I don't know what to do with my marriage

I did wake up this morning and was relieved he wasn't here.

He began to take over my life again, and I realize that's exactly what he did. He took over my life, and I, myself, pretty much disappeared. I want myself back. I want my strength back. I still feel very weakened by all I've gone through lately. I still do not feel 100% upright and well.

Him saying you didn’t try hard enough boils down to “I didn’t get what I wanted”. If he wanted you to try harder maybe he should have offered you a solid gold prize instead of a gold plated turd.

LOL! Love this @RoxanneToto! Hehehehee.

Soooooo true!

He just HAD to find a way to blame me for this not working out. He just had to. What a slime.

I just re-read my "Sobriety List" - the list I created detailing ALL abusive incidents, broken promises, lies, love bombing, controlling behaviors, and deceptions since we met! WOW. That truly was very SOBERING to read again. I hadn't read this list in months. I am SO glad I have this list to remind me of who he TRULY is.

He was so focused yesterday on having been the model husband over the last 2 months that I almost was about to believe it. ALMOST, but in my gut, I know better. It's all an act of manipulation, all over again. And his blame towards me - yet again? More abuse! He has not learned anything.

I cannot believe he tried to argue that because he made a pact with God, that it means he will be the model husband from now on. That was his "inroad" with me - that he had spoken to God and to Jesus.

Wow - and here I've been SO vulnerable, that I was about to make another huge mistake by getting back together with him for real.

Thank Goodness for this forum, and for all the peeps supporting me through this. I could have ruined the remainder of my life.

And thank goodness that I had the wherewithal to break it off with him Friday night. I do not know what came over me - something did - and it was overpowering. It was rather out of the blue, too. Something snapped in me, it was my gut reaction to him, and I did it without much thought. I paused for one brief second before sending him the break up text saying I want a divorce.

He was pushing things HARD over the last 2 months, in hindsight. I am just catching my breath now and am processing the last 2 months with him.

He had practically moved himself back into my apartment in the last week. He continuously told me every single day how he cannot live without me, and never wants to again. EVERY single day, he shoved his feelings at me - without asking me how I feel. PUSHY.... very pushy, especially when I told him I had doubts and needed to take things very slowly.

I was very vulnerable after being bullied in my last job - and then ending up being hospitalized. I think he took advantage and used my vulnerability as a way IN.

WHY I said we should put our rings back on is beyond me - ???? I don't know why I thought that was necessary. It wasn't. I think I wanted monogamy while we were working on our relationship, and that's why.

I am still in recovery from my hospitalization - I am not 100% well yet. My health comes 1st, and he never expressed that to me. He made it seem like he/us/our relationship comes 1st, and that's the way it was becoming... he was constantly around, constantly texting and constantly in my face and life, with NO space unless I insisted.

IF I asked for space from him, he SULKED and expressed how much he missed me, when we had just spent FOUR days together. He was SO clingy over the last 2 months, and gave me NO room to breathe!

GOOD riddance. I am shaking him off and it feels good. I know I will continue processing this for a while to come. I am just coming up for air.

I am proud of myself though, I must say. THIS TiME, I followed my GUT, whereas when we 1st met, I did not and I ignored my gut. So this shows progress!

Thanks @Bill3!

He never even asked me how I felt after our therapy session! I had divulged in therapy that I was very angry with him, and that I didn't trust him, in addition to many details regarding his abuse towards me. He didn't even ask me about it during the week. He didn't address anything I had said in therapy, as though it never even happened. I realize now how much my feelings do not matter to him. All he cares about are his own feelings and himself. He didn't even love me. He loves me for what I provide. I know this even more so now than ever. He was systematically brainwashing me over the last 2 months by telling me repeatedly every single day how he cannot live without me. It was all about HIM, what HE wants and what HE NEEDS. I began to ignore or shove down my own feelings. My eating disorder returned too. And I knew then that something was very wrong, all over again. My eating disorder had disappeared after we separated. Then it returned almost as soon as he came back into my life. VERY TELLING.

The relief I feel today knowing that it's truly over is amazing... overpowering.

I am still processing all that's happened in the last 2 months with him. He never gave me a chance to breathe, think or process anything because he was omnipresent in all ways. He pushed himself on me and clung to me in every way. UGH. He's a parasite! A clingy, needy parasite that I've had to peel off my body with both hands!

If I may... he didn't love you for what you could provide... he loved what you provided. In my experience, that's an important distinction.

What I meant was he doesn't love me for ME - he loves what I can give to him: financial security, a better lifestyle, someone who cleans up after him and keeps the house neat and orderly, and someone who caters to his every need.

Perhaps you're saying the same thing?

I wrote this elsewhere online and am dropping it here, as a documentary of the last two months with my husband:

A LOT has happened in the last 2 months - a lot of crap happened, and my husband and I got back together when I was in a very vulnerable place in life.

Back up - he had been abusive and we were on the verge of a divorce. Then I began a new job, which came with an inordinate amount of stress. My husband's father was in and out of the hospital during this time, and my husband called me, in tears, looking for support. So I supported him, despite the pending divorce. Then, a week later I experienced severe bullying in my new job and called my husband in tears. Both of us needing support during difficult times initiated more contact between us that was far more congenial and kind. My anger had faded and I felt softened towards him after 3 months of separation and much distance from each other. At this point, I felt I could forgive him for his infidelity.

Then my job proceeded to worsen, and I became sick with mental illness and was hospitalized. When I went to ER, they also discovered I had COVID. So, I was hospitalized in a psych ward for 10 days and isolated due to COVID. My husband texted and spoke with me by phone every day during this time. I was grateful to have his support.

When I got out of the hospital, I was very wobbly emotionally and mentally. They did not help with the state of my mental health other than medicating me. At this point, my husband and I were basically back together and discussing possible reconciliation. I made NO promises, and expressed to him that I needed to take things very slowly, that my health and recovery is important and comes first, and that I still had doubts about whether I could trust him again.

I quit that job and was offered a job back at my former employer that had laid me off in July. THANK GOODNESS I received a job offer right as I needed and wanted to quit the stressful job that had landed me in the hospital again. I took two weeks off in between jobs to rest and recover. No such luck. My issues persisted. I finally sought additional help, and I've only just begun to feel more like myself in the past week.

In the meantime, my husband was seriously pushing the relationship on me, love bombing me, making grand promises of change and grand gestures of love. He claimed he had majorly changed while we were apart, even without therapy. But, deep down inside and in my gut, I knew better. He's been abusive, and abusers never change on their own. Even with therapy, they rarely actually change, or the majority do not. However, he was showering me with so much love, support and attention during this time, it felt better than before and I had a tiny sliver of hope. I wasn't well, though, mentally or emotionally, and therefore, my thinking was not clear. Everything that happened during this period felt like a whirlwind. But, before I knew it, he was quickly moving himself back into my home and into my life again. He was taking over my life, I couldn't breathe and deep inside, I felt crowded and overwhelmed though I wasn't cognitively or consciously aware of feeling this way.

We then went to our first couples therapy session early last week. He played a sympathy card to our therapist, and I felt he was trying to manipulate the therapist in our very first session. Every time he spoke, I found myself interjecting to give a more well rounded, TRUE version of the story he was telling. I left the session feeling defeated and upset.

I started my new job in the same week. Before I knew it, my husband had spent four nights in a row with me at my apartment. I was dying for space from him - I wanted to be alone. I had to insist on getting some space and he sulked whenever I said I wanted to be on my own.

Fast forward to Friday. I broke up with him and told him I want a divorce. I had had it. He had lied to me, yet again, during the week, and my gut told me I can never trust him again. Plus, I felt he was pushing pushing pushing things, without respecting MY needs for time and space away from him. He only would talk about what he felt, what he wanted and how he sees things, without once asking me where I stood or how I felt. He didn't even absorb what I had expressed in our therapy session: that I didn't trust him, that I was very angry with him, and that he had abused me badly and hurt me badly. He just went on with life, as though nothing had even been said.

By Friday, I was done. I sent him a break up text, saying my heart and soul are not in the relationship, that I do not trust him and never will, and that far too much damage has been done that cannot be undone, even with therapy. I was done.

This morning I woke up and felt a sigh of relief to not have him with me. I had cried initially yesterday when he visited to get all his belongings and I felt sad for the rest of the night, but my relief this morning is very telling to me. I am glad to be done with the relationship and I know it's the right decision.

I now see how he was brainwashing me over the last 2 months to believe that I need to be with him because he cannot live without me, as he put it. I now see that over the last 2 months, I wasn't myself whatsoever and I was neglecting myself and what I needed, because I was catering to HIM and what HE wanted. I did express this from time to time to him, but he refused to listen to me, and instead he wanted to believe that things were far more certain between us than they really were. I did not lead him on. I was honest with him about my doubts and concerns, whenever the moment allowed me to be.

Now he's blaming ME for not trying hard enough and for ditching the relationship after only one therapy session. I told him I did try, but realized I cannot continue the relationship. He's angry, bitter and hurt and is now taking that out on me by blaming me, when in reality, it's all because of HIS ABUSE towards me. He's the one at fault here, not me.

But me? I feel FAR BETTER for having made this decision - which I had already decided last Fall. Somehow, I allowed him back into my life after a period of separation, but ultimately, came to the same conclusion: tigers do NOT change their stripes and he has proven that to me. Even though he had been loving and supportive, he was only just acting and manipulating me, all in an effort to win me back. I know better. I knew he would revert right back to abusive behaviors as soon as he truly had me back, which he was already showing me signs of.

So, ultimately, long story short - I feel GOOD. I was vulnerable and fell back in with him, and now that I am stronger, I see that it needed to end. So be it if he's angry. He's abusive, and I know he'll never change.

Thats exactly what I mean. I may have misread your previous post about not addressing anything from therapy. It sounded like you were saying he loved you because you provided.

That's what I figured you meant.

Yeah, he doesn't love ME. He loves what I give to him and what I represent for him: security.

Everyone here has said as much.

Will you move into a one bedroom unit this year once your current lease expires this June or July?

That will certainly let him know it's over. You could even text him and ask him to keep an eye out for a nice cosy, intimate one bedroom unit for you. A unit that's friendly for one.

Let him know you would appreciate help with packing and moving. He'll know he's solidly in the friend zone by that point.

He moved out last November. We've lived apart this whole time. I am in my own apartment until June 2022. He is living with a roommate 45 minutes away. No worries there!

Why does he need to keep an eye on the place for her? Even if she wants to move to a smaller place, she could look for a place all on her own.

I don’t think it’s wise to ask soon to be ex or ex by then (they already had divorce process started) looking for apartments and helping her pack and move. In addition telling him that she needs his help with basic tasks is giving him yet another excuse to weasel himself back into her life.

“She needs my help yet again. She can’t manage. Let me see how I can use it for my advantage”. No thanks

Did I read it right? He lied AGAIN?

Really...
This is the generous way you chose to interpret my post.
You actually think I'm implying HaveHope is that weak and helpless?
Well, thanks I guess.

I wasn’t interpreting anything you said one way or the other. You suggested she asks him for help. I replied that I think it’s bad idea.

My post is about how HE, her husband, will likely see it and how he possibly will look at it. Not how YOU look at it.

Every time she asked him for help, he took it a step further. So in my opinion there is no need to ask him for help with anything.