How would you feel?

[IamAporcupine]

Apologies this might be long

I have been very unhappy in my marriage for many many years. DH checked out of the relationship slowly after we got married and then more after DS (now 9) was born. He was hardly involved in the hard side of parenting, and left me feeling abandoned too many a times.

I tried to talk to him many times, even suggested counselling, but he refused. He was constantly grumpy and on edge. Became irrational and violent on occasions. I felt I was walking on eggshells all the time. The arguments always escalated and there was a lot of (what I later understood was) gaslighting. I started doubting myself a lot.

A few years ago, I felt my marriage was definitely over. Was extremely deppressed, cried myself to sleep every night and had suicidal thoughs for the first and only time in my life.

As it happens, during the pandemic I reconnected with an old friend. He was also in an unhappy relationship so understood each other very well. We confided a lot, and started to feel very close emotionally. For the first time I became vocal re how I felt in my marriage and how devastated I was. I finally admitted to myself I truly wanted to be out of the relationship.

DH found out last week. I was expecting hell to break loose but the opposite happened. He finally listened to me and acknowledged his fault in all of this and begged me to give him another opportunity and to try to fix things up. It felt odd and slightly false.

Then a couple of days later he said he needed to tell me something. He confessed he had been clinically depressed and dealing with bulimia all these years. That he was aware he had been an arsehole to me but that his mental health had taken over his life. He is devastated. He promises he will change and will make it up to me.

I am very very confused. I spent years listening to him justify his odd behaviour. I became used to the unpleasantries. I started thinking he was a bit of a psycho. And when I finally admit to myself that this is enough and can't live like this anymore, he does a 180 degree turn and tells me all this? I just do not know who or what to believe.

Can anyone help me process this?

That his behaviour has turned around completely in a very short time shows he could have behaved like this at any time in the last 10 years. But he didn’t bother.

He knew you were very unhappy and he just didn’t care until his own comfort was threatened.

Buy yourself some time, @IamAporcupine. Insist he spend a week at a relatives or a budget hotel. Give yourself the space to reflect. If he was so committed to repairing your relationship, he’d accept that’s what you need right now and do it.

thanks @JosephineBaker,

@litterbird - so in your friends case, when he goes back to the abuse, what's the 'excuse' and why it keeps happening.
The way I see it is, if I stay now and in 3 months this repeats itself, no way I will stay, there is absolutely no excuse.
(I know, I should be saying the same now...)

@IamAporcupine....there is no excuse as the abuse stops and its all hearts and flowers for a month or so then slowly the erosion starts, its a bit like the boiling frog scenario. Little quips at first, small damaging behaviours that she explains away. She is always the one giving the excuses...he is stressed at work blah blah. This cycle has happened probably about 10 times now and I call her out on it every single time but she is so embedded in the abuse cycle its heart breaking to watch. Once you are part of the abuse cycle OP, which you are now, its really difficult to release yourself from it. My friend also said to me on the first few cycles that she would leave if he did it again. She didn't, made excuses and the abuse is really bad and the cycle of abuse is getting shorter and shorter. She is now in her own therapy and trying to get out but is trapped now. I can't see it ending anytime soon. He is still cycling in and out the abuse cycle, he blames external factors, her, his past....anything he can blame but himself. When he hit her hard she sent me the bloodied pictures to save if she needed them. That was just the most horrific thing a friend has to deal with and listen to. That happened about 6 cycles ago....she is still with him. You must understand and research why women stay in such horrible relationships then see if you see yourself in this abuse cycle. Your husband will only make out he is changing ....and believe me he really thinks he is changing too....so he can keep control over you and his life. Please read up. I am afraid you are the only one that can make the change here....not him. The choice, of course, is you can stay and try and work it out with his flowery gestures of he is going to change, get help and be a better person.....over night.

Keep your wits about you. I don’t think there’ll be a fairytale ending to your story (how could there be?! What is there to build with?) but having been in your situation I know how hard it can be to leave. That’s what you should do though.

@IamAporcupine

thanks *@JosephineBaker*,

@litterbird - so in your friends case, when he goes back to the abuse, what's the 'excuse' and why it keeps happening.
The way I see it is, if I stay now and in 3 months this repeats itself, no way I will stay, there is absolutely no excuse.
(I know, I should be saying the same now...)

Except there wasn't any excuse for the way he treated you before either. Tons of people have traumatic pasts or eating disorders or MH issues and don't choose to abuse their partners. And you know it's a choice.

Please read litterbird's post above.

In three months time, you might notice some things, but both you and he will want to explain them away or they won't be as bad as stuff you've put up with before, and it'll seem wrong to leave over such "little things" in comparison, and it'll just seem like you should give him some more time because after all he has really been trying...

Thank you all. It really helps reading others' experiences.

My friend also said to me on the first few cycles that she would leave if he did it again.

...and it'll seem wrong to leave over such "little things" in comparison.

I need to read these over and over.

Thank you again, it might look like I am making excuses, but I am taking in your comments.

Can I use this thread to report back and keep me right?

So far he has mantained this new 'persona'. He has started a support group and is waiting for another service to start in May. He is doing lots of reading and writing.

He said himself that he realises now that he was emotionally abusing me. He claims he does not understand why it happened, and is/seems very upset about it. He is aware of the abuse cycle.

We have been talking almost everyday - everytime I remember a painful situation, I tell him.

It does feel good to share the load of parenting, something that I don't think I ever felt. As soon as we are alone though (except for a couple of occassions) I break down in tears.

I’m really glad you’re talking and he seems to be genuinely sorry and is starting to understand his past behaviour. I hope you’re ok.

Please get professional help for yourself. You have been continually abused and you may start suffering from a form of PTSD. There will be lots of thoughts and feelings you have suppressed over time to keep the peace and keep the relationship going. You must just leave your husband to sort himself out now. You must concentrate on your own well being and future, with or without him. You must be your own priority. Leave him to gesture these groundbreaking realisations and let him get on with his own healing pathway. Your time is now, for you, to heal and stand up for what is the right way to be treated. Nothing less should be tolerated now.

Is he willing to join a perpetrator's programme? www.respect.uk.net/

thanks @litterbird - I've started counselling, though I have to say that psychotherapy might not be the best option in my situation!

@category12 - I will mention it to him

Today is the first day I have not cried. I have also felt slightly 'lighter'.
It makes me feel guilty somehow? As in, I cannot allow myself to forget, if that makes any sense?

@July56 - thanks

I’d be out. You asked him to get help. You asked him to treat you like a human. If you get rid of the other man, he’ll slip straight back into his complacent ways and will probably be even more resentful and entitled. No way! You don’t exist simply to facilitate his recovery. His mental and physical health is entirely his own responsibility. He can do that without your input.

I can't believe it's been over a month since the last time I posted.

It's difficult to believe but he has not gone back to his old ways. He seems a normal person now. Before, he would get angry and agitated at the small inconvenience, now he just carries on. He's had parking tickets, milk bottles falling, shower doors breaking, etc etc, only one of these would have been a disaster but now he just deals with it.

He waits for me to go to bad and says he misses me. He talks to me.

He has spent proper quality time with our son, like he has never done before. He has prepared his school lunches and put effort in his dinners.

I do not understand. The change seems so easy?
I am terribly confused and do not know what or how to feel anymore.

I am constantly thinking. I enjoy being together as a family as we never had that before. But as soon as it is the two of us alone, I feel uncomfortable. There is something about it all that makes me uneasy.

I cannot see how to make it work,
or if I should try at all?

He has been violent and abusive.

Depression and bulimia do not excuse that. They always come up with some excuse if they're trrying to win you back, usually some mental health issue and/or a traumatic childhood.

It's up to you if you want to give it another go, but I don't think you're a fan of his anymore- which is understandable.

Because you can't trust him. After so many years abusing you, he suddenly changes. Just like that. So he could have done that all those years ago. He may have been depressed and may have bulimia, but he was also abusive.

There is such a thing as too little, too late

I begged my ex for years to go to therapy - he wouldn't entertain it.

When he hit me, he blamed it on my lack of sexual interest in him. Can anyone blame a woman for not wanting sex with someone who ignores her until he gets a random erection and then expects her to drop everything to service him?

After I broke it off with him, he mismanaged his long-standing health condition so badly he ended up in hospital.

I did not go to see him. It was an effort to get me to pity him and see that he'd "changed."

He has never changed, and now has arranged for another woman to take my place, the poor sod.

Actions speak louder than words, and years of abusive behaviour cannot be erased in a month.

But ultimately, it boils down to this:

OP, you feel uncomfortable around him. LISTEN TO YOUR FEELINGS.