Is this the end?

[PaperRhino]

I’ve been in a relationship for 4.5 years after a 25-year abusive marriage. When all things are ok with no massive outside pressure it’s great - we enjoy the gym, holidays, nights out and the sex is good. He’s usually quite calm and polite, gets on ok with most of my friends though he doesn’t seem to have many friendships himself, being a bit shy and a workaholic.

However he has always been prone to jealousy, misinterpreting my platonic friendships as affairs, and accusing me of infidelity based on past interactions. He broods on these issues for months before bringing them up in unrelated arguments.

I’ve had a really hard few years since we met and when the going gets tough he backs off. During my recent traumatic divorce, redundancy, and moving house, he was emotionally distant and unsupportive leaving me to fall back on my friends for emotional support and practical help with things like sorting out/downsizing a huge family home while he mostly went to the gym or sat in his laptop. He lived with me for two years but had to be asked to contribute to bills, insisting it was “helping me out” despite him earning twice as much as me, and him actually using the utilities and eating the groceries he paid towards etc (I never charged “rent” as owned the house). Now I’ve moved to a much smaller place there’s no room for him to be here full time and work from home (DS lives with me at the moment and DD will move back for a while after university) and he’s been really off about that (despite saying he didn’t want to buy a house with me when my divorce was going through and I asked him to consider it.).

Recently, he’s been moody and sulky, accusing me of not being interested anymore because I’ve been focused on survival mode and not has time to go to dinner, to the gym etc. (I also recently started a really demanding new job the month u moved house!) Yesterday, he had a meltdown after a court hearing with his ex and ended up falsely accusing me of having an affair with an old neighbour based on him spying on me chatting to him in the street two years ago. This isn’t the first time he’s brooded on a past incident and blown it out of proportion only to save it and bringing it up months later, usually as a counter attack to deflect from something unrelated like me saying I was disappointed he went to the gym instead of helping me move house.

I feel like he prioritises his own needs (diet, gym, appearance) and that the relationship may have lasted because it was convenient for him. I’m in my 50s with a good support network but feel like I’ll be single forever.

When he’s being nice it’s all great but I can’t cope with these unpredictable accusations which always seem to be thrown at me when I’m stressed or down.

Is there any point trying to fix this, or should I just accept it’s over?

Why is it that whenever a post says ‘when it’s good , it’s really good’ - the ‘but’ is an entire list of how he’s actually an abusive, jealous, controlling, cocklodging cunt throwing you a few crumbs to keep you reeled in?

You've give from one abuser to the next because your boundaries are worn down and you’re ignoring more red flags than a Moscow May Day parade

Surely being single forever is better than being with an abusive twat?

It’s over. You have basically gone from
one abusive marriage into another abusive relationship. He’s controlling and he wants to keep you in a cage of his own paranoid making. His moodiness and sulking behaviour are both examples of emotional abuse. Controlling behaviour is also abusive behaviour. You’ve been convenient for him. He targeted you deliberately because you were in a low place yourself and he took full advantage of that. He really did think that you as a single parent would indeed put up with any old shit.

The only acceptable level
of abuse in a relationship is none.

Your boundaries here, already eroded by previous abuse, have been further got at by this individual. The nice bit of him too is the nice part of the nice/nasty cycle of abuse which is a continuous one.

Be on your own and enroll yourself into the Freedom Programme, this can be done in person (the preferred option) or online. Do not date at all further until your boundaries are a lot higher than current low level.
Your children will also thank you. They likely wonder what you’re doing with such an abusive man with all this baggage in the first place, they’ve seen how he treats you.

Thank you for your comments - I do sort of know this but he’s got a very good way with him of making me think he’s laid back and considerate- he’s very good at cooking for us and washing up for example, or picking up groceries from the shop - but then I remember he’s also obsessed with nutrition and a bit obsessive about tidy kitchens so it’s motivated by how he likes things as much as altruism He also paid for me to go on holiday last year when I was temporarily unemployed but only after I’d said repeatedly that I wasn’t going on holiday as I was having to make my redundancy last until I found a job and he’d have had nobody else to go with.

I don’t want to think this though - I guess I don’t want to think I only attract selfish men who don’t think very much of me and want to believe them when they say they love me, and that they are nice guys, even if their actions sometimes belie the fact.

I do doubt whether he would have picked a fight and then stonewalled me for 2 days if I’d had my nice comfortable 4 bedroom house for him to stay in and wasn’t currently sat in a flat where there are wardrobes that need constructing and boxes to be unpacked 🙄

"he's got a very good way with him of making me think he's laid back and considerate - he's very good at cooking for us and washing up for example, or picking up groceries from the shop"

Those examples are the minimum standard of what would normally be expected of an adult in a relationship with another adult.

When you do the washing-up, is he sitting there thinking 'Oh, how considerate of her'? No he is not.

OP: cooking and washing up are not signs of a good man-they are simply signs of a functioning adult. Women really need to stop attaching morality or values to basic domestic tasks that we all have to perform to some extent to literally stay alive. Raise your bar and stop expecting and accepting so little.

Just because he does a few basics doesn’t mean he’s a good guy.
The accusing you of being unfaithful with a neighbour is unhinged.
You have a been through enough previously. You should not have to live on eggshells like this.
The picking fights and silent treatments.
He is abusing you and the rest of the time is just plain selfish.
Put yourself first and throw him back. He has no friends of his own for a reason. He doesn’t know how to be one.

I think you've answered your question. Imagine a friend describing her relationship the way you've described yours, and think what your advice would be. Or just think about the future you and the sort of life you want to be living.

You jumped straight into another shit relationship before you were even divorced. He's emotionally abusive and you need to dump him.

Don't get into another relationship without doing some work on yourself. You might find the Freedom Programme helpful.

You've moved from one abuser to another. Men like him can detect and target vulnerable women. Dump him, have some counselling, work on your own strength and boundaries and recognising red flags. Be single for awhile/ it's so much better than putting with these useless selfish abusive men.

I do know all this and I guess I posted on here because I wanted to hear it from others - and not just my friends who I sometimes assume automatically take my side because they like me. I sometimes second guess myself and take his character assessment of me seriously.

But I didn’t jump straight from one shit relationship to another. I had two good years alone after my husband and I split and I enjoyed them and only started online dating because I was talked into it by friends who did it too, and over a year I casually dated loads of men (mostly grim tbf but we had a ball comparing war stories!)

I had been happily single almost 3 years when I met him and at first he was love bombing me and I kept him at arms length but i guess when my ex kicked off the divorce in earnest, hiring the most aggressive legal firm he could find, and Covid hit ruining my social and work life, I just weakened and sought refuge in the relationship. I was scared of my ex and wanted to feel protected, but in reality I was nothing of the sort. Both my kids were living away from home at the time, I had a work from home job I hated, I was rattling round a 4 bedroom house by myself, and it was easy to let him move in and I liked it, but to be honest it was a huge mistake in retrospect as once he was comfortable enough to take me for granted the selfish/jealous side came out.

I just need to get through the next few days without messaging or calling him. I would prefer to end the relationship in person and in a reasonable amicable manner, but I’m not sure that’s realistic…