Is DH mentally unwell or abusive?is this normal?!

[candymilk]

Hi I need some advice because I don't know what to think and I am so confused.

I have been with my DH for 25 years - we've had our ups and downs - when we first got together I was very young things were great and then they weren't. I stupidly and wrongly kissed someone else and confessed to my DH who was my BF at the time. He was angry and hurt but we got back together and life continued we got married and now have two early teens.

However this incident (me kissing someone else) has come up a lot over the years (he brings it up) and when it does I have to endure massive abuse from my DH - shouting, slamming doors, him walking out, intense questioning, interrogation late into the night about every little detail, sometimes breaking my things, insults, character assassination- for days, sometimes weeks and once 4 months al the while I am crying and shaking wreck when this happens. This happens about every 6 months to a year and I am being ground down with it!

I have apologised over and over again and I feel I have spent the last 25 years showing how committed I am and how much I love him. About 15 years ago he split up with me because he has met someone else (because he want getting enough attention from me) but he says nothing happened and decided he wanted me. We were apart for 6 weeks and I have to believe him that nothing happened.

We are in the middle of a crisis now. I have started a new job and he is accusing me of 'slutting around' at work. He won't let me sleep in our bed - am in spare room - and he looks tortured. I am getting the shouting, the insults etc.

I don't know what to do. He gets very jealous even if I speak to men and I am so miserable and so is he.

I understand that he is hurting but his reaction to it is so raw like it happened this week and not 25 years ago. He also needs a lot of attention from women when he is like this (friends etc) and will go out with some of his female friends to help his boost his ego.

He wonders why I don't really want to have sex with him! I've told him women aren't normally turned on by men who treat them like shit and are angry and shouting.

I feel awful because he says I have ruined his life and caused his a fatal emotional injury from which he will never recover. I feel so guilty but also struggling to understand.

Anyway he is seeing a counsellor next week.

But I suppose what I am asking is do you think that this is a normal response and behaviour and what would you do!

Thank you

Let me get this straight, OP - your husband leaves you for another woman for six weeks and got head from another man when he visited a gay sauna and you believe this to be all your fault because you kissed someone else 25 years ago, giving him a 'fatal' emotional wound (wtf is that?)? What response would you give a friend who told you this? He is extremely abusive and you need to leave now and start living a life that doesn't involve him.

He's incredibly abusive!

If he tells anyone you are a slut, shrug your shoulders and tell them that he caught an STD in a gay sauna! No one is going to believe any 'unwanted blowjob' nonsense.

No-one catches an STD from a half finished blow job.

Which STD did he catch? @candymilk

He is making me feel so guilty. He's just found some 20 year old photos of me and some friends and because I am sitting on the lap of a gay male friend in the photo he has gone nuts!

We are in the middle of a crisis now. I have started a new job and he is accusing me of 'slutting around'. I don't know what to do. He gets very jealous even if I speak to men and I am so miserable and so is he.
Sounds like he's projecting his oen behaviour/desires onto you. Sure he's not being unfaithful again?

He also needs a lot of attention from women when he is like this will go out with some of his female friends to help his boost his ego.
??

He wonders why I don't really want to have sex with him! I've told him women aren't normally turned on by men who treat them like shit and are angry and shouting.

If he honestly, really can't understand why his behaviour is offputting and why you don't want to have sex after he was unfaithful and gave you an STD, then there really is no hope for him. All this cannot be good for your dc or you.

I feel awful because he says I have ruined his life and caused his a fatal emotional injury from which he will never recover. I feel so guilty but also struggling to understand.

You kissed a bloke 25 years ago. Big deal!!!! He was unfaithful during your marriage, with a man, and gave you an STD. That is a MUCH BIGGER DEAL. Do you get to give him a hard time about that, or is it all about him and his feelings??

And so about two years ago he went to a gay sauna in London, got a blow job (well he said the guy started but then he told him to stop) and then had to tell me because he caught an STD which he also passed onto me! This hasn't helped with the wanting to have sex with him thing.

That's some drip feed. Sounds like he's gay or bi, can't handle it and is taking out his anger and angst on you. Bloody hell, why did you forgive him for that??

do you think that this is a normal response and behaviour and what would you do!

No, it's batshit, and I'd have left him long ago.

Doesn't matter whether his insane behaviour is caused by MH issues or he's abusive. His behaviour is abusive, whatever the cause.

It's a toxic relationship, no good for you, not good for the dc. I'd ask him to move out until he changes.

And he would have been incredibly unlucky to have got an STD the first and only time he cheated on you with men, wouldn't he? So I'd assume it's a regular thing.

He caught gonorrhea and then I got it too so we both took antibiotics.

he's just found some 20 year old photos of me and some friends and because I am sitting on the lap of a gay male friend in the photo he has gone nuts!

What? This gets madder and madder. It was 20 years ago! He's definitely feeling guilty/deflecting his own behaviour onto you.

Tell him to leave until he calms down and sorts himself out. Tell him his behaviour is completely unacceptable and you're not putting up with it for a second longer. He is insane.

You will need to develop a thick skin about what he says to other people and how he manipulates them. You can't control it but you will find out who your friends are.

So basically every 6-12 months when he cheats on you with a man and/or woman, he feels some kind of guilt or conflicted emotions and makes himself feel better by being horrendously abusive to you?

I also need to add that our sex life has never been what he wants

In what way? Because he's gay??

I have been conditioned by him to feel responsible for him and his self esteem and how he is feeling. I am also scared that he is going to tell everyone including the kids what a 'cheating slag' I am

Well, you can't change him or his behaviour but you CAN change how you react to it.

Tell him fine, he can tell the kids you kissed someone else 25 years ago but you will tell everyone he regularly goes to gay saunas and has BJ from strange men. Up to him.

I have given him a massively hard time about the sauna but he doesn't think it's cheating - because I'm to blame because my coldness drove him to it! And then after a while he brings up my 'betrayal' as a way of shutting me up. It soon moves onto what I did to him - 25 years ago.

He is a prick and you shouldn't stand for it. 100% abusive.

No our sex life isn't what he wants because he doesn't think I'm into as much as him and he doesn't get what he needs - compliments, frequency and he likes to talk about how amazing it was afterwards. And all of that makes me feel uncomfortable.

Let him tell the whole damn world that you kissed another man decades ago. In return you can tell the world this abusive twat visits gay saunas and gave you an STD.

Please leave him. You deserve a better life than this.

He sounds very abusive and personality disordered due to his extreme reactions.

He wasn't fatally emotionally injured...his (narcisstic) ego was injured and that has caused his rage.

None of his behaviour is rational so you won't be able to calm the situation. A healthy mind struggles to relate to an unhealthy mind.

You will need to leave but you need to dl so quietly and plan on the side as disordered individuals are often highly vengeful when they realise they have lost control. They are often determined to punish you and will try to ensure you are left with nothing.

You have taken the first step, do further research by reading books such as "why does he do that" or the verbally abusive relationship.
Then get a plan together to leave, line up a really good solicitor who knows about toxic individuals and start planning to build a new life.

Many of us have been through this. The nice guy image to others and craving attention is part of the disorder. You haven't caused it and can't cure it.

Oh, @candymilk, he is awful. It's impossible to have a relationship with someone who thinks like that.

What do you want to do?

Jesus op. I hope this isn't real, I can't understand why you're with this piece of shit if it is real. What an abusive horrible man. And he fucking cheats on you too. And doesn't practice safe sex when he does,

Fuck get out of there, what are you doing, still there.

Maybe it's me but I don't really count a single kiss 25 years ago when you were presumably in your 20s, that bad. It's a stupid mistake, that you hopefully won't repeat and it was up to your bf at the time whether or not he could move past it. He decided that he could and yet, he's used it as a stick to beat you with for a quarter of a decade OP.

He's held it over you in order to abuse you and guilt you. He's manipulative and he gave you an STD. He ran off with someone else and he's possibly bi or gay - who knows.

Unless you want this to be your life for the next 25 years because, by now you know it's not going to get any better, then I suggest you get yourself a solicitor. Hopefully, get one trained in DV as they will know how to handle him.

I'm wondering if this current 'crisis' is classic projection and he's cheating again. I'd get an STD check asap. I'd be thankful I was in the spare room and I'd keep any plans to leave under my hat.

Run far, run fast.

Well he's DEFINITELY abusive. Probably has MH issues as well. But 25 years later, emotionally beating you up about a kiss you confessed and apologized for? No way that's not abusive, regardless of any MH issues he has. Sorry OP. You don't deserve that.

The freedom programme is really REALLY good. Life changing in fact. On their website you can find your nearest group.

It is real and I feel stupid :( I also agree that we were young (I was 18) when it happened and thought we had moved on and part of that was him deciding to move on too - kind of drawing a line - so bringing it up 25 years later seems so unfair.

He says that I am the creator of his jealousy! I am to blame and I have created the monster.

People talk utter shite all the time. You don't have to believe them.

People talk the most shite when they are trying to hide something or when they are trying to divert attention from their wrongdoing.

It seems that your DH talks shite constantly. Thus there is no point talking to him, asking him, listening to him. Disengage from his voice. Detach. Detach. Detach.

I mean, come on, think about it, this is so ridiculous I thought for a moment about reporting you as a troll

Wait, so he blames you for a kiss that happened 25 YEARS AGO but it's ok for him to get a bj in a gay sauna?

He is accusing you of being unfaithful because he is. It's classic DARVO (deny, attack, reverse victim and offender) technique used by abusers.

I lived with one of these for 20 years. So so jealous!!

He was the one that had been fucking about for the whole 20 years!!!

Obviously he was kicked out.

But when I hear about jealous partners I always think it's them that are up to no good!

I'm glad you are finally seeing this mist and taking the first steps to freedom.