Update from my post a year ago and a thank you to all who commented
Hi all,
I posted here about a 9 months ago about how my then husband was an active alcoholic refusing to go to therapy individually or together. I have an update, and I want to thank everyone who posted since their advice is what made me reach out to my MIL for help.
I ended up texting my MIL about his drinking/financial abuse/woman hating behavior in the fall. She was very sympathetic and explained that she knew all about his violent behavior and substance abuse, and that she would do her best to “intervention” him to get him to therapy. They met for dinner, and he agreed to go to therapy with her if she paid for it. After he agreed, I was so happy he was getting help so I was going all out to make his life easier and be supportive. Cut to the first (and what would be his only) therapy session with her. His mom reached out to let me know how well it went and stated he said he was feeling the pressure of being a husband and father and “carrying on his family legacy”. I sympathized with her and told her how much I appreciated her putting herself in a vulnerable position for him to get help. When my husband came home, he was already drunk. He had drank multiple drinks on the drive home and he refused to speak to me for an hour. After our son went to bed, he offered to talk about what happened and I was so glad he was willing to open up. Well, it was a trap - he spent the next 5 hours of the night berating me and his mother for “collaborating on his downfall behind his back”. He said that since we both weren’t getting enough financially from him, he was going to make it even worse and switch to hard liquor and cut down to part time at work so he could offer us even less. I think it’s important to add that I was financially supporting our family even though I make 1/4 of his income, and his mother regularly sent him money to pay HIS bills. He screamed at me that I was a waste of space and a gold digger, and once he was through all of his drinks, he proceeded to pass out on the couch. I spent the better part of the night crying in our bathroom about what a mistake I had made by marrying someone who didn’t think I had any value and putting my son (my husband is his stepdad) in such a shitty household. The next day I let his mother know what he had said, she stated “people process things differently and that once his individual therapy was over we should consider marriage counseling”.
The rest of the next two months were spent with him telling her he couldn’t make it to the therapy sessions she set up because of work, and him telling me he wasn’t going because his mom was too busy with work. She followed up a few times, and each time was the same update: “things have gotten worse, I no longer feel safe and if it continues I’ll need to leave”. She told me if I ever felt in immediate danger I should go and take my son to my parents. I did this once, and my husband didn’t speak to me the whole weekend aside from sending me an Andrew Tate video titled “How A Woman Breaks A Man”.
Cut to the holidays - my husband was spending a lot of time out of the house doing various hobbies with his friend who shares the same woman hating outlook. In that time, my son (7) was using his computer to game. I would regularly go on the computer to pay bills, and one day I went on to find that a Reddit tab was open. It was open to NSFW communities and my husband had been looking at the most disgusting posts of women, looking up only fans accounts of people we knew, and his Instagram had saved posts of his best friends sisters and wives where they were in bikinis. Considering we hadn’t been having sex, it was pretty obvious to me what they were saved for. We had split bank accounts, so I don’t know how much he spent on explicit content, but he regularly could not pay bills including his half of the rent. It was at that point that I snapped and told my family I was leaving him. My parents and I created a plan, and one day when he was at work I packed all that I could have mine and my son’s and moved into my parents house. I left behind all the furniture I had bought, anything that would make his home unlivable, and texted him that I was done.
Now today - we are divorced and I have paid off nearly all of the debt I accumulated while supporting our household. I’ve bought myself my own car (the first I’ve ever bought on my own), have secured an apartment for just my son and I, and walked away from the marriage that made me lose myself completely. The spark is back in my eyes, I recognize myself again and I have been able to quit my SSRIs completely.
Onto the thank you - every single one of you that commented that it would not get better, thank you. You brought a sense of reality to me when I was feeling so ostracized from everyone outside of my household, and you played a part in saving my son and I’s lives.
🖤🖤