Hi Everyone
I am new here and I don't know where to get help. I'm 38, no kids and partner is 46.
I have been with my partner for 4.5 years now and in May I bought a house with him and completely regret my decision, i have been an idiot.
We got engaged 1.5 years ago and there are no plans for a wedding, we should be happy but we're not.
Things have never been right and I have always told myself that it must be me, and to an extent I think that it was. I was extremely insecure when I got with him because I have known him for years and he has a history of contacting other women (one of them was me when he was in other relationships) and i always told him to get lost.
I met up with him purely by chance and he was really nice, I thought he must have changed with age as people sometimes do... but I behaved hugely insecure to start with and remember getting really insecure over the fact that he and his ex had a co ownership agreement over their dog - he would go to see her every week and then when we moved in together she would come to drop the dog off at our house - it was something i wasn't comfortable with at all but he made it clear that I was obviously a nutcase for having a problem with it and that it wasn't changing. I think my insecurity made me feel very upset about it and maybe I didn't put it forward in the best way but he basically said "this is how it is and it's not changing".
We moved into a rented place after 6 months seeing each other and my anxiety was absolutely insane. I admit freely i used the silent treatment because I just felt like he completely crushed me verbally in arguments, I would try to just avoid him and I didn't know how to go back and re-convene a row after i'd walked away - i know i have a problem with this and i have tried to explain it to him.
After a year I found him sexting and was heartbroken, it's like my gut was telling me all along but I thought that if I had been less anxious and less passive aggressive it wouldn't have happened so I stayed.
Eventually I left to live alone after he broke a door down when i walked away from him and he grabbed and shook me, this is on top of multiple other things that he did such as moving my furniture and trying to charge me money for things that I didn't have a choice in buying like sky tv which was his - he put a bill under my door once for £500. He also disconnected the internet although I admit that I gave him that idea because i did it to him once after he took away sky tv when I locked myself in the spare room and tried to put a film on.
I feel like i have been just as abusive. I have said horrible things to him before and always thought that if i'm better it will improve. I do try and he tells me "you just can't keep it up" when i eventually get upset with something.
After a year of living apart he proposed while we were camping, the ring was expensive and beautiful and i was over the moon, but even the day before that he had gone mental at me for wanting a bottle of water to take on a walk when we didn't have one. It ended in a massive row and I like i always do went to try and leave - i just literally run away from these situations because i can't cope with them. Sometimes i take it too far and say i'm ending the relationship or leaving the campsite and i know that is wrong.
So I bought a house with him still thinking it would be ok even though it really isn't but i hoped it would be and have always stuck to this amazing image in my mind of us together getting married and loving our home. Sometimes it seems like that is possible but I have noticed that the arguments are just something i can't cope with anymore. He makes things so personal, he attacks my character, he gaslights me and he uses things i've confided in him over as weapons in arguments. Sometimes i've reacted viciously and regretted it and tried to apologise, but he never apologises.
Everything that i look forward to gets ruined, i'm struggling with anxiety and my chest just goes tight when he is home and we're having a row because i just want to stay away from him. He has blocked me in rooms, tried to take my phone and even threatened me. He insults my family and tells me i'm crazy and mentally ill. When I had depression (probably as a result of this) he acted supportive but told me that i shouldn't come off my medication and he uses that as a weapon in arguments.
Before I went away with my sister he accidentally slammed my foot in the door because he was trying to get me out of the house and i was trying to get my coat - all because he was angry that i was walking away from a row. But I can't win with him because everything i say is wrong! that's why i walk away, because he makes it so personal and unkind.
I tried to raise chore division with him the other day and he told me i just walked around obsessing all day over things and that i was upset because i was hungry and stressed and just to leave him alone and then he started making it him vs me. I told him i didn't want to do that just to have a chat. I ended up crying and walking away.
He always follows me during arguments, he will follow me around insulting me and shouting about how he is right and I am wrong, tearing my character down and mocking me. I have told him not to but he carries on. He's even accidentally hit me with a door trying to barge into a room once.
I think that i am making him do this because i have been too controlling myself and that if i was a "normal" person then this wouldn't happen. I'm worried what he says about me is true and i just lock myself away and don't want to go to social events because i feel too upset and sad and don't have the energy to put on an act.
I really don't know what to do because i can't sell the house due to losing so much money, but i don't want to stay here and i know he will not leave either. Am I the abuser here? I have done things wrong and i am happy to put my hands up to those things, i know i have issues i've had therapy and gone on medication in the past so i have tried to address things.