I should not have any guilt for my feelings and what I believe to be true. I have been abused to the point where I always assume I need to feel shame or guilt for believing what I feel is true. I have been conditioned to believe I have always been in the wrong. I feel like she knows my weaknesses and how to weaponize that against me. Right now I believe my weaknesses are fears of failure losing everything etc. I believe nothing will stop her until my fears become realities because it is empowering to her. I expect to be love bombed although I have been trained to believe I am not worthy so I have a hard time believing that. On one hand I am so terrible and have offered nothing and on the other hand I deserve so much more than her. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s like she’s pushing buttons to see my reaction. At this point I plan to have no contact with her but also show her my fear of money and losing everything is no longer going to affect me. I am making the choice right now to say I don’t care about the money. I don’t care about my business or anything material. I care about my kids and my happiness. The happiness that has been stolen from me from years of psychological abuse. It is freeing to know that material things can be taken from me But my happiness and the way I want to feel and act cannot be affected unless I allow her to play her games. I worry about my children and how she will affect them growing up but I cannot control these things. I can just be there for my kids and do the best that I can as a father and a man. I am no longer afraid of what she is going to do. I understand the wave of emotions that I will go through will be hard. But in order to reach my happiness and be the best person I can be I must endure whatever comes my way and get out of this marriage. I will do my absolute best to stay strong and be positive. After all things are looking up compared to what I have been dealing with minus the money situation. And about the money. Who cares. I won’t be on the streets. I may lose some things that I like but not the necessities. Wants vs needs is something I need to reevaluate. What is money for anyways. I don’t need to show off I have never really been that type. I am capable of great things if I put my mind to it. Freeing myself of her will only allow for growth and even greater things now that I know so much more about life. From this day April 27th at 5:32am I AM NO LONGER AFRAID OF WHAT SHE CAN DO TO ME. I AM A MAN WHO IS WILLING TO DO WHATEVER IT TAKES TO MAKE SURE MYSELF AND MY KIDS ARE OK.
u/Guilty-Tough7026
It started when I was weak. Just moved back to my hometown after being 4 hours away for 10 years. I had 2 children from a previous relationship and decided to move back to an area where I thought I would have more support and help with the kids. The oldest twos mom was very uninvolved and allowed me to move the kids with me or else I would never have come back to my hometown. After moving home I began the search for a woman. Desperately trying anything. I have never viewed myself as good looking confident or charming. I did what most people do and tried dating apps. I met two women. One a successful comes from a good family type but was a little wild. The other a broken down woman with a dysfunctional family but seemed ready to settle down. So of course I picked the one I thought needed help since I always seem to try to play the role of fixer. Looking back now the red flags were practically smacking me in the face. Childhood trauma, abusive relationships, child at 16, father of child deceased, brother died young, substance and alcohol abuse, drunk driving, so many things. How did I not see how any of this would become an issue down the road. The answer to that question was love bombing. This girl was obsessed with me. I absolutely loved it. attention like I had never had before and the sex was on demand. It felt like I was the king and she would do whatever it took to please me. Looking back it made me feel confident and like a “real man”. There were challenges though. Step children involved. Parenting styles differed so much as I had a good childhood where hers was terrible. We could never seem to get on the same page and I should have took this as a warning. It started with little jabs. Then sly comments. If you loved me you would help more with the laundry. If you loved me you would help more with the kids. Things like that. It was always I should do something because that would show that I love her. Which she knew I loved her. And this weird alternative reality she seems to live in made it seem like I did nothing which I could never understand. When the disagreements started this is where it took a turn. Countless nights in the garage until 3am just listening to her and her complaints. To the point I remember that I would look down and try to line up the soles of my shoes to distract from the constant barrage of criticism. Just staring down because I had tested what happens if I try to defend myself. That’s not an option. I am supposed to take the criticism bow down and change. Although now I realize that change will NEVER be enough to please her. Trying to solve a problem with her is like slamming your hand in the door repeatedly. No matter what I say it always revolves back to the fact that the reason I feel the way I do is because she treats me that way because I’m not doing what I’m supposed to do. That’s fucking confusing. So I have feelings but those feelings aren’t valid because I’m causing the feelings myself? Wait no I’m not doing something which in turn is making her make me feel unhappy. It’s a mess. And it doesn’t make any sense. I would think we both would be able to speak our feelings and both improve together instead of here you do this then I’ll do that. This is the part that really wore me down. I could never understand how I was supposed to do all these things that she wanted with nothing in return. Although she would gaslight me and say well yeah I am trying too I am doing things. She wasn’t. Nothing changed from her end. Just cold critical miserable and resentful. Which brings me to my next point. Resentment. With any relationship romantic or friendship people make mistakes. I will not say I did not make mistakes. I did not do as much as I could of around the house and help with the kids. Or is that her coming out again? I don’t know. I think I did pretty well but I feel like I was a worthless piece of shit from the moment she started to transition from love bombing to devaluation. The resentment from her was intense. She hates I have parents, a business, friends, all of that. It’s almost like she wished she was the only thing I had. And not in like the she is the most important woman in my life thing either. It was like fuck my parents, fuck my friends and fuck this business that takes up my time. If it was up to her we would have packed everything up and moved far away. Now I see that would have gave her sooooooo much power. Everything I had would have been gone and all I would have had was her. I would have been right where she wanted me. But before we could move we got pregnant…. Right after she conveniently had her sister remove a birth control implant. My stupid ass should have known better. But nope pregnant. The shame and embarrassment I felt. Same thing happened with my oldest kids mom. Pregnant less than a year into the relationship. Man was I scared. And I was a dick I’m not going to lie. But I didn’t want to have another kid right then. I barely knew this girl. But now I see it as a trap. She strung me along just long enough to get another chance at motherhood. Of course her first go around she was a kid herself and it was pretty rough. Me being the person I am I chalked it up to fate and said well I guess we are having a baby. This brought my daughter. Probably one of the best things that could have happened. I had my first kids young as well so eventually I figured hey this is another shot for me as well. This is really when things changed. Adding another child into the mix ramped up all of the work that needed to be done. I would work 40+
Hours weekly and also try to be as helpful as I could around the house. Was I perfect? Absolutely not and im willing to take accountability for that. Did I feed the baby in the middle of the night EVERY time? No. Did I NEVER feed the baby in the middle of the night? Also no. I figured we were doing the best we could in this adventure together. Boy was I wrong. She was doing everything in her eyes. Here comes the man home from work to sit on his ass and do nothing. Never lifted a finger never fed the baby nothing. Amazingly the night our little girl climbed up onto something for the first time who was there? Me. Where was mom? Partying. What did I do that night. Oh yeah loaded a baby and 3 kids into the car to go get her at 2am. But remember I do nothing and I am worthless in her eyes. Moving forward things just stayed in that place. Constant criticism followed by sex to keep me interested. At that point I think the sex was the only reason I liked her. Ironically in the end I could care less if I had sex with her. It was a chore not fun and definitely not intimate. Things were like a broken record. I would try to do the things she wanted. I didn’t do them just right so that meant I did nothing at all. Back out to the garage for another 2 hours of lecturing. Next day do my best to work on her complaints. It would work that day and maybe a couple more but the pinpoint accuracy I was supposed to have in her eyes was insane. Washed and sanitized bottles everyday all week. Had a long day at work one day and didn’t get to it. Well that erases everything I had done so back to the garage on how I never help with the bottles. All this time my complaints go unheard because I was too busy listening to hers. I did not like the way she parented. Her drive in life is minimal. She loved conflict especially with her family. She would interject herself into shit just for the fun of it it seemed. She seemed lazy to me. Here I am working until I can barely keep going just to provide but she can’t handle household chores? Now I did the stay at home thing and I understand. I think that after doing it it’s not laziness it’s just monotonous. But you can’t blame every one else for the fact that you don’t want to do a monotonous task filled daily work. Daycare for a newborn/toddler. Readily available in our area. Simple solution. But no that is not an option. It takes her power away. If she isn’t home with the baby she will not have time to plot every move she wants to make which includes making everyone feel like shit because we “don’t do enough”. So you would think I would get the hint like hey so this is not getting any better. I knew that unfortunately.
There's more but that's just a start. We are currently starting the process of getting a divorce.