I used to enjoy sex before I got married and at the time I met my husband I was at age 31 or so and celibate for years because I thought my previous mental breakdown was caused by my obsessive need for a physical relationships. I was finally believing in God again which made me begin to heal after 12 years of living death. I only had 3 years open before I married him.
The first therapist wanted me to get out but wouldn't say so and I was too naive to understand his left handed advice until years later.
He varied between being in another world and being cunning but I wanted kids and he was the only one with a stable job, etc at the time out of the 150 guys in our church singles group for people over 30 y.o. My best friend and several church leaders knew him 20 years and vouched for his character. We dated two years. His sons got married 2 and 4 months after us. He said later he wanted to be married for their weddings.
He was not affectionate or loving, just logical, as an engineer, which I tend to be so it was not problem except I thought when we got married he'd show affection and love and protection. I was stupid because my drives were for a family, the only goal I had my entire life. I was so messed up I knew I couldn't work or earn enough to support myself. I have never been on my own and am real old now.
The honeymoon was a shock because he insisted on certain things and I never faced his lack of flexibility before. It was not pleasant. It never was and gradually it became so painful it was like a knife being inserted in me. I told him I could be a blow up doll. I didn't fit the mold he created in his former 24 year marriage. I have no idea what went on with that but she had a bad father and got pregnant to get away and had another and stuck it out until they were almost out of college.
After telling him so many times it felt like a knife with sex and going to 5 therapists, he quit all of them when he knew I would take the heat, we quit sex.finally and he quit hurting me with sex and I moved out of the bedroom because I snored and he gets what he wants. He looked at porno and masterbates every day - kept a calendar of it. He has rubbers in the car. He used ointment for yeast infections which numbed me I find all this out after the fact. I got terribly depressed immediately into the marriage and couldn't have a child and didn't want to anymore but he has ground me into being too scared to leave the house much less get a divorce. My whole life has passed me by and now I'm losing what mind I have.
I knew I would get so depressed after a divorce it would be worse if I isolated myself completely and had no money. I can't stand up for myself to get a divorce without losing everything emotionally especially. He is good at making me want to kill myself. Lately it's gotten so bad after 30+ years I am slowly getting nerve to move and looking for help to get out without sacrificing my mental acuity because I am about to drop through the bottom into the abyss. I lost my short term memory. I do things to try to hurt myself that could kill me. I think about wanting to be dead all the time now. I slept for 2 1/2 days then stayed up for 3 days.
I found some information that can help me with that if I can pursue it but I am bad at that.
The jobs I had were demeaning and I can't promote myself. With ADD the more pressure there is the worse I get so people seem justified to cut me to shreds. I can only do good work alone and that takes 3 times longer than others even tho I have always been told how smart, talented, etc. I am. I have achieved a lot when he's not around. Everyone else comes first and I have been a loser from age 4.
In graduate school I broke down completely with clinical depression, paranoia, couldn't talk, etc that lasted for 12 years and with a higher education I still can't support myself. I can't take criticism because I believe I am always wrong and take the blame and perpetrators cans spot a victim. I can't hurt others or be mad or vindictive. I stayed in school because I couldn't face rejection trying to get work.
Today I found out he's been stealing my pain pills and other meds and has stolen from me for years, hides stuff who knows where and or maybe uses them. I found them in his drawer this morning after my neighbor told me to get all the financial info I could if I wanted to divorce. He has a lot of money not in my name and in cash and well hidden. He has destroyed my investments and made the financial records impossible to follow, I don't have time or energy to get it together and wouldn't know how. I am totally scared if he gets suspicious I am planning he will steal the rug from under me, which he has done a good job so far.
He knows I was in his drawer because I was too upset to be careful where things were. So the boom will lower some more. The essential documents will disappear. My therapist told me just to wait until he died. He's isn't dying.
I don't believe lawyers have sympathy or understand gaslighting or narcissists. My female trauma grief therapist didn't help much. I have ADD and can't talk or explain or find the words. I deliberately blank out the pain because to retain or review by writing down all the myriad of little wounds he inflicts is torture so I am not able to prove a thing except a few hate him who see through him and now don't care for me because I won't do what they said - to get away.
People say they can't believe it, that he's very good at acting like a saint. He's always at church so i don't want to be there. I can't convince a pastor he's satan in sheep's clothing. We had to leave the last church 1 1/2 yrs ago and the new one doesn't know me well enough since I'm so depressed and don't go half the time, nor could anyone fathom the depth of his cunning.
I should have put this on the gaslighting thread. If people here are unaware of it how can a healthy person understand it? Obviously I was brought up in it and only figured it out the last couple of years. I had to quit contact with 3 sisters last year due to their abuse but I feel sorry they had to go through it and reap the results, or anyone who does.
This is an example. For months he locked my car doors in the garage so I couldn't open the door to get something out or get in every day until I did it to his car without fail. Then he quit so than I quit, but now he began again, so I began rolling down all windows in winter when I got home and he asked why and I told him. That has worked for almost a week so far.
He sometimes gave back meds he denied taking when I told him they cost $75. They suddenly appear but he denies everything and I question everything even in front of others. It doesn't stop him, just makes him more insidious. He is getting me to not trust myself but I still blame him because my mind is so suddenly and consistently worse with frequent huge changes, now that he knows I want out.
It doesn't help for him to know what it's like. I tried treating him how he treats me but it makes me a worse person to others as well. He holds over me the fact if I leave it is considered abandonment. I need a lawyer who understands narcissists.
