I know you had housing a while ago, while your son was with you. I know living with him became unworkable. As I recall, you could not keep that apartment, once your son was no longer living with you. That, I suspect, put you in crisis, but I don't know for sure. So you had absolutely no alternative but to get taken in by a man, or else wander the streets.
That, I believe, is how you saw your situation . . . . a case of: "I had no choice, but to do what I did." No choice, no choice, no control. "Rose just thinks there are easy alternatives, when there aren't." Maybe that's all true, and I just have no clue about the reality you faced.
Still, I invite you to challenge your own thinking . . . not to make yourself feel bad about what you've done in the past . . . but to come up with an exit strategy, so you don't stay perpetually trapped. You are in a trap, and you feel miserable in it. This is how you've been living for years and years, going all the way back to when you got married. You have endured brutal physical abuse and soul-killing emotional abuse at the hands of one man, or another, because you "had no choice." If only there had been an option to escape the miserable way these men treated you, you would have taken it - right?
That narrative doesn't hold up to honest scrutiny. Even while you still had your last apartment, you were wanting to be in this man's house with him. You were driving an hour, leaving your own apt behind, week after week, to stay with this guy. He was often rejecting of you, but you kept pursuing him, even showing up at his worksite and being told repeatedly to back off. You believed that, if you kept showing up in his life, he would let you in. You were right. Now and then, he would let you in. That was all the encouragement you needed. His life is very lonely because he is a mentally disturbed man who cannot relate normally to women. You have no competition. He's "all yours," as he said, because who else would want him? So, if you kept showing up, from time to time you would catch him in a mood where he wanted some company. He wants a woman - from time to time. And that's all. He's been real clear about that. He doesn't keep changing his mind, leading you to be all confused. He's actually been real consistent. He's not confused, and you're not confused. (I was in this kind of a relationship.) He wants a woman - now and then. In between those times: Get lost! He's made himself pretty plain.
This guy doesn't particularly like women. He made up his mind a long time ago that he resents the demands that a relationship would put on him. It's not anything deficient in you personally. He does not want a woman in his life on an on-going basis. Not you. Not any woman. This is not about you being "too needy" or "too controlling." How you are doesn't matter. A woman being in his home, and in his life day-to-day, just turns his stomach. He does not want to be anyone's "boyfriend" - because there's something deeply wrong with him . . . that no army of therapists could begin to address. He and you are not "a couple having issues" that need to be worked out and possibly could be worked out. That's a complete fantasy you create to try and normalize what's going on. You create this false equivalence where he has problems, but so do you, and you both need to work on things . . . kind of like how things are for a lot of couples in troubled relationships. That is not what this is. Now and then you see the stark reality because you're not stupid . . . . . . but then some time passes, and maybe you have a few peaceful hours together, and you go back into your groove of thinking how you love this guy and he could love you, if he would just let himself.
No he can't. There 's a story behind his he got as he is. Probably a sad story. He probably deserves to be pitied. Badly damaged people usually do. You are a compassionate, accepting person. I've worked in correctional facilities, where I came to feel compassion for men whose souls were badly deformed. Typically, they didn't get that way all on their own. Some of them were salvageable. Many simply could not be rehabilitated. They were exactly where they belonged. In a controlled environment, they could be as human as anyone else and capable of quite decent, even heart-warming, behavior. But, deep inside, something was permanently broken. This man you are staying with is in that category of being badly damaged. He may not engage in criminal behavior, but he can't interact normally for very long. He knows himself that he needs the "controlled environment" of living alone. You being there disturbs that, and he resents you doing that. Sure, he likes occasional sex, and he "doesn't want to grow old alone." He can pay lip service to wanting what normal men normally want. But he will never be normal. It's too late. You are trying to draw water from an empty well.
You came to PC with initial threads about how hurt you were that your husband left. Never mind that he was what you describe as psychopathic. You hadn't wanted the divorce, and you were mourning the loss of your "marriage." You were regretting that your son didn't have an involved "father," even though your ex was a rotten influence on your son. (Soon as he was big and strong enough, your son became physically abusive toward you, imitating his father's behavior.) You were not doing your son any favor by staying in a marriage to your ex. That was an empty excuse. Just like, now, helping your son financially is an excuse for why you are broke. Stop using your son as an excuse for why you can't change your circumstances. You have not been putting your son's welfare or your welfare first. (Your son begged you to stay away from the guy you're with.) Everyone's welfare comes secondary to your need to stay with a man, no matter how rotten you are treated by him. You really believed that the alternative - being unattached and alone - would be worse. That's a syndrome experienced by many abused women. The main barrier to leaving is what's in the mind, not what isn't in the wallet.
Maybe now you really are sick of this guy, enough to leave. Your track record predicts that you will stay until he throws you out. Nothing will be your choice. It doesn't have to be that way.
You do fit the criteria for being accepted into a shelter for abused women. You are being abused. Maybe you need to tailor your story a bit to be what they need to hear. Do it. Take the determination you voiced about not being willing to go to a shelter, and put that determination into something constructive. Try being determined to not live with abusive men. It's hard to break what has become a habitual pattern. There are resources available that you don't even know about. They won't be offered to you, until you show a commitment to getting out of the trap you're in. There will be some dues to pay, but they are not more exacting than the price you pay now to stay where you're at. I know the resources available in my own country. I don't know about where you live. But you don't live in Guatemala.
Even if you could just admit that you have mixed feelings about leaving this man, that would be a step in the direction of clearer thinking.
ShelterSafe – Women's Shelters Canada
You are an intelligent, decent woman. Life holds other options for you, if you determine to find another solution.