Staying In Abuse Has Destroyed Me

I have been seeking treatment after treatment trying to kill this depression because it wants to kill me. Over two decades of psych wards, prescription after prescription and all the side effects and slowly loved ones pull away, why isn’t she better.

When I was 18 it started, the bloody lip, black eye, broken rib, broken nose, torn ligaments. It was my fault though, I always said. See, it wasn’t like the instances of domestic violence that I am reading about.

What I read is a spouse is so jealous of his wife, he will abuse her but he does it to control her. Cuts her contact with the outside world all because he wants to keep her to himself. His cruel words that she is nothing is so she will believe it and only want him. His threats that if she leaves, he will hurt her, said because he is actually afraid of her leaving him. He has lost control and is actually so insecure that he inflicts his power to keep her.

I always blamed myself because he abused me because he couldn’t leave. He would have loved me to leave him. He didn’t love me, and would say it, he would tell everyone that would listen to him. Many of those were my friends, can you imagine how hard it was for my friends to confront me to tell me that he confided in someone seeking advise. He was trapped, he didn’t love me but was afraid if he left, I would kill myself. This was not a secret to me, but now everyone knew.

I remember my sister telling me to listen to the song “Girlfriend”, because in public he treated me like I was a leech stuck onto him. In the beginning my family was concerned when I showed up with black eyes or bruises and actually stood up for me, even his own mother sided with me. Until they saw that he was actually doing everything he could to get away from me, and I would hang on his leg to please not leave me. I lowered myself and believed I was nothing. I couldn’t have him leave, because in his instance, he was right, who would love someone like me.

Most of the time my two kids and I lived with my mother or alone because he would disappear for months at a time. I would live for the times he would return, why did he always return. For a week, and no longer, and then he was gone again. The rumors hit me left and right about the girls he was seeing. Some of these girls were known to me and some had even came up to me to tell me that he tried to seduce them.

Decades went by, I fought for him. I prayed, let him love me. Believe me I tried to move on, I had my boyfriends and met one in particular that truly loved me, Brian. Brian did everything in his power to win my heart, and he did. We became a couple and my family loved him. He actually loved spending time with me. He was affectionate, he catered to me.

Then I would leave him when my husband would cry out to me not to leave him. I was his wife and we are a family. He said he would get us a house, which he did and I would go back to a husband that treated me so well. Finally he appreciated me and we would be happy…for maybe a month. Then the drinking started, the abuse, the hate, the disappearing and returning bragging about the women he was with.

So I would go back to Brian who was always waiting. Time after time it would happen, my husband would come back…pleading to me. Swearing to change. At this time it was the only time I ever felt love from my husband and I would leave Brian again and again only to return to the same abuse.

Brian finally packed everything he owned and left the state because he said he didn’t know how to not believe me when I said this time I will stay.

It was only a week back with my ex that the abuse started again and the hate and the disappearing. Brian, was right when he left. I attempted to call him but his family would not going to allow me to play him anymore and I was never able to locate him.

In 1994, I saw a flicker of light, of hope. The physical abuse stopped, after waking up on the floor to my son screaming for his dad to leave me alone, and the neighbors calling the police…he was arrested and served time. He was made to go to anger management and it did stop forever. The kids were out of high school, we moved into a house with his mother who had Cancer. Her intentions were to leave us with a house since she was dying.

I had made him stop drinking, took care of his teeth, he almost died from his teeth rotting so bad. I spoon fed him soup after his Cancer surgery. We started having excursions, of course that I set up. I thought my dreams were coming true, he was different now, we were in a home we could raise our grandchildren in.

I was in denial though, tell me why my touch gave him the heebie jeebies and he would cringe, saying he just doesn’t do well with affection. Tell me why he would tell me I was sitting too close to him. I didn’t want to see it let alone be told by everyone, but they were telling me.

The excursions and dating lasted maybe after a month and then it stopped saying he just didn’t like going to the movies, didn’t feel like doing anything I would ask him to do. We would take a family trip to camp and he never wanted to go. I tried to drag him to my family gatherings and he would make excuses not to go. For Christmas we were heading to Vegas to spend it with my sister and of course he didn’t go. Can’t miss work he said. Of course when I called him it was always short, he would say you know I am not a phone person.

He got back into surfing which did save his life, he never went back to drinking. But he would leave at 5 a.m. and sometimes not get back until 5 p.m.

There was never another incident of physical abuse but because he was the type that used the F word so much, I didn’t realize that I was sinking even lower over the way he talked or screamed at me. He shamed my body, my hair, everything about my looks. But unlike other abusers who do it to lower their lovers self esteem because they felt insecure, my husband really found me discusting. While other abusing men would control their wives because they didn’t want them to leave them, mine was abusing me because he actually wanted me to leave.

I met him at 17 and I am 53 and we still live under the same roof and are still legally married. He has a girlfriend of six years and remember how he doesn’t like going places, or the movies or isn’t a phone person? I have found selfies and his girlfriend is all over him as he takes the picture. The biggest smile you ever seen. Turns out he loves going to concerts, traveling, camping and talking on the phone forever.

See we are not a couple, he says the wedding certificate is only a piece of paper. He is in love, I get to see what he is like when he loves someone.

What has all this done to me? Well, I have been unable to work because I have a boss that is cruel, I am unable to function when anyone is cruel or obnoxious to me. Turns out I have a condition of PTSD, to be more specific, Battered Women Syndrome. I am in and out of the hospital more than ever, taking psych meds more than ever.

I need support at this time as I don’t see any worth in myself, none. I am here because I feel my son and granddaughter will end up with the largest void. My daughter will be devastated but she will be fine. She is unable to love me and I see she is actually happier without me because she has a father now. My husband did end up being a good father to her and a bond has been formed with my daughter, her father and the girlfriend.

All of a sudden he loves my family and wants to be part of every function which I find really odd. My family loves him the same and when I hear beach, I know my family is with him and his girlfriend.

It has been six years of this and everybody is tired of me being mad because now he wants to bring the girl to the house and like they say, it is his house and you guys are not a couple.

All this is getting me sicker and I don’t know how to get better so I can go back to work and move out of this house. I don’t know how to find stability with my emotions. I am stuck and I know all this is my own doing, it is nobodys fault but my own. I am dying and don’t know how to fix it.