# Depression, PD, Abuse -- what do you look out for next time? (kind long)



## angelpixie (Mar 2, 2012)

*Depression, PD, Abuse -- Your take? (sorry, really long)*

OK, I've kind of given my backstory in another part of the forum. I'm not looking for an R with my STBXH, but I'm still trying to sort everything out. I don't want to be without a partner for the rest of my life, but I sure as heck don't want to go through this pain again, either.

I am still having a hard time sorting out things like red flags during dating, how important some things are vs. things you should just let go of, presence or absence of mental illness, etc. I'm hoping some of you can give me opinions. Here goes...

STBXH and I both had very dysfunctional childhoods. Both his parents drank, and his dad has a raging temper. Despite years of IC, I don't think STBXH has really brought up/dealt with everything from his past. He has had some mental issues that go back to childhood, which his parents didn't treat (thanks to a school psych that told them it wasn't a big deal. WRONG!). He wasn't close with anyone in his family except his older half-sister. He's extremely intelligent and very artistically talented, but didn't get very good grades nor did he have a lot of friends, and maybe only 1 close friend. He did have a girlfriend later in high school.

My mom very definitely had depression and a narcissistic personality revolving around her health problems (both undiagnosed, but she was a textbook example of both), my dad was an ACOA and had definite anger issues, though I was much closer to him than my mom. I was a classic parentified child. Both parents were very controlling, and my social development and individualization were very stunted. I am really just now learning how much this affected me. I have a younger brother who had some health problem as a kid. My dad had a MLC as I was graduating from HS and left. Mom never recovered -- became totally religiously obsessed (Catholic) and did everything to resist the D, then to try to get my dad to come back. She never recovered, and was even cussing him out literally on her deathbed in 2010, 26 years after the divorce. I continued in my caretaking role, totally not having a life and not thinking I'd ever have one. We were very isolated. Besides my dad, pretty much every other male relative I was close to abandoned me eventually, including my brother.

Eventually, I met STBXH. He is younger than me, but because of my controlled life, we didn't seem that far apart. He was attracted to me first, then really pursued me. I wanted nothing to do with men -- I thought of myself as damaged goods, I was totally afraid of being abandoned, and assumed that's what all men did. STBXH seemed so different. For the first time in my life, I felt loved for me -- not because I was a straight-A student, or got awards in school, or was the best at my job, or was a 'good girl.' In fact, it was the first time in my life that I really felt like I could make a mistake without being abandoned. We fell in love and he wanted to get married really soon, but I told him I wouldn't until he finished school. I didn't want to take any chances of hearing later "I was too young," especially if and when we had kids. I figured in those couple of years, we'd see if we were really compatible, and work on our FOO issues, too. 

We both went to counseling and got anti-depression meds for the first time in our lives. His parents didn't see the need, and neither did my mom, but we supported each other. Here's where I start to get confused now. There were things that bothered me, but I don't know if they should have been deal-breakers.

1.) He cried very easily. This was a surprise to me, because I hadn't seen that in any men in my family. But since I knew they all had anger issues, I assumed that he was just more comfortable expressing emotions. 

2.) He always had more female friends than male ones after we met, except for his best friend -- who was nothing like him. I never understood the 'attraction' - BF was a spoiled only child, a slob and a cad when it came to women. STBXH was clean-cut, polite, always had at least one job, and was not spoiled by his parents. I assumed his conscious choice of females friends was because of his immense problems with men in his family. 

3.) He always said he had low self-esteem, yet he knew he was smart, and could be very judgemental and contemptuous of 'lesser' people. 

4.) He had a tendency to say everything was fine, then blow up and tell me how he was nearly suicidal, and act like I should have known, when he actively tried to hide it, and also to blame it all on me, citing things that never happened.

(continued next post)


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## angelpixie (Mar 2, 2012)

*Re: Depression, PD, Abuse - your take?*

All of these grew in intensity after we got married. The friendships with females went from helping out someone going through depression, or who confided an assault to him, to relationships with a co-worker, and fellow students that were definitely loaded with sex talk. 
He was diagnosed with OCD in addition to depression. He eventually had a 'breakdown' of sorts, leaving his job. For some reason, that set everything back to zero for me as far as his EAs, verbal and emotional abuse, etc., were concerned. I totally took care of him and the household, making sure that nothing got in the way of him getting better. We lived on savings (which he ridiculed me for being adamant about having), and my crappy paycheck. It was a 2nd job for me to juggle everything, doing every little coupon, rebate, online money earning scheme, even selling plasma to get us by til he got SS disability. He also got in a program to go back to school. 

His judgemental behavior and arrogance became worse. It was hard to argue with the facts regarding his talents, he just became insufferable about them. Expressed mostly to me; everyone else thought he was a great guy.

He had another intense EA with a fellow student. When I found an email he'd accidentally left up on the screen saying that knowing that she loved him is what kept him going, I wanted the earth to open up and swallow me. He turned it around to make himself the victim for not being able to put boundaries up in friendships. I never, ever saw real empathy for what it must have been like, time and again, for me to see this behavior from him. It wasn't actually til I was on TAM that I realized how really bad his reactions were. I never ever considered asking for passwords. He flat out told me I wouldn't like what they emailed back and forth -- but he made that to be MY problem. Blamed my fear of abandonment, and again, my background. 

I can see that I was needy at times, and very insecure. I'm sure that made him unhappy. I don't honestly understand how I wouldn't have felt that way. My neediness and insecurity were totally related to his EA or his put-downs. I know now that if I'd felt better about myself, I would have left him years ago. But I didn't. I'd heard about my faults, which turned into psychopathologies, so many times, I turned into a shell. Instead of blooming around him, like I had years ago, my life became just like it was when I lived with my mom. I went from being a parentified child to a parentified spouse. He told me I was controlling, but he left everything to me. He couldn't be depended on for anything. He 'forgot' anything I asked him to do. He loved hanging out with the grad students. They live in this fantasy world of literature and poetry, and sex, and drama. Most of them are younger than STBXH, and still get help from their parents. They work crappy jobs, spend their money on pot and beer and expensive clothes, then complain about how poor they are. He's a father, a married man, a grown-up who had a great reputation. 

But like years ago, he came to me out of the blue, and said he discovered that I was the reason for his unhappiness, and that he wanted to separate. He admitted that he'd never talked about us to his IC. He said he never discussed us with his friends, but according to some draft emails I found on the computer, I don't think that's true. He played me back and forth about R, denied he was seeing anyone else, but was having another raging EA (at least). Eventually rejected me sexually though we were still living together, and he'd been talking about R. I moved out, and have been analyzing all of this. Over the last several months, he has changed history going all the way back first to our wedding, and now to our total relationship. He says he's had no feelings for me for years, though during the time he's speaking of, he still told me he loved me every day, told me out of the blue that I looked pretty, or beautiful, or sexy, and we were still intimate on a regular basis. There were problems, and I was very unhappy at how he acted toward me when he was under stress. But I didn't think it was anything we couldn't work out. I still don't, by the way. 

In the same conversation when he told me he hadn't been attracted to me for years, he said he still thought about how easy and comfortable it would be to live together again, but that it wouldn't be a good idea. That stunned me. To show how much I've changed in the last year -- then, I would have been so hopeful inside just to hear him say that. Now, I thought "You have got to be f'ing kidding me. Yeah, easy and comfortable for you, maybe, but not me!" He says he's totally moved on. He's dating again (the person from the EA). I have talked to his IC because STBXH has said he'd discontinue therapy after he's off my insurance. I wanted to tell IC he may not have much time left with STBXH. I told him my IC is treating me for recovery from abuse. He wanted to hear more, so I told him lots. He was surprised, to say the least. He is frustrated that STBXHs depression has not improved at all. I know it's because STBXH doesn't want to get to the bottom of anything, especially if he has to take any responsibility for anything. He just wants a med to take care of everything. He never admits to hurting anyone - not just me -- though he tells himself that he can't bear to hurt anyone. The IC told me he could hear I cared about STBXH, and told STBXH that, too. 

STBXH knows that it's not a good idea to make life-changing decisions, like D, during depression, but he is like a runaway train, at least where he and I are personally concerned. Example: He couldnt' wait to take off his ring so he could show everyone that something was 'different' in his life. 

So -- is this a personality disorder? is this a MLC, albeit at a relatively young age? is this runaway depression and anxiety? How does emotional abuse figure in to this? Was there ever really love there, or was he mirroring me? Why did he stay so many years, rather than breaking up with me during his many EAs? I can understand why I stayed with him more than why he stayed with me. He accuses me of doing and saying things he's actually done and said. 

I have gone 180/NC as much as I can due to our son, especially since he told me about not having feelings for years. I really felt like I'd been assaulted -- having PTSD reactions and everything. We'd been giving each other simple hugs when saying good-bye once in a while up til then, but I haven't been able to let him come within a foot of me since then. It's affected me badly. 

I am trying to learn what I can about STBXH and I so that I will know better for the future. FWIW, my IC says I'm the first client she's ever had that she thinks should go into a career in psychology. Maybe that's the silver lining in all this?


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