today I am....

[saddest]

A bully, so delusional that I believe my own lies. Charm all the health professionals into only seeing my side. ( he won't talk to them).

There are people who "know" me who know the truth about me, but I'm not alowed to know who they are or what they're saying.

I keep him a prisoner and stalk him. I stop him from working. Not because he has no work, but because I ....well I don't know what I do.

I will turn the children against him as I have a pattern of doing that.

He listens to recordings of our arguments.

He hates me being on facebook, and hates all the " ladies" on here.

AAAAAGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! FUCKING NUTTER! WHY WON'T HE GET HELP?

why wont you get help?

what are you doing with him?

And I love all conflict, and I drink two litres of wine every day.

Have you just drunk it all now??

People know about me too apparently. I was told who they were (his friends). I jokingly said to one of them "I heard what you were sauing about me at X's funeral you twat. And here's me thinking you were nice"

I was told that he had been laying into me all night and the people there simply said "No, I can't see it. She has always seemed like a nice reasonable girl to me. Maybe you just need to be nicer to her?"

My family often say things about me behind me behind my back.

Why does he not realise I will confront these people who are lying about me?

If he won't get help maybe it is time to leave? Or at the very least just let it go over your head. Don't pay any attention to it. From experience responding just makes it worse.

I have had help, loads of it, professional, on here, mates, womens aid etc, but I just can't make that leap in my head to switch off to him.

I still have a stupid, stupid fantasy that he will see the damage that he has done and back down and see that from last summer he has turned into a monster. Get whatever help and mend our family.

It all sounds unbearable. Get yourself out of there before he does you permanent damage. Your dc's don't need to see this playing out. Wishing you strength.

He comes here everyday from whichever b&b or hotel he's been in the night before and just sits in his studio.

I guess he has nothing to do and nowhere to go, but that is still preferable to him than giving an inch and accepting that he is at least in part responsible for this breakdown.

put some distance between you both and you WILL make that leap in your head!!

by distance i mean delete email/numbers the lot...he doesnt pysically come round,he removes his stuff.....totally

if you have dc...then third party handovers...

He is in the middle of a breakdown? You shouldn't be listening to him.

Can you not keep your distance? Are you safe?

Saddest - hasnt he left? Why do you keep allowing him back to undermine and abuse you?

I genuinely believe that he is in the middle of a breakdown.

I have read the NPD thread, and whilst some of it is relevant, I don't understand how someone can change into an N overnight? Which is what seems to have happened.

He has lost a massive proportion of his work. He lives for his work and he's very good at it. The company who have dumped him, did the same to me five years ago. They are very harsh.

He has been a complete bastard to me this last seven months.

There are issues with my family that are on another thread.

Before this he was kind, and funny and would come in to chat through the day, although there have been ongoing arguments about this particular company. He was always brill with the kids.

He is now packing up all his computers and taking the pictures off the walls.

Bollocks.

Is there any help you can get from HIS family? Some kind of intervention or something?

again, for you, hoping things get better soon.

Things might turn around, but not without him leaving and you two getting some real distance and perspective.

Good luck, saddest. Things can't continue as they are.

On another tack, this is the first 2 lines of an amazing poem:
"A bully, so delusional that I believe my own lies.
Charm all the health professionals into only seeing my side."
Or the first one line. Creative flow. Sometimes the only solace, I found ... anyway.

Yes, he clearly is having a breakdown. It's horribly sad - for him, for you, for his friends & family, for you, again, and for you.

saddest, do you think you can make it all better? Like, if you let him sleep on the sofa or if you sleep in the studio or if you just pretend it's all okay ... it will go away?

That's like trying to fix a heart attack with a cup of tea.

Mind you, some of my great-aunts did exactly that (tried to fix heart attacks with tea). It's astonishing what women will try to restore domestic normality. I'm unclear about how your relationship was before things took this turn, Saddest. I've read what you wrote on other threads - and remain as doubtful as some others, regarding just what's happened. I'm not sure things were OK before this, neither am I completely sure which of you has had the breakdown. I've had two of them. Several of my friends had them, too. They take different forms: mine were very boring, whereas some people I know stripped naked in the middle of the A3 at rush hour, bought a Caribbean island and various other spectacular demonstrations. The more usual breakdown, though, is dull and tiring.

Breakdowns happen as a consequence of "living a lie" at some level (or several). You know how you get through a bad patch by acting up? It works for a while. My job was a selling type of job, it depended to a large extent on my ability to 'switch myself on' regardless of how I felt or whether I loathed the client I needed to scmooze. I translated that skill into my home life, and the constant acting told on me in the end. My friend, a SAHM, also had a boring breakdown as a result of acting up to her role while her relationships at home were empty.

The most annoying thing about breaking down is that you don't realise what's happening until someone you respect (in my case, the company's doctor not my GP) tells you. Until then, it just feels like all you have to do is "act" more and everything will go back to normal - which clearly wasn't normal anyway, iyswim. Is there any chance of your getting away - that is, physically getting some space - with someone you trust? Ideally, a week's holiday with your best friend?

You are in a crisis. It's totally acceptable to call out a favour.

I don't know if I am having a breakdown. The doctor, the nurse practitioner and the therapist seemed to think I was fine, if not under a lot of stress.

I am waiting for a referral for more counselling, because I am completely heartbroken. confused and exhausted.

He has started to pack up his studio stuff.

We were friends for four years before we got together.

The romance happened quite quickly when it did happen, september...I left my first h in November. That marriage had been over for some time and it was easy to walk away. He found someone new quite quickly and they are now married.

The divorce was reasonably straightforward. He had a thing for Porn and had run up a lot of debts I knew nothing about.

I had a massive fall out with my mother and sisters in the february. They had lists of things that were wrong with me....quite literally had written stuff down, that I am a sadist, that I have memory problems etc etc.

I walked out and never went back.

It was after this fallout that my ex h started to become difficult, access had not been an issue up to this point, and then it all turned really nasty.

I was taken to hearing after hearing. We had caffcas meetings, social services inspections etc etc. It cost 20 000 and went on for years

H an I got engaged on valentines day, 2003.

We didn't live together properly until December when we moved here.

We lived with the constant stress of the family court stuff for about three years.One day ex h said, in court, I've had anough of this....and just went, not seen or heard from him since.

I always had an instinct that my family were behind all the legal stuff. My little sister had just qualified as a barrister. I now know that they were behind it. I have an email from my "mother" to h written last year that confirms it.

My last conversation with her was "are you still in touch with B?....Yes"

In 04 I had dd. At the same time, I lost all my singing work with the company I mentioned earlier. They still booked me for very low paid elearning work, and I had to endure listening to my replacement singing in the background. I snapped, and told them to eff off.
This made it very difficult for H as he still worked for them.

H had become reluctant to marry at this point too.

I was diagnosed a s having rheumatoid arthritis six weeks after dd was born.

I realised that most of his income came from them and we muddled through. They treated him very badly always. One of the cruellest things was asking him to listen to the demo cd's of the people who would be taking his work. This was last summer/ autumn.

So it has never been easy for us. There has always been stuff going on around us.

Yes I feel threatened when he wants to bring other girl singers in. All I asked for was reassurance from him, but he didn't seem to get what I meant by that.

Yes I was gutted not to go to Abbey Rd, I took the kids for a fab weekend instead.

Yes I am pissed off that he refuses to record any of my songs. Yesterday he said it was because "they are shit".

I don't think there is any more.

I found my valentine card in the bin in the studio...unwritten.

I have been crying since about 4am.

This is shit.

Saddest, this is like a slow pull of a large plaster, it's going to hurt, it will be excrutiation, but tbh, he can't stay in the studio with that malevolant black cloud hanging around your space. Let him go.

Give yourself some time and space away from him and in a while you will begin to feel the weight of his oppression start to lift.

This is not going to be easy, but him leaving has to happen, you will see that in time. Soon.

Try not to think about how things were, or how they might have been. That's another person, another lifetime.

Think about the now, how it all is now.

You are strong, you are not having a breakdown, your marriage is. You are only feeling the fallout. It will pass.

Keep the faith in yourself, keep strong for you and for your DC. You will pull through.