children are in. Why are you not taking this on board?

You need a new plan. You have to concentrate on getting him the mental health assessment and treatment that he desperately needs. If he is refusing to do this, then you need to provide him with an incentive to change his mind. You leaving him, or insisting that he goes to stay somewhere else, may force him into agreeing to get treatment. Therefore, you leaving him is actually helping him.

(As others have said, you need to be very very careful about how you manage leaving him if you were to leave, as this period puts you and the children at even greater risk of harm. He is most likely to believe that you're leaving for another man. Woman's Aid -or the Oz equivalent -would be able to advise you how best to do it, including what legal protection you may be able to get to help protect you).

You clearly love him and want to stick by him. Once he is well and receiving treatment, then you can look at living together again, and rebuilding a life together on a healthier basis.

I think you probably need to go back to your parents and tell them the whole awful truth of your current situation. And do the same with his family. Also, can you 'lose' that baseball bat?

Mental illness is a very cruel illness for everyone whose lives are touched by it. It doesn't cure itself and tends to create more and more chaos and very real risk of danger.

Please think about making a proper plan NOW to get him the help he needs, and to ensure your and the children's safety. We're all hear to listen and support you to do this.

I was in a similar situation. His obsession grew until once day, the children and I were chased from our home at 3am. Our lives were ripped apart. I've name changed for this post, he still stalks me online.

Run, speak to women's aid and others whilst you can. I thought I could fix him, help him get better. You just can't.

Sending love, I understand how hard it is.

I grew up in a household with a father like this (caused by alcohol in his case). My brothers and I feared for our safety all the time - we were convinced that he would hurt us one day. It has affected all of us greatly (we all have variations of anxiety/depression) and I think we will always bear the trauma of growing up in an unsafe, frightening house.

I think that we hold deep anger towards out mother too, for not protecting us, though I know that is probably unfair.

Rather than asking for perspectives of people who have been the "jealous" one, maybe you should listen more to those of us who are telling you that behaviour like this destroyed our lives.

You are NOTdescribing jealousy, you are describing very serious mental illness with paranoid delusions - which means however much you want to deny it - that you and your children are in danger.

He needs to be helped and if necessary sectioned against his will. As you are determined to stay with him you can help - by getting him sectioned.

There is no way to 'deal' with this - unless you are a prescribing mental health professional you can't help him. Also look at your life - he won't 'let' you out without him, WTAF, how on earth have you got to the stage where you have normalised that and the paranoid delusion of the middle of the night thing??? Please get help - do it for his sake & for your children.

I understand you started this thread looking for support/empathy from those who have been through it or are going through it, and that you want to save your relationship. But op, please listen to the advice. He might never hurt you but when someone is in that kind of condition you never can know for sure.

Don't kid yourself it can never happen to you/he could never do that, because truthfully, he could. He tracks your movements, stops you leaving the house, thinks your getting up to have sex with men in the middle of the night. None of that is normal behaviour and you should not have to live with it. You need to be certain that you and your children are safe. That is your priority. If he wants you back, he agrees to get help and he gets this under control. The environment you and your children are living in right now is damaging, even if he never did progress to physical violence - and to reiterate, he very well could - but even if he doesn't, what you are living through right now is no way to live and will damage your own mental health and your childrens.

MH issue. A family friend had this. He ended up staying away from his wife and children in his brother's house, but made a full recovery after a few months of medication. Take him to a psychiatrist.

So this is escalating quickly just as you have all warned but I feel trapped. The last three nights he has made me wear his fitbit to track my sleep and one of the nights it didn't register properly so only gave mininum info the next morning. I woke up this morning to a verbal bashing before the kids got up. I've been shaking all day and know I can't spend tonight here but the afternoon is creeping on and I'm literally stuck. I also don't want to scare the kids but shouldn't leave them here (obviously). They are old enough to understand but I don't want them to be scared of their dad. How do I leave? I can't call anyone and because he hasn't done anything as such, calling the police would just freak everyone out. I am really lost and don't know what to do!

Call the Respect helpline 1800 737 732.

I'm not sure how it is in Australia but if you called the police with your story here they would take it extremely seriously. He has done something, he has scared you, coerced you, controlled you. These are against the law. You mustn't put up with it. I think you should get in a car with the kids and just drive to a police station. Show them this thread if you wish. I know people usually say keep threads to yourself, but police is a different matter.
Do something and people here will help. You need to escape and your husband needs help. In that order. Good luck.

Is he still in the house? if so you need to whisper to the kids that they should quietly and swiftly get into the car, then drive to your mums. Don't take anything....just go.
You can go back later to collect your things but be sure you're accompanied (by the police or his brother perhaps).
Don't worry about what comes next. Just get out! PLEASE!