# H blew it



## Homemaker_Numero_Uno (Jan 18, 2011)

I left him in August after coming to terms with his abuse.
He came home from his deployment and wanted to reconcile.
He's been spending loads of time with me and my kids and it seemed to be going okay but lately he has been back to his old ways. I can't live in a marriage when every time I bring up a legitimate feeling, he threatens to leave or divorce. 

The thing that really got me is simple.
I mentioned to him that I was going to do groceries yesterday as my kids are away right now with their bio dad. He said if I wanted, he could go with me. And we could go to his favorite pizza place in the town where the store is. Now I am on a diet but he got money from his folks for Christmas ($25, a nice amount, not too much, not too little). So I figured, what the heck it is a nice night out with the H doing something together for our family and household. We get the pizza and it goes okay. Not spectacular as the place has a tv set to junk tv, game shows and stuff, and he is a tv addict self-professed. Then we go to the grocery store and that's going okay too. He has a history of misbehavior in the past in the grocery store, embarassing me when I have asked him not to, by picking up sausages and making rude gestures and comments about them in regards to sex, and telling the cashier that he doesn't need bags, he already has one (me). I'm a good looking woman. Not conceited, but I'm attractive enough in my own right. Even if I were a dog, the comment is out of line and hurtful. 

So after inviting himself into my grocery shopping plans and turning it into a date, about 1/2 way through the store I notice that he is MARCHING gestapo style in back of me. I turn around fully and he has been standing abruptly at attention. I asked him to stop because it is embarassing and gives the impression to others that maybe I am one of those wives who forces her husband to do stuff and is overly controlling (I'm not, even when he was being abusive to me, and suggesting threesomes with my friends, and saying I wanted to do it with my older son's best friend, and allowing other people he knew who were his friends to be mean to me while I held my tongue so as not to get into a fight with his friends...I wasn't controlling. I just stuck to my work and parenting and my gym time and kept my own counsel...even when he accused me of having a boyfriend I bent over backwards to reassure him I wasn't...turns out he was lying about keeping in touch with his ex-gf, etc. I think he may have been physical with other women, too, but I have no proof. It means nothing to me that he says he didn't, because he also said he hadn't called his ex-gf and he had, and he said he hadn't seen her for 8 years when he saw her right after we'd started dating and he had kissed her "because she asked him to".) Anyway, I told him please don't march behind me and then come to attention like that. It's unpleasant. He kept doing it and three aisles later I caught him doing it again. I told him flat out he was being an ass and treated it like a joke. But mainly it was important for me to stand up for myself. He said sorry, he was just a big kid and that he was bored. That there was nothing for him to do (he was pushing the cart, but had taken it away from me when I had started pushing it after he'd gone to get something from the list a while earlier). 

So, he invited himself to go shopping with me, turned a household thing I was going to do on my own into a date, got me to go to his favorite pizza place even though I'm dieting (I was okay with that part), and then acted like an ass and blamed it on being bored!

I'm thinking that maybe the reason he offered to go in the evening is because if I went during the day I would have had to go by his work and who knows what he does there during the afternoon all by himself. I suppose I just answered my own question about why he was so eager to go with me in the evening rather than have me go in the afternoon as I'd planned. 

He had unexplained scratches on his back a week ago that had scabbed up and got all mad saying I didn't trust him 100%. Um no I don't that's because he lied to me for 4 years.

He always brings up divorce whenever I try to talk to him about any issue. He says I am yelling at him! Even when I am explaining to him that unexplained scratches on his back and having his mustache smell like ***** around the same time he would have got the scratches, and his treatment towards me at the store affects me in our marriage. He admitted to me that he lied for 4 years and felt guilty about it. Now he cannot understand the breach of trust and that only someone out of their mind would 100% trust a person with that kind of track record. One who brings up divorce and threatens to leave every time he is called to stand up for his behavior. (That's what he would do several years ago when I asked him about his ex-gf who he supposedly wasn't talking to or hadn't seen for 8 years...he would say he was going to leave, f*ck it I must not love him.)

Honestly, I am not sure why he married me. Probably because I was the only one to agree?

I'm glad I had moved out in August while he was deployed. I'm disappointed to find he hasn't changed. 

Oh, the other thing he told me sometimes he thinks about having a big accident while he's driving so that it won't look like suicide, so that I would have the insurance money. The only thing that keeps him from doing this he said is that he thinks the kids would be sad about it (they are my kids, they were okay with leaving him because they were somewhat aware of how he had treated me that wasn't okay and that I needed to leave...they switched schools, etc.) 

When I told him I couldn't live with someone who would do such a thing and didn't care about their life enough to seek treatment if feeling like he wanted to die, he said no he had only said that because he thinks I want his money. Well, if I wanted his money why would I have moved out and been in the process of getting ready to file for divorce once I was settled in and he was stateside? And why would I want to be married to someone who would say something to me like he is going to kill himself because he thinks I want the money? Either way, he is being an ass.

I don't want to be married to an ass.
I feel better when I am not involved with him.
I know he will get loads of attention from other women because nothing is so horrible as someone who has just got back from their deployment protecting our country (cushy office job in Kuwait where they handled him with kid gloves and special attention because his wife found out he was a cheating liar and he got depressed and lost loads of weight, etc.) and whose wife has left him. I am not angry, I am tired of dealing with his mental illness. Whatever it is, it is highly incompatible with marriage. Or friendship.

I went to IC for a year. No diagnosis, i.e. no mental illness, just a difficult life that I have been able to deal with. And a propensity for being taken advantage of. (I'm a Buddhist, I don't see any point in revenge, or loads of money, or status...which I thinnk some people equate with being a doormat or pushover.) I have a forgiving nature and am willing to put up with a lot rather than throw away the potential of a good relationship. I suspect my H is someone who cannot have a good relationship with himself. He is an energy sucking person and I cannot keep giving and giving to him while living in an environment where even grocery shopping turns into some kind of captive situation where I am ridiculed and abused and then told I have no sense of humor because a 48 year old man chose to ridicule me by playing gestapo soldier following the leader behind my back - and then blame it on boredom after inviting himself along to spend time with me.

When I went for my last appt and told my therapist I had moved out the therapist asked me 'What took you so long?'
I guess I am a person who needs to be good and sure about something before I end it. Marriage is a sacred commitment. I felt responsible for my husband. The issue for me is that I don't think he feels responsible for himself, and as long as I am around he can use me to blame for everything he does or doesn't do...and I am sure he will continue to use me as an excuse for many years to come. Maybe until he dies. But perhaps that's thinking too highly of myself. After all, I am only a person that he agreed to use a condom with because I did not want to be pregnant with his child at age 47 with our marriage the way it was and then he decided on his own to stick it in me without warning or any discussion about whether I was in agreement with his choice and when I told him to stop and take it out he said 'I thought you'd changed your mind' (and not wanted to use a condom and to risk pregnancy). Ummmmm, NO. (I did file a police report as my landlord who is a police officer told me this is rape, but the DA's office decided not to prosecute because he was active duty at the time, etc. whatever.) 

I
give.

He is going to collect his things that are here in my apartment this afternoon when he's done with his 'work' and go to his house. The plan was for us to move back there together after the kids' school year was done, but I cannot imagine living in such an isolated place with my kids and enrolling them back in the small school there and commuting to the college where I have my scholarhship if he is going to be saying he wants a divorce and he is finished and that he is going to kill himself every time he acts out and I call him on it. If he valued being trusted that much he should not have been untrustworthy and lied for that long a period of time (4 years) and acted as he did. I cannot help him and I am not a martyr or a saint. I kept myself occupied while he was deployed despite his issues by learning dance and volunteering and going to IC and taking care of his finances and his house. I did not and have never cheated on him, emotionally, physically or financially. It was not what I wanted. I wanted a marriage that was a relationship where two people had consideration and respect for each other. I can't give him respect any more. He wants a lot more than his actions and behavior warrant. He has gone over his credit limit in that respect. As soon as I told him I wanted him to move back to his house but that I had lined up a counselor for next week, he accused me right away of only wanting his money, said he was going to get an attorney. He was mad because before I left I consulted an attorney who has a good record of working with people who have mental illness problems (that would be my H I think) and who actually, for $175 gave me the good advice to wait it out a bit and to go back for more therapy myself, which I did. He also told me I was walking on eggshells, something I already knew. (H is apparently BPD or Borderline, I thinnk BPD because he does that 'splitting' thing.) 

Yikes! And to think I was pleased that H suggested going grocery shopping with me and willing to do it myself despite his past history of mistreatment of me when doing that activity together. This morning he went to the gym with me and sulked during his workouts. When he is depressed it shows a lot. He tries to make me feel guilty for something he did and I reacted to normally. I don't get that. It's like if I speak up for myself tactfully he takes it as rejection. I suspect he provoked this because he is too much of an ass to admit that he has better fish to fry (fish that scratch and smell like fish too!) and wanted to have an excuse to leave that didn't involve his sexual addictions. 

I KNOW not all men are like that. My therapist challenged me on it. I have known a lot of men like that. At one point I thought I'd made a mistake not marrying my H 16 years ago when he first wanted to. Now I can see that my younger, instinctual judgement was right and that I should have respected that and not questioned it. The people he was associating with were not nice, normal, or sane. I should have picked up on that. I did question him all along about the way I was treated, but I allowed myself to be bullied and cowed and fell for the smokescreen and allowed myself to become involved with defending myself when there was no need for me to do that. I forgive myself and I suppose that is the best I can do. My older son is coming for a visit tomorrow and my kids are returning from vaca with their dad and they are okay with whatever I decide to do. I have tried and that's the best I can do. He dragged his feet on IC and MC and when he got back from his deployment and I'd moved out the first thing he did was get together with some old woman who had dumped him twice and tried to get it on with her, he took a bottle of wine over to her house, she'd heard from someone else that his marriage was more or less over and called and left a message on his phone (so he says). She apparently told him she changed her mind, he had to work out his marriage first. At least, that was what he told me. Which cannot be believed but whatever, at that point everything was so messed up I did not care and he said well I had left him so whatever. He did not even try counseling or IC or wait for divorce papers, he just moved right on. So I know I am very much replaceable in his mind.

One of his ex's whom I respect very much but am not in contact with now but turned to for advice when I found out he'd cheated on me, said she was very sorry and suggested I get a feminist therapist. I can see now why she called it quits with him. He slept naked with her (he says no sex) the week before our first date together but never told me about it, the truth came out over a year later when it was too late. 

Thanks for listening.
I had hoped this would be a reconciliation.
In a way it is.
I have reconciled with my self-respect and sanity.

He also dropped his little bottle for his sample because he had a vasectomy (his reason for not getting one before and only using withdrawal with threats of abortion or abandonment was that being fertile made him honest!!!!) and when I told him it had fallen behind the sofa he said 'it doesn't matter, we don't need it'. And when I mentioned something about the kids and spring at the house (before he brought up divorce and I said he should go to his house and move out of my apartment) he said 'we won't make it that long'. So I really think he wants to be away from me but wants to frame it that it is my fault. I don't care at this point, I just want my peace and quiet back and to be free from this bs.


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