He’s been gone a year. Still feel broken...

[LancesGold]

Everyone keeps telling me how well
I’m doing, but the truth is I still feel utterly destroyed...

Ex DH left a year ago this month. We have two small DC. He was unhappy, found living with me unbearable, couldn’t be a husband to me anymore etc. etc.

He’s since been diagnosed with a personality disorder. I also discovered that he committed several historic sexual assaults against younger relations, and that his family knew about these to varying degrees. I suspect I only know the tip of the iceberg regarding the things he may have done in his past.

He has no contact with DC. I have my parents for support but they aren’t getting any younger.

I carry on for my DC, who are really my only source of happiness now. On the outside I seem to be coping well but internally I feel like my life (in regards to ever feeling personal happiness again) is completely over. I genuinely loved and trusted my DH in a way I’ve never trusted any other man. I can not reconcile my knowledge of who he really is with the image of the man I thought he was. Sometimes the horror is almost too much to bear! I wonder how I will ever trust a man again when my judgement is clearly so horrifyingly poor?

Please tell me it will get better. I just feel such despair right now!

It’s tough, of course it is.

Don’t underestimate your parents’ support though, moral, practical, psychological.

You’ll keep trusting along day to day and one day you’ll look back and realise the weight has lifted considerably. You’ll survive and you will thrive because your DC need you to.

Gosh, OP, thats a lot of disruption / information / change / upheaval (to put it mildly) to take in. A year sounds like a long time, but in reality, when you are going through all this, it's still early days in the sense of recovery time. I suspect you have 'filed' a lot of it away to deal with later, which may be holding you back. Have you had counselling? It would be an investment for the whole family to have someone help you unpick it all and put it behind you.

I dont have advice, but can share the pain as am in a similar situation. We have young children, we had been together many years and happily married - the perfect family unit. We were all so happy.

I found out something about him then the mask came off and he started to gaslight me, lie constantly about pointless and also vital things etc. He was diagnosed with ASPD and traits of another personality disorder also.

I didnt know him at all, or what he was capable of. This was my closest friend, my soul mate, the man I raised children with. I have no clue who he is and I feel like a total idiot.

Now that I have cut all contact and we have divorced, he is cruel and actively seeks to cause the children and also me any damage he can. It is beyond my ability to process or understand.

Even more sickening is that I miss him (the old him I thought existed) so much. We all do. I am ashamed of myself for it.

Hopefully, in reading a similar situation for someone else, you can see how misplaced it is to feel ashamed / angry with yourself. You did not know and how could you have defended against that possibility.

I have no answers, but I am so so sorry you have been put in this situation. I'm also a year past separation, and it still hurts like it was yesterday.

Which PD was he diagnosed with?

@GroundAlmonds I am so grateful to my family for their help. I’d be lost without them. I feel guilty that I rely on them so much though. They have a big burden on them that shouldn’t be there’s to carry, I also worry constantly about how I’ll manage when their health fails/they are no longer there. I’m of an age where I should be caring for them, not the other way round.

@Inaseagull I’ve been having counselling for a couple of months now. My counsellor is really nice but I’m not sure how much she’s really helping tbh. There was an incident a few sessions ago where it was clear she’d misheard a few really important details regarding my DH. I’m scared to change counsellors though in case they report me to SS. I know my counsellors supervisor tried to push her to report me due to my ex DH past (even though he doesn’t see the DC)

@Howcanthisbetrue I am so so sorry to hear you are going through something similar. Your post really resonated with me. I totally understand what you say about missing your ex. I miss mine terribly as well. I find that in itself messes with your head as I miss him, but then have to remind myself that the man I miss isn’t who he actually is. It drives you mad doesn’t it? I rerun all
The good aspects of him and our relationship and then wonder if any of it was actually real?

I do feel ashamed and also horrendously humiliated. People tell me I shouldn’t but I beat myself up every day for being such a fool. In hindsight the signs were there that something wasn’t quite right but I ignored them.

It is borderline personality disorder he has been diagnosed with. His treatment of me is almost text book for BPD. I was the most amazing wonderful thing in his life until I was suddenly the worst.

I am so sorry for your pain

Hi I’m going through something similar. My DD disclosed in June that my ex partner (her step dad) had sexually abused her. There is a history of child sex abuse in his family. I also feel absolutely destroyed and humiliated. I have a young child with him who I’m fighting to keep safe from him but feel so let down by SS and family court. We are waiting on a charging decision from the cps. Whilst every part of my life has been destroyed he is carrying on and has even found a new girlfriend. I’d never ever want him back after he hurt my DD but I feel such anger that he can just carry on as if nothing has happened. I’m lucky I have amazing family and friends who help so much. You will get through this x

Please note that bi polar can be very mild, and varies , it’s largely a serotonin imbalance tho.
Effective with meds and accepting it, I know too well

@User1225 I am so so sorry. I cannot imagine how you must be feeling Utterly sickening that he gets to carry on with his life as normal. Does his new girlfriend know what he has done? I can not grasp why any woman would want to be involved with such a man! I’ve told my ex straight that if he gets with anyone else I will tell them about his past. No other woman is going though what I have if I can stop it!

I hope your DD is doing okay. Is he trying to get access to your child together? Again I am so sorry for what you are going though

@Nsky My ex doesn’t have bi polar. He has Borderline personality disorder.

They are both teachers at the same school so she knows as he is suspended !! I’m sure she believes completely in his innocence as he is extremely manipulative. Luckily he hasn’t seen our little one since August but we have a court hearing soon and I’m very concerned - he hasn’t paid for the police disclosure so the court have no information about the case and the court haven’t asked for social services reports. My DD is a tough cookie and doing so well. I think it’s a relief that it isn’t her secret anymore. When I phoned my doctor as I thought I was cracking up he told me that I was having a normal reaction to trauma and that really helped me to realise I wasn’t going mad and how I felt was normal . Sadly people can cover who they are so well. I question everything and wonder how I didn’t know x

I would consider changing councillors, she may be 'nice', but if you don't feel that you are getting much from your sessions, then it's a waste. A councillor with experience in BPD may be of more help. You might have to interview a few before finding the right one. Don't worry too much about SS. As you say, your ex doesn't have contact with your DC, so you've done everything to protect them. It doesn't matter how slow you go as long as you don't stop.

Sorry forgot to say that I’m not seeing a counsellor but I spoke to a charity who help the non abusing parents of children who have been sexually abused. I know this isn’t strictly what you are dealing with but your situation feels very similar to how I feel. The lady I spoke to was so kind and just knew exactly how I was feeling. They are called Mosac. Xx

@Inaseagull She does have a lot of experience in MH and does seem to understand BPD well. I just feel like she doesn’t always listen that well. For example I tried to discuss with her what I should tell the DC when they start asking where their dad is. She said I should just be honest and say I don’t know where he is. I know exactly where he is. He’s living twenty minutes away from our house

I feel like talking to her is more like having a chat with a mate iyswim. There’s no real theme or direction to the counselling.

Do you really think I don’t need to worry about SS? I’m terrified they’ll look into DH and he’ll lose his job etc. We are already struggling and I’d be screwed without him paying child support!

@User1225 I’ll look into that charity thank you. I wish you the best of luck for your court hearing and wish you and your DC all the best

What are her qualifications? If she's just a counsellor then it would be little more than a chat with a mate - effectively a sounding board.

In the circumstances you probably need a proper therapist or psychologist with expertise in this field and the skills to deliver therapies rather than just chat things through with you.

If you're traumatised (which would be unsurprising based on what you've described) then counselling is not an approved or recommended treatment option as it can actually make things worse and cause the trauma to get "stuck".

Although I would say it's possible the type of trauma therapy you might be assessed as benefiting from would be relationship based - you were traumatised in your relationship with someone, so being able to build a safe and boundaried relationship with a competent therapist might be considered the most therapeutic approach.

So that also wouldn't necessarily be hugely structured. But hopefully would involve slightly better listening skills (but again, humans do make mistakes and misunderstand even when being diligent - you might feel more tuned in to signs other people aren't trustworthy right now and therefore feeling those mistakes more sharply..).

And you don't deserve to be beaten up about this by anyone, least of all yourself.

@user1274245

She’s BACAP registered. I found her via their website. She’s mainly worked as a grief and young persons counsellor but had quite a lot of years experience.

To be honest I can’t find anyone on there at a reasonable distance from me that really ‘jumps’ out at me. I find the thought of having to explain the whole thing again to someone else exhausting! It’s a really complex tale and the few people I have told (including my counsellor!) have really struggled to grasp it all:

I hear what you’re saying regarding me being over sensitive. The other bit of info she got wrong though was that I’d told her he had raped someone!! This is not something that he’s done (to my knowledge) and I definitely didn’t tell my counsellor that

I was the same when I broke up with my ex. Lots of people seem to jump into new relationships within months, but I seem to need ages to get over things/move on. It took me two years. But I definitely did.

She also uses a lot of examples from her own life and talks about her own experiences a lot. It can be quite hard not to get frustrated by it. I’m the one paying to talk after all!

@Honeyroar I just don’t think a year or even two is a long time! Others seem to think so though. I’ve even had friends remind me my DC won’t be at home forever. They are still really young!!

Thank you! I hope everything works out for you. I think we will learn to live with it. I know I don’t want to be on my own forever but the thought of trusting again is very hard. Like you I rely on my parents a lot. We are lucky to have them. I agree with what other people have said and you are dealing with a trauma. Maybe counselling isn’t the right route for now x

OP, trust your instincts on the counsellor. You will find it hard to trust yourself now and need to build it back up. Trust yourself if you have an inkling she isn't focusing on your needs in the session. It sounds like there are obstacles to finding another therapist, but better to find the right one as you have a better chance to heal. It is worth it

Re moving on, I cant get my head round how my ExH (and by the sound of it applies to yours also) moved on so fast either. I spent a year trying to salvage what we could of our marriage for our childrens sake, but he bedded down in his coercive behaviour over that time and it culminated in him damaging me beyond my ability to grasp one night because he "loved me so much". He kept telling me that I needed to trust him again and he loved me, only me etc etc

However...within 4 weeks of me cutting of all contact he was living with someone else. Within 6 weeks he took her on holiday to where we had our honeymoon. A year later theyre still together with a baby on the way.

I feel so stupid. 12 years of what I thought was true love, a lifetime companionship and pure joy was actually something he had no value in at all. Duped, a total idiot. Everyone can see how wortless he thinks I am - out on public display. I'm such a private person and the humiliation is so painful for the children and for me.

There is no way, a year on ,that I'm anywhere ready to even talk to another man. I cant imagine having sex in a million years. He caused irreversible damage and as much as I am lonely, sad and yearn for a partner, I just can't. All I want is him, to step back in time 5 years and be with him...even though he could never have been who I thought he was even then. Does that make sense at all? It sickens me.

That conflict between believing on some level he was the deepest love I will ever have vs knowing also he is the most toxic and awful person I will ever know really pulls me apart. There lies depression, confusion, loss, grief, shame, self hatred and so many toxic emotions.

Is it similar for you?

Hmm, it's ok to make references to her own experiences but not to the extent it feels like you're her counsellor. It can be helpful to have contrasts and perspectives but again not to the extent where you don't feel heard or listened to. Like you say, you're not meeting to talk about her.

Your second example of a mistake she made is not good! I think I would find it challenging to trust a professional who was that "vague" in their understanding of who I was and what I was facing.

I don't think you're over sensitive, just sensitised to some things. The distinction being that you're having natural, proportionate reactions in the circumstances as opposed to "overreacting" .

I get your reluctance to have to start again, but the more you write the less appropriate she sounds and the more concerns I have. Counselling could do a lot of harm and the issues you're raising are some of the reasons why it's specifically advised against for trauma.

Even the right therapy can cause harm with the wrong professional. It's important to get it right to have the best recovery.

I would seriously consider looking for a clinical psychologist instead. Yes, you probably would need to interview a few to find the person with the right expertise, skills, approach and "match" to your needs.

Therapy and assessment don't have to be about raking over all the past details, it's often more useful to turn to how it's affecting you in the present. So it would only really be the initial assessment with someone new where you'd have to repeat yourself a bit to bring them up to speed and help them gauge the best plan for working with you. You could write your key bullet points down in advance though rather than having to mentally search and compile them each time.

I do appreciate that the prospect of finding the right professional and building trust with them is daunting (to say the least).

Pp does also make a valid point that sometimes we're not in the right place to embark on therapy.

Might not be the right option for you, but if you ever just want somebody confidential to offload to you can contact Samaritans. They're for anyone in distress not just people feeling suicidal. They don't offer advice, just listen.

If you don't want to have to do an opening spiel you can just say something like "I'm really struggling due to past traumas" and then talk about whatever is on your mind in that moment rather than explaining the history.

Sorry you are going through this. I also found out something about my exh which was devastating and makes you realise they are not who you thought they were.

Dont be too hard on yourself - its only been a year which is not long at all. Dont feel bad that your parents are supporting you - wouldnt you want to do same for your DC’s? You would, which is how they feel.

It’s a kind of grief you are going through. Be kind to yourself.