First time poster and not really sure why I'm posting, other than I have no one else to talk to about this. Before I share the reason for my post please note that I am genuinely on edge, have no idea how to handle the situation I find myself in, and have no intention of trying to defend myself for how I feel so please don't respond if all you're going to do is tell me I'm being unreasonable etc. I don't intend any disrespect to anyone but have seen too many threads where people pile on with unhelpful comments and I seriously can do without those.
So. Been married just over 25 years, not terribly happy for most of them because soon after the wedding it became apparent that H was very selfish. We did not live together before we married or perhaps I would have realised that sooner. But anyway, he has tended to put his own wants and needs before mine (generally ignoring them) and basically treating me like a housekeeper rather than a wife. He was not like this when we were 'courting'. The difference in how he was before we married to how he was following the wedding still shocks me and a close friend suggested that he might have Aspergers. I don't know and hadn't heard the term before so had to look it up, but I can see why she suggested it and acknowledge that it is a real possibility. I asked him once if he thought he might have the condition and he didn't deny but absolutely refused to even consider getting any kind of assessment done. I believe the purpose of such an assessment is to identify what level of help/support a person with Aspergers might need. Again, I don't know.
Whether he does have this Aspergers or not, our marriage deteriorated as the years passed and we have not shared a room now for many years - initially because he has 'night terrors' and wakes up yelling and thrashing about and woke me so abruptly that I would lie there for ages waiting for my heart rate to return to normal before I was able to relax enough to sleep, if at all. He would always just go right back to sleep as if nothing had happened. So eventually I moved into the spare room, and have remained there ever since as his behaviour has worsened over the years resulting in my losing any kind of romantic feelings for him. I've been honest about that but he's always refused to accept or believe it and the stress has been awful to live with and has made me ill and even question my sanity more than once because we would discuss something, make a decision, and then he wouldn't honour that decision and when challenged would deny ever even having the conversation.
I've coped somehow with all of this, unable to leave because I have no money of my own and was looking after unwell elderly parents - Dad died a few years ago, Mum more recently. I myself am now in mid 60's and feel like my life has just been one long struggle, and I am weary. I have very little energy.
But the point of my posting is that for the past couple of years I have caught H out in blatant lies, and he denies to my face that they are or that he has or is lying. And yet he is. Another episode occurred earlier this evening. The thing I cannot understand and have no explanation for is that the most recent involve stumbling upon him smoking which he has never done as long as I've known him. He couldn't deny that as I literally walked around the corner and he was right there smoking. He was waiting for me after an appointment but watching the front entrance to the building, whereas I had been directed to use a different exit so rounded the corner behind him. I don't know which of us was more shocked when I came up beside him - me from actually seeing him smoking or him from being 'caught out'. I asked how long he had been smoking and he said about a month, and I just asked him to please not smoke in the house. Back in the car I asked if there was a particular reason why he had started smoking and he said it was work-related stress so I said I was sad to think that he couldn't have told me and perhaps I might have been able to support him. Out of nowhere he blew up and said it was mostly because of how things were between us and that it was my fault he was stressed. I did stop him there and tell him I refused to be blamed for choices he made himself - that he's done this so many times over the years when he hasn't liked the outcome of something and I no longer allow him to blame me or participate in any discussion that allows for this because I will not enable him any longer. Anyway, he said he wouldn't smoke any more. But a few weeks ago I saw a lighter on the floor which had obviously fallen from his pocket as he had got up from the couch and I picked it up, put it on the arm of the couch and said simply, "I believe this is yours." He snatched it up and left the room without a word and when he returned he asked me what I 'thought' I'd seen. I told him I had seen a lighter and he brushed it aside and said it wasn't, that he didn't own one, and it was just a bit of plastic he had picked up whilst walking our dog and had forgotten to throw in the bin. I didn't argue the point, but I knew what I had seen and picked up. So earlier tonight he got up from lying on the floor playing with our dog to take her out to toilet as I returned to the living room from the kitchen, and my foot touched something on the floor right around where he had been lying. At first I thought it was a USB stick but when I bent down and picked it up, it was a Vape thing, quite full so recently bought I imagine. When he came back into the room I handed it to him asking how long he had been vaping. The look he gave me would have killed me where I stood, if such a thing were possible. It really shook me. For a moment I thought he was going to deny that it was a Vape but he didn't just said 'a couple of weeks' and then he went and threw it away.
My concern is the constant lies, and the deception, and I told him this. He didn't say much and shortly after took himself off to bed without further discussion.
That look he gave me was one of such venom and hatred. I honestly don't understand the point of lying over something so trivial, the deception of it. It leaves me feeling very unsettled and on edge around him because I just don't trust a word he says anymore, and it makes me wonder what else he might be lying about and covering up.
If i hadn't just lost my Mum and didn't have to go through all of her stuff, which I am doing at present as there's only me and its all taking such a toll, I would leave. Except I still have no money of my own and I just don't have the mental or emotional energy to deal with trying to start afresh at my age in poor health.
Thank you if you have managed to read all of this. I'm sorry its so long. Its the first time I've openly 'spoken' about any of this or, I suppose, acknowledged the extent of it to myself and it feels very overwhelming to me. If anyone else is in similar situation, may I ask how you cope day to day and what do you do to maintain your personal joy as I feel as if the life has been sucked out of me and I have nothing left.