r/abusiverelationships

Throwaway account for obvious reasons. This is going to be long as hell, so apologies in advance.
I’m 53F. I recently separated from my husband of 24 years, H. We have two adult children together, B (daughter) and C (son), and I have an older son, A, from before I met H.
All initials are random and I’m changing or leaving out identifying details.
I’m not posting this so everyone can tell me I’m wonderful and my husband is an asshole. I have fucked up plenty. I enabled people. I stayed in situations I shouldn’t have stayed in. I protected people when I shouldn’t have. I used drugs in my younger years. I made decisions as a mother that I deeply regret.
So please don’t read this as me saying I did everything right.
I didn’t.
I think I need people who aren’t emotionally attached to any of us to tell me what they see.
H and I met online when I was living in America and he was Australian.
This was back when meeting someone online was still considered a little weird. I was at a friend’s house because I didn’t even have my own computer.
It became intense incredibly quickly.
Phone calls, romantic emails, constant communication. Looking back now, what people would probably call love-bombing, although I certainly didn’t know that word then.
I thought I’d found the love of my life.
We were engaged before we’d even spent proper time together in person.
When he finally came to America, we married basically immediately.
A, my little boy, was our best man.
And I made one thing very clear from the beginning: A and I were a package deal.
At first, H seemed completely accepting of that.
The first few months of our marriage were honestly amazing.
Then things went to absolute shit.
There were sexual things very early in our marriage that went completely against who I was and how I’d been raised. Before drugs were even part of the picture, H had me having sex with sex workers while he watched.
I grew up very religious. As a little girl I literally wanted to be a nun.
So going from that person to some of the things happening in my marriage really fucked with my head.
Then drugs came into the picture.
I had basically no serious drug history before H. I’d smoked half a joint as a teenager and drank socially when I was young. That was about it.
H had used drugs recreationally before we met.
I initially started using speed because I wanted to lose weight. It progressed from snorting it to smoking it and eventually into meth.
I’m not blaming H for every drug I put into my own body. I did that. I’m responsible for it.
At one point I was actually the person who introduced H to smoking it rather than snorting it, and he later blamed me for ruining his life because of that.
The whole thing became an absolute disaster.
There was domestic violence.
There were police.
There were arrests.
There was CPS.
There was cheating.
There were other women.
There was manipulation, chaos, drugs and eventually homelessness.
H cheated on me during that period, and there were times I felt like I didn’t even know what was real anymore.
And yes, I stayed.
I protected him.
I lied for him at times.
I tried to keep him out of trouble.
I was angry with him, terrified of him, dependent on him and in love with him all at the same fucking time.
Within roughly seven months of getting married, I attempted suicide because I was so overwhelmed by what my life had become.
My little boy was there through all of this.
That is the part that hurts me the most now.
A was a little kid while two adults were blowing up their lives around him.
There was physical violence between H and me that A was exposed to. There was an incident where H strangled/choked me. There were other incidents. Police became involved more than once.
Eventually CPS became involved too.
At one point A was removed from me and stayed with my mother while I was supposed to stay away from H.
I recently found the old paperwork from that time.
Police reports. CPS paperwork. Court documents. Negative drug tests from when I was trying to get clean. Domestic violence programs I attended. Parenting programs. Records of services for A.
Reading those documents in my 50s instead of remembering everything through the fog of my 20s/30s has been pretty fucking confronting.
The records basically reminded me that this wasn’t something I invented in my head 20 years later.
It happened.
But they also reminded me that I wasn’t some perfect innocent woman either.
I had to do programs.
I had to drug test.
I had to prove I could protect my kid.
I had people forcing me to look at myself.
And I did.
During the worst of it, H and I lost basically everything.
We were homeless at times. We stayed in cars and places we shouldn’t have been staying.
My family relationships were destroyed.
I lost the home/security I believed would eventually be part of my future and basically lost the support system I’d had before H.
There were also things I did during that period that I am still ashamed of.
At one point H went back to Australia for around six months while I stayed in America with A.
I was working in the beauty industry and desperately needed professional equipment I couldn’t afford. I had sex with someone in exchange for a pair of professional scissors so I could work.
Nobody forced me.
H wasn’t even in the country.
I did it.
But when I look back at who I had been before that marriage and where my life had ended up, it still makes me incredibly sad.
Eventually A and I moved to Australia to be with H.
I truly believed America had been the problem.
The drugs had been the problem.
The people around us had been the problem.
H promised me Australia would be different.
And in a lot of ways, it was.
We built a life.
We had B and C together.
We worked.
We laughed.
We had Christmases, birthdays, family jokes, holidays and genuinely happy periods.
I loved H for more than two decades.
I need to say that because I don’t want to do that thing where somebody gets divorced and suddenly claims every day of a 24-year marriage was hell.
It wasn’t.
There was real love there.
There were also things we never dealt with.
Basically we moved countries and put a giant fucking rug over America.
I went through programs and CPS and all of that because I had to.
To my knowledge, H never really did the therapeutic work around what happened.
We just started another life.
Changing countries turned out not to be the same thing as healing.
A carried that history too.
He grew up to have significant mental health issues and disabilities, including autism, PTSD and anxiety.
And I became extremely protective of him.
Too protective sometimes.
I can admit that now.
I rescued him constantly. I made excuses. I stepped in. I tried to fix things.
Sometimes being his mother turned into enabling him.
H increasingly believed I was destroying our family by doing that.
Sometimes he had a point.
A has not always behaved well.
He’s had breakdowns. He’s used way too much weed. He’s spiraled. He’s been aggressive in the past. He has made terrible decisions.
This is not a story about my perfect disabled son being bullied by everybody.
But there’s another important part.
H didn’t originally treat A like some random stepson.
He started the process of adopting him.
I was actually the one who eventually stopped that process because of things that had happened in America and threats H had made about having A taken away from me. I wasn’t comfortable giving him that legal power and then moving A to another country.
But H had absolutely presented himself as A’s father.
Years later, H met A’s biological father, G.
The four of us had dinner together: me, H, A and G.
G acknowledged that he hadn’t been the father A needed and acknowledged H’s role in A’s life. He basically told A that he had two dads.
H accepted that.
After dinner, H and I left A alone with G for several hours because we thought they deserved private time together as father and son.
I’m explaining this because H being a father figure to A wasn’t something I invented later.
Everybody at that table understood it.
But after we moved to Australia, I started noticing more emphasis from H’s family on A being the “stepson.”
Sometimes he was introduced as H’s stepson or as my son rather than H’s son.
There were comments over the years that made A and me feel like there was H’s “real” family and then there was A.
I don’t know whether everybody intended it that way.
But that is how it felt.
And I became even more protective.
There were years of conflict around A.
H believed in much more of a tough-love approach.
I believed A needed more understanding because of his autism and trauma.
Neither approach was perfect.
There were also serious incidents over the years involving A and other family members.
So by the time A was an adult, H was exhausted with him.
Eventually A became unstable/homeless and I brought him back to our property.
He lived in the granny flat behind our house for several years.
For about the last year he was paying $200 a week rent.
He was on disability and had support workers/NDIS support.
Eventually even I agreed he needed to move out.
We gave him 60 days.
His support worker asked for another 30 days so they could arrange somewhere appropriate.
We agreed to 90 days.
I even offered to put another $200 a week into the household myself because H was frustrated about the financial burden.
So A WAS leaving.
There was a plan.
Then one night everything blew the fuck up.
H decided he’d had enough.
He said he’d allowed the bullshit to go on too long, that A needed to get the fuck out and that he was tired of being the nice guy.
There were threats about putting A’s belongings out on the street.
C, our youngest son, sided with H.
And C became extremely aggressive.
C called me a nigger.
Yes.
My own son called his Black/biracial mother the N-word.
He also called me a cunt, threatened me, tried to hit me and told me to get out of my own home.
There have also been serious incidents between C and his sister B.
C has put his hands around B’s neck and strangled her.
He has also stabbed three of her tires.
So when I say I’m afraid of my own son, I’m not saying it because he once yelled at me.
I’m genuinely afraid of C.
And because of the history of violence in my marriage, I’m afraid of H too.
I’m not saying either one of them is going to attack me tomorrow.
I’m saying there is enough history that when my body tells me, “You are not safe here,” I have finally learned to fucking listen.
That night I contacted A’s disability support people.
I got A out.
They eventually got him into a share house.
And I separated from H.
Here’s another part I haven’t been able to get my head around.
While C was doing all of this to B and me, I felt like H was withdrawing affection and closeness from me because of A.
The more I helped A, the further my husband pulled away.
And again, I understand H’s frustration.
If your wife is constantly rescuing an adult child, that affects a marriage.
I get it.
But somewhere along the way it stopped feeling like:
“You need better boundaries with A.”
It started feeling like:
“You can keep being A’s mother, or you can have love and affection from your husband.”
That is what it felt like to me.
And I couldn’t do it anymore.
There’s another irony that I can’t ignore.
H’s parents, D and E, have another adult son, F.
F is in his 50s.
He lives in the granny flat behind D and E’s house.
As far as I know, F doesn’t have a disability.
And for the record, I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with that.
He’s their son.
Parents help their adult children all the time.
That’s exactly why the parallel bothers me.
D and E continuing to provide a home for their adult son is apparently just parenting.
But me continuing to help my disabled adult son became one of the central problems in my marriage.
Again: I know I enabled A.
I know he needed to leave.
I had ALREADY agreed he needed to leave.
But “Your adult son needs boundaries and a move-out plan” is very different to me from “Get him the fuck out now or his shit is going on the street.”
And after everything A had already lived through because of H and me when he was a child, I couldn’t do that to him.
I couldn’t save my marriage by abandoning my son.
There is also a whole separate history involving B.
B is an adult now.
A couple of years ago she disclosed that she had been sexually assaulted.
She specifically asked H not to tell his parents.
He told them anyway.
Then, according to B, he denied doing it multiple times.
That destroyed a huge amount of trust between them.
More recently, B felt H wasn’t protecting her during everything happening with C.
Eventually B and I moved out together.
H later basically told B that she had made her choice and that if she didn’t want him as a father, he would step away.
Their relationship has now broken down too.
So this isn’t just “wife leaves husband and takes daughter.”
Our entire family has fucking imploded.
And then, right in the middle of all of this, D—my mother-in-law—was diagnosed with aggressive stomach cancer.
This is where everything becomes even more emotionally fucked.
I love D.
I don’t mean “I used to love my mother-in-law.”
I still love her.
She has been my mother-in-law for 23 years. She’s family to me.
When we found out she had cancer, my instinct was to rally around her.
Even after H and I separated, I held him while he cried about his mom.
I slept beside him as a friend.
I told him I would be there for him.
Not because I wanted my marriage back.
I didn’t.
But I had spent 24 years loving this man, and he was terrified his mother was dying.
I could end my marriage and still have compassion for him.
I could also leave H and still love D.
Eventually, though, I felt H pushed me away.
And meanwhile the situation at home had become so volatile that I genuinely felt endangered.
So B and I left.
The timing is fucking awful.
I know that.
But I didn’t leave because D got cancer.
If anything, her cancer made leaving harder.
I left because I didn’t feel safe anymore.
Now here is where everything stands.
A has completely cut contact with me.
He carries enormous trauma, some of which absolutely came from things he lived through as a child because of decisions H and I made.
It breaks my heart.
But I respect his decision.
I cannot demand forgiveness from my child just because I’m finally able to understand some of what I did wrong.
C and I also have no relationship, but that one is my decision.
I love C.
He is my son.
I will probably love him until the day I die.
But I’m afraid of him.
So I have accepted that I have to love him from a distance.
B and I are rebuilding our lives.
My marriage is over.
I don’t want H back.
There are practical things H and I need to resolve fairly quickly because leaving them unresolved is affecting my ability to access support/funding for B and myself.
I’m trying to give H grace because his mother has cancer.
But my life doesn’t stop because his mother is sick either.
At some point he has to deal with the end of our marriage like an adult so both of us can move forward.
And then there’s the cheating and sexual side of the marriage, which I think I spent years minimizing because compared to everything else it almost seemed normal.
There was infidelity.
There were women.
There were sexual situations early in the marriage that went against everything I believed in.
There were times I participated in things because I wanted to keep H happy or because by then I barely knew who the hell I was anymore.
I’m still trying to work out what was me freely making choices, what was me desperate for approval, what was coercion, and what was just two deeply fucked-up people making fucked-up choices.
I don’t have neat answers.
That’s kind of the point of this post.
I don’t think H is a cartoon villain.
I don’t think I’m some innocent saint.
I don’t think A is an innocent angel.
I don’t think C woke up one morning and became an angry young man for absolutely no reason.
I think this family has about 25 years of untreated trauma, resentment, enabling, violence, secrets, loyalty, love, anger and people protecting the wrong people at the wrong times.
And I think eventually it all fucking exploded.
I also think H and I had a pattern where he would get harder and I would get softer with A.
Then because I got softer, H would get harder.
Then because H got harder, I would protect A even more.
And A was stuck in the middle of that for years.
Meanwhile B and C were growing up watching all of it and forming their own resentments.
Now everybody is hurt.
Everybody thinks somebody else caused it.
And I’m sitting here at 53 thinking, “What the actual fuck happened to my family?”
The thing I struggle with most is this:
I know I enabled A.
I know that damaged my marriage.
I know H had legitimate reasons to be frustrated with me.
But I also believe H used withdrawal, affection and our marriage itself as leverage over my relationship with my son.
I know A needed boundaries.
But I don’t believe throwing a disabled adult’s belongings onto the street when there was already a supported move-out plan was a boundary.
I know C has his own history and anger.
But I don’t believe anything I did justifies my son calling me a racial slur, threatening me or trying to hit me.
I know H’s mother being seriously ill is devastating.
But I don’t believe that means B and I were required to remain somewhere we didn’t feel safe.
And I know I fucked up as a mother when A was little.
Maybe that’s exactly why I couldn’t abandon him as an adult.
I had already chosen an adult man over my little boy too many times.
I wasn’t doing it again.
So Reddit, after this ridiculously long novel:
Am I actually seeing this clearly now, or am I still making excuses for myself?
Was leaving the right thing even with H’s mother seriously ill?
Was I wrong to continue helping A when it was clearly damaging my marriage?
And how do you tell the difference between supporting a disabled adult child and enabling them?
Because at 53, I’m basically rebuilding my entire life, my marriage is over, one son has walked away from me, I’ve walked away from the other for my own safety, my daughter is dealing with her own trauma, and somehow I still find myself wondering whether I should have just tried harder to hold everybody together.
I don’t think I could have.
But after spending most of my adult life trying to fix everybody else, apparently I don’t completely trust myself to know anymore.

I don't know how I feel like this I don't understand myself. He wouldn't stop calling and texting and turned up at my door in the middle of the night. He wouldn't leave until I called the police. He woke my housemates up and even texted one of them demanding I answer him. My housemates are very nice people and stayed with me until the police arrived and comforted me until the morning. Now that I've managed to get some sleep, I'm regretting it all. My housemates will never allow me to forgive him let alone speak to him again and I know I shouldn't but I want to. I don't understand myself. I keep boiling it down to 'he's never laid a hand on me' in my head but in reality he's done everything else. I know I shouldn't even speak to him again but I am scared to be without him and I am so lost and don't know what to do. I am just a young woman only 20. Please someone give me some advice.

I wish there was more education on it and its effects. I could never be friends with someone who abused someone else, everyone is against abuse until its someone they know, then suddenly its "nuanced."

Its not fucking nuanced. If a couple breaks up because of abuse, and you don't pick a side, you are picking the side of abuse.

You do not care about someone if you can stay tight with someone who did this to them.

Hey guys, I've tried to leave 7 times.

I've even been DIVORCED for two years ... yet I live there.

I got an apartment and the plan was to get it set for a month and then talk to her ... that's tomorrow.

Can you talk to these people? Every time I talk to her she talks me out of it ... how do I know that's not a "me problem" and not a "her problem"?

Her dad just entered hospice, and I know that's true (and hurts), but I have to do this anyway, I have the apartment.

Advice on leaving? What worked? What didn't? No contact necessary??

I know strangulation is seen as deadly. it happened twice when I made him mad but I pushed him away when I didn’t want to hug him and he raged on accident. I just can’t help to wrap my mind if it was really abused? if there wasn’t a full red marks on my neck. is it abuse? was I in a domestic violence relationship for the longest?

I’ve officially been out for 1 month, sometimes I feel free and happy that I don’t have to deal with being called horrible names, accusations out of no where, screaming, broken things, or a drunk angry man anytime we shared an experience or outing together. Other times I miss him so much. We have had contact on and off but I feel like the love was so intense that I might not find that somewhere else. I loved him so much. I miss our home and the good times. It genuinely makes me sad not to have him. How do I stop the urge from wanting to go back? We were together for 3 years.
Also thank you all for chiming in on times I was in a crisis and posted here your words have always helped me along the way.

I've been dating a man for just over a year. He was getting ready to move back in with his brother, several hours away, and we had one final weekend together. I found out he had been messaging over women the whole time we'd been together, so I woke him up and tried to kick him out of my house. He refused to leave. He ranted and yelled and scared me. We went to bed - I slept alone on the couch. He woke me up and after I repeatedly said NO and I don't want to have sex, he forced himself upon me. In later arguments that day, he threatened to kill me, kill me in front of my family, would make me pay for calling him out about waking him up in the middle of the night and looking through his phone. At one point he grabbed a candle and chased after me threatening to hit me in the head. I played complicit so he wouldn't hurt me. And once I confirmed he arrived at his brother's, I've stopped contacting him. I blocked his number. I got a SA exam. I spoke with the police who said I have sufficient evidence. So why in the eff am I so hesitant to press charges??? Why do I still love and care for him? I feel so torn. And like I am numb to the abuse. I didn't even cry when I told my brother tonight. I'm just looking for support from others who have been through this. I don't know what to do. He's broke, trying to find work, clearly has mental health issues. But he also scared the shit out of me. He carries a loaded weapon on him at all times. He no longer has access to my home. I have security cameras. I am staying elsewhere for now. My family wants me to press charges but I don't know how I would get through court with seeing him in that way or know that I could be torn apart by an opposing lawyer. I'm scared and confused.

Please. Read this and give me your honest advice. I really feel lost and overwhelmed.

I have been married for few years now. My wife is 2 months away from giving birth to our second daughter. I have 2 more children with 2 other wemon. Yea I know...

My wife has a green card from venazuala.

Today I found out she hit my disabled daughter in the face causing her to fall and have a bruise on her face.

My wife does seem to have anger issues. She is pregnant and I do consider this a little....

She will not admit to me she hit my disabled daughter. My daughter is a non verbal teenager with downs...

She just keeps lying about it all.

I feel so lost. This is my 3rd time trying to make a family and all 3 families I've tried. Both the 2 other moms are charged with Felonies for child abuse and the other threatening to kill me.

I have 100% custody of all my kids. I work 50 hours a week. I have Noone. I need advice. I'm about to go to my attorneys office tomorrow. I can't stand thinking of losing my children. I do everything for them with the help of my wife.

I just can't do this on my own and I'm begging for help. I don't have family. I'm adopted and my adopted family are crazy people.

I just wish I had help. Please

Tonight, he went to start putting away dinner and cleaning up. I went in to help and threw away some leftovers. He put dishes in the sink. I opened the dishwasher to start loading it and he goes “you got this from here? I feel like I’m in the way” and I say “sure” but in a way like “I guess so” or like I was annoyed. Thinking back, I was a bit disappointed that he can’t just take the initiative to do it himself or tell me that he’s got it, but at this point I have accepted that I have to do everything anyway. If I had walked away he would have left all the dishes in the sink. He always does. And then he will claim that he was going to do it later. Just like last night when he “would take care of” the trash later. And didn’t. He sat on his phone instead. I had to take it to the curb this morning after he texted me that he’s sorry.

Anyway, I apologized immediately but it’s never enough. He says imagine how it makes him feel. And I get it, I’d feel the same. I apologized again and he walked away. So I finished loading and starting the dishwasher. He smoked weed in the sun room. I got our kid going in the shower. He sat in the living room and stared off into space. I got our kid ready for bed, cold medicine and brushed teeth. He sat in the living room and stared off into space some more.

After bed time was done i attempted to apologize again. I was told that I have been treating him really awful lately and I think he deserves it and he really doesn’t deserve it. He didn’t feel like continuing the conversation so I said ok and he went into his room and I’m in mine now. I wasn’t given any room to talk and I know better by now to try, I know where it will get me.

He doesn’t deserve the treatment??? I didn’t deserve to be screamed at and called names and told that I’m useless and I do nothing while his family was in the other room. I didn’t deserve the bruises on my body or being screamed at with our kid in the middle of us while you tried to snatch my phone out of my hand, putting bruises on my arm and hands. Three times. I didn’t deserve to file a DV report that night. Yet here I am. He’s lucky I’m still here caring for our home, our kid, cooking, cleaning, and doing everything else I’ve always done. I show no affection because I don’t have any to give. I’ve made this clear. I’m the idiot for still doing things like I always have. I just want things to be kept as normal as possible for our kid. And here I am….

What am I still doing here?????

I've been with my husband(call him A) for 11 years, married for 3 of them. It took me so long to see that he was controlling me. Prior to our relationship, I was truly one of the guys. As much as A doesn't believe me, I didn't sleep with my friends. A lot of my immediate family died and they became my family. They never tried touching me or taking advantage. I was protected like a little sister. I didn't get along with girls bc i never shared any interests with them. I was 26F when I met A(26M), we moved in together fairly quickly because I didn't have anywhere to live when my mother acquired a new, 30 years younger, boy toy. He couldn't leave me alone so, obviously, I had to be the one to leave bc I was the problem.

I was head over heals for A, absolutely crazy in love with him! I had never loved someone so much. I knew that "us" was different when we would argue and the thought of us breaking up would never cross my mind as a possible solution. We had a kid. When the child started school, his mom offered me a job at the plant she was working at as a janitor during COVID. I realized how much I missed working and earning my own money. I was working 2nd shift and A worked 1st. Without one speck of proof, I was constantly being accused of cheating on him with his brother(that I absolutely despise) and with his brother in law that is 25 years older than me. Figured it was bc I was no longer stuck and trapped at home 100% of the time that he could track. I can never understand why a man would be with me if he thinks that I cannot possibly be around the other sex without throwing my legs open and begging for it. Why be with me if you honestly believe that I'm "such a whore"? If he was technological enough, he would have Spyware on my phone but he settled for going through it constantly, never finding anything. Like he paid attention to tire tracks in the dirt around our house. (Live on a dead end street so people turn around on it a lot after realizing they went the wrong way) Feel the hood of my car when he came home to see if I went anywhere without letting him know first. Telling him that him wanting to know where I am at all times is controlling and a form of abuse pisses him off more than anything bc he tries framing it as care and needing to know how/where to contact me in case of emergencies. He thought it was weird that I did not want to be notified of his every move as he made it. How could I just trust someone until they showed me otherwise? I was already friendless because of my friend group consisting of males and he managed to keep me away. I ended up getting a better job and then it wasn't even a couple of weeks before he started working there too but in a different department and on a different shift. I ended up becoming best friends with a coworker. I thought she was awesome. Her boyfriend hating her hanging out with me and mine hated me hanging with her. We still continued our friendship. The boyfriends would manage to get us mad at each other for a little while and then we would make up. I ended up not contacting her again this last time bc i hated making things hard for her. Her bf is physically abusive, mine isn't. I didn't want her getting hurt anymore bc of me. A absolutely loves it this way. He hated that he had no reason to be mad at me for hanging out with her but would start nonstop fights anytime I hung out with her until I learn the lesson that the fights stop when the behaviors he doesn't like stop. I had finally had enough and started saving money to get my own place about 3 years ago. I never cheated but I knew that I was going to leave him. No one has ever touched me or been given the slightest inkling that they could. He found a text that I sent a cute guy that I would vent to telling him that I would like to explore our friendship further after I got away from A and divorced. That is now A's 1000% justification that I am a lying, cheating whore and always have been for these 11 years. He will say that I've slept with the guy and kissed him and when I ask where he read any of that in the messages, he says I deleted them. Why would I delete those and not the other ones? But when he found the messages and I let him know that I was miserable, he threatened suicide. He caused me to lose my last couple of points at my job because he refused to let me sleep so I wouldn't wake up for work in time and be late. He found my money and took it. (Husband and wife, right?) He crossed the line when he brought our kid to me and told them that their parents won't be together bc of mom. (Never happened but why not traumatize them?) The 2nd line was crossed when he brought up something that has killed any self confidence in myself ever since it happened. I had to have emergency surgery to put the artery in my stomach back together. I have a thick, dark scar that runs from the bottom of my ribs to my pelvic area. I was overweight when it happened and after the surgery, I couldn't eat solids for 2 weeks so I drastically dropped weight and was stuck in a hospital bed. So you can guess how that looks. All of that happened before we got together. I can't believe that he had me convinced that it didn't bother him. He told me that the guy I texted would puke and be absolutely disgusted with me the second he saw me with my shirt off for the first time. So that's obviously how A sees it too. I can't ever forget that. It's always in the back of my mind. But I'm trapped here. I have no family. No support. No one that cares. Other than the fake care from my husband. He could kill me and get away with it because no one would ever report me missing. I don't expect anyone to read all of this. I just really needed to type it out, I guess. I wish that A would have never constantly accused me of being unfaithful. I always told him that if he ever knew just a small bit of how much I loved him then he would have never dared to accuse me. He is the one that has said he was fishing while his location showed him at a house miles away from where he said he was. He is the one that had friends lie to me about what he was doing. Saying he was at the hotel room while A told me he was with them at the bar all night. (After he broke up with me post childbirth while he was working out of state bc i didnt answer the phone when I called. Im epileptic and I was having a grand Mal seizure at the time bashing my face in) but he didnt dump me so he could hook up with this girl at the bar guilt free. If anything, im the only one that has shown love in this relationship. He doesn't even care enough to change one small behavior because he knows I cant stand it(put his clothes in the laundry basket and not on the floor) But I have had to change so many things about myself to make him happy. The old me would have never put up with this. I was a badass. Idk whats happened to me

Posting this at the risk that people will make triggering comments. Please try and have some empathy. I went no contact with him a couple
Months ago for the first time. It’s had been very hard. At first I really thought I was okay and that I was doing better. After a couple months the thoughts have started to eat away at me, and I realize that the brainwashing he did during the relationship is taking a toll on me. He used to beat the crap out of me because he said my past experiences with other people I was involved with before him disgusted him. He told me I’m worthless now and that nobody will ever want someone with a past like mine. And that was also his only justification and reason to mentally and physically hurt me, and cheat on me, lie to me, etc. it kills me inside. I feel like I can’t live with my past anymore. I’m afraid I’ll never move on or find anyone who will accept me. I’ve always been alone and I have no family, and now I’m afraid I’ll never have a family because of my past. I am in major therapy and even started meds but nothing seems to make it go away. I don’t know what to do anymore. I just need someone to tell me it’s gonna be okay and that things will somehow work out for me one day.

I DO NOT EXPECT RESOLUTION. Please read below.

I (31F) only realized two days ago since I left my 12 year relationship 2 weeks ago that it was emotionally abusive. He is 34M. The EA escalated and changed to more serious in May this year and has been daily. Our previous years it's been sporadic and nothing I really thought was an recurring issue.

At this point the person I loved, trusted and knew is gone. While I have an amazing support group with my own friends and mutual along with my parents, I am okay if they all turned on me if he made it so. My peace is my priority. There is no emotional tie or love for him on my end.

That being said, I have no clue what separating our properties is going to be like. I am lucky to make enough money to move out, pay rent, and half our mortgage. However, I don't want him knowing I am moving out because he could delay selling our properties knowing I am tied up financially and will eventually be forced to reconcile. My parents are also worried once he realizes I am serious about separation he will want to be shady with our finances. I also think our friends are not liking who he is becoming or how treated me. I feel he will retaliate against me.

So for I have told all our friends to solely support and comfort him and not worry about me. I am hoping he can then not say I turned his friends against him later or anything negative. I also said I was open to repairing our marriage in couple's therapy while I live at my parents. This is a lie. I hate this man. I want nothing to do with him. However, I am hoping some olive branch will keep his kindness on display. My parents told me there's nothing predictable or trustworthy about him so I should just get a lawyer to sort our stuff.

I am hoping after the first couples session at which point I will say I am drained and if he wants to work on our marriage he can take initiative and book the next session next month and feel free to see other women and process and make a decision. I require empathy and death of his ego to move forward. (I know he would never last more than two weeks without sex, and he cannot be alone with his thoughts for more than a half a day so no way he will work on marriage). I will then wait till November to tell him I want our properties sold it will start the process whether good or bad and can go from there to determine lawyer, etc.

I plan on remaining neutral and quiet in the therapy session. I won't respond to his pleas of innocence, how he is under a lot of stress and loves me so deeply and is ashamed, etc. My parents are picking me up immediately after therapy so he has no chance to be alone with me.

This is horrific of me to say, especially in this community but I honestly hope he meets someone else so he will be more receptive to cutting ties with me and getting on with his life.

What are your thoughts ladies? Anyone somewhat peacefully navigated this?

At first, he seemed like the perfect partner......polite, kind, and caring. Slowly, he made me depend on him for everything. He cut me off from my friends, controlled my finances, and manipulated me with threats of self‑harm whenever I tried to leave.

He became obsessive..... standing outside my home and office, accusing me of cheating, even showing jealousy when I spoke to my parents. If I didn’t answer his calls, he would force his way into my home, lock me inside, and demand apologies.

The situation escalated into public scenes dragging me into the street, shouting, throwing stones at strangers who tried to help. When the police were called, he turned the blame on me, falsely accusing me of taking money. Thankfully, I had proof to clear my name.

Even after promising to leave me alone, he still calls and text me as if nothing had happened. I live alone, and I am terrified he will show up again. He even quit his job months ago just to monitor me.

I’m sharing this because I don’t know what to do next. Blocking him feels dangerous, but continuing like this is unbearable. I’m scared for my safety.

What should I do? Has anyone faced something similar, and how did you protect yourself?