Stuck

It’s perfectly ok to sit and think about your history and recall the experiences where your husband actually failed you. Perhaps he was narcissistic always needing you to cater to HIS needs. When someone is narcissistic, they decide things are only important or if value if THEY think it has value or importance. So basically you are merely an object or character part in their made up world that revolves around them.

Recently I came across this, it may hit home for you.

Narc’s do not love, they USE. Love is their word for use. Just replace love with use and it all makes sense.

“I use you, I use you so much. I will always use you. I will never use anyone as much as I use you. You are the USE of my life, I will use you forever. My use, I will always be your user”

I understand the pain, anger and frustration you feel. That isn't how a kind and decent person treats someone... anyone.

I was treated in a similar manner by my ex husband. It wasn't life threatening like it was for you. I slipped and broke my right ankle at the leg bone (tibia). The short version is I had no one to help me, no way to get to the emergency room, 2 sleeping kids and an ex who refused to come home early from "guys night out".

I wrapped my ankle in bubble wrap and duct tape and an empty tissue box and waited. 3 hours later, the ex finally came home, called me "an attention seeking drama queen", refused to give me his keys and went to bed. He stormed off shouting he was almost out of gas because he works too many hours and I ruined his one night out to relax. When he fell asleep, I took the keys out of his pocket, and went to the emergency room. (Yes, he purposely kept his keys in his jeans pocket and went to bed with his clothes on).

It wasn't until I was leaving the ER with a temporary leg cast, crutches, and my xrays that I realized a few things... he had come home freshly showered, his shirt was on inside out, his passenger seat was fully reclined, and he had 3/4 of a tank of gas. I arrived home, got the kids up, fed, dressed and off to the first day of school. He took his truck and off to work he went without a single word.

I understand that we sometimes look back on the past because we have to deal with things. I hope you are doing OK and focusing on being the best you.

Sadly some men and women are just mean jerks. I’d focus on what made you stick around even though he mistreated you from early on. And I’d work on yourself how to be more proactive if you ever come across such a man again (which is entirely possible given your history) and how to get yourself and the kids safe and healthy in the future

I’d not continue wasting precious time on diagnosing (or possibly misdiagnosing) him or anyone else and agonizing over real or perceived symptoms or potential illnesses and diseases of other people that might not be real (and are often wrong). It keeps focus on him and keeps you in a victimhood.

You can never know with 100% certainty why people do what they do. It’s important to remember bad things he did as it keeps you real but don’t waste your life on analyzing others. It’s way more productive to analyze yourself as it leads to improvement

You are a strong, educated, independent, insightful woman, a mother. You can handle what comes your way. Do not accept the role of a victim (I know you don’t, just warning you against it as it’s tempting to assume a passive role).

Focus on improving your life. Even decluttering and cleaning up your house is a productive empowering task. Also with potential necessity of selling the house start minor improvements (if it’s reasonable). Some things are inexpensive like painting the walls

Hope you are going to talk to a lawyer soon. Hope your kids are doing well

Starlingflock, I am an ex-marijuana smoker & one of my best friends used it much more than I. He also no longer uses. Afaik he didn't have any problems stopping. What I'm saying is marijuana is not addictive like cocaine, crack or heroin is. It does not make a human body crave it as if it was water or food. I've known 2 crackheads in my childhood neighborhood who stole to maintain their crack addiction; ripping a gold chain from a friends neck, breaking into garages at night to steal anything of value to buy a crack vial, stealing a friends home phone, etc... I have never seen or heard of that kind of behavior in marijuana users ever. I believe your hubby simply loves to use marijuana. Possibly he is using marijuana as an excuse. Hope your problem is resolved soon.

Cannabis addiction is an actual diagnosis. Sure it’s not as bad as cocaine but addiction is real. Cannabis psychosis is also real. Yes outrageous behaviors aren’t as common as for coke addicts but it’s still real

Thanks. It really was evil, me begging for help and him looking at me with disgust and calling me pathetic. A stranger would have cared more. A lot of it was because he had set his mind on him and his friend smoking that morning.
I guess I didn’t care enough about myself to draw the line there.
My mom helped me that day, but was of little help about him. She was afraid to say anything much about it. She gave me plenty of bad advice over the years about how to be a wife. She only left my dad when he chased her with a knife.

Yes, thanks. It does explain some things.

Wow that’s so nasty of him. thank you for your kind words. I am focusing on being the best me and doing ok overall. I am going through a lot of emotions and thoughts, processing. I think I’ve been in some shock and am trying to pull out of it. Plus, I’m under a lot of stress, and felt like I was cracking the other day. A lot of neck and shoulder tension and stiffness and weird feelings in my face and head. I cried a lot last night, which helped release the tension. I am giving my all.

I brought up this breathing story because I need to remember how unloving my husband could be. I slipped into thinking I did the wrong thing saying divorce, should have said get help get help please! Or try to help him see what’s right. But then I remember I did say do that and he wasn’t responsive. Whatever makes him this way, I can’t excuse it. I deserve to be treated with respect and care.

Thank you divine. I’m putting much effort into improving our lives. We’re enjoying our time together as we’re trying to heal from the chaos.

As I was doing some hard neglected yard work today, I got a little grumpy as I became more and more exhausted. I had a momentary temptation to be passive, to think I can’t do it, to feel really sorry for myself, but I just kept going, and accepted it was phase one of a large task I will be working on for some time. I finished phase one, and before I knew it, I pushed onto another difficult task and kept at it until my hands cramped from over exertion. After all that I thought certainly I’m done, but then did laundry, dishes, reorganizing, etc. I just can’t let things rest in this state of neglect as they have been for a year.

I’m setting up what makes me and child happy and what supports the lifestyle we want.

I had three new drinking glasses in my cart yesterday, but took a pause, and put one back.

I have stalled out emotionally on filing for divorce. Divorce is not something I ever wanted, so it’s not something I’m running towards. I have been separating everything. He hasn’t paid me anything yet, says he will this Friday. That will be one month mark of him being gone. I really hope he comes through. I’m still trying to remember he’s not coming back, or if he does, it’d be because it didn’t work out there. I imagined him coming back as his Hyde self. But, that’s a fantasy, and we are different trajectories.

I am in danger of not letting him go. You pose the question i must answer. Why did I stick around even when mistreated? I had a lot of reasons but none of them are the answer.

Thanks. Things are resolving- although it feels so foreign that he’s now moved out, I’m feeling like I have control of my life again and my surroundings.
The difference between you/your friend and my husband is you are ex smokers and my husband isn’t. He was diagnosed with substance use disorder. I’ve teased him 20 yrs ago saying he acts like marijuana is crack, I’d never seen someone Jones like him over weed. I don’t care if he had a regular use of marijuana but there was nothing regular about it. He cannot tolerate many thoughts and feelings-he literally runs to get high when he has certain thoughts and feelings.

He said he’d contribute money today…yet not a peep from him. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. He can’t at least put money towards things he’s using like car insurance, etc? The nerve. He is doing the moving carrot trick I guess. Whatever he isn’t spending on himself he’s probably throwing at others. If I ask for the money he said he would send today…what would he say? Anyone’s guess.

Im past my shock, guilt and sadness stages about the separation, I think. Now into some bitterness and anger. As I’m doing everything here, having no clue what he’s doing there.

I’ve tried so hard to never say anything bad about him over the years. I feel hateful towards him and the chaos he creates. I was submissive to him for decades DECADES and I completely regret being that person.

I told the attorney I work with what’s happened, today. He was nice to me about it, matter of fact, and I think perhaps I could run a couple things by him with little risk of repercussion. I need to plod forward, file, so I can stop worrying about what he’ll do next and how it might affect me.

I need to move on and accept I have given all the energy to this relationship that I could and now it’s over. It ran its course, and I realize it lasted years on fumes, years of lies, years of fears, years of frustration, years of verbal abuse, years of emotional abuse, years of dysfunction. My life for over forty years has been based on dysfunctional relationships. Probably a bit typical? But I’m hoping it can be different now!

From what you have shared, because your father had a problem with alcohol you had to learn how to interact with him around his problem. You wanted to be a good daughter and you did not have enough life experience to know any different than how you managed to have a sense of calm when surviving in an unhealthy family dynamic.

Often not realizing it a person will end up with a marriage partner that presents them with the same kind of unhealthy dynamic. In your case both your husband and father developed the use of drugs to escape from instead of facing and developing healthy skills to work through life challenges.

And you never stopped wanting to be that good girl. So you continued engaging with someone that was not healthy.

Both your father and your husband have some kind of mental health issues and it’s not an easy black and white. Yet while both have talents and intelligence, they developed issues never learning to develop healthy coping skills and chose to escape leading them to developing substance abuse problems.

There is a lot of narcissistic behavior patterns that are practiced when a person has a substance abuse problem. And choosing to stop abusing drugs doesn’t change the problem.

It’s not your job to be this good girl that lives her life around someone that is unhealthy. Yet, this has been your normal for many years of your life. It’s going to be a difficult pattern of yours to break. There are things you are going to notice that are going to make you angry at your husband and also yourself. And you will experience withdrawals because a lot of how you lived became how you grew to automatically navigate your life.

An abnormal relationship has been your normal pretty much all of your life.

Yes, he probably fakes that he will send money, and yet he doesn’t follow through. He has learned how to manipulate. That’s part of his disease/mental illness. As you make an effort to focus more on yourself and your needs you will begin to see things you accepted that were unhealthy for you.

Yeah moneys coming tomorrow. That’s several tomorrow’s now. And now he is pressuring me to sell the house ASAP. He has no need for it he says and he “slaved” for it and wants the money. Last week he called me “gross” because I said i understand he would want proceeds sooner than later, and now he is saying he wants the money asap, he needs to get his “life together” which means buying a house apparently, and has “no attachment” to our house. Did he forget his kid lives in it, his pets, oodles of his stuff, and it’s the family home for 17 years and he ran off and has only been gone a month? He said I “wanted him gone,” this is how he justifies making sudden pressured demands. takes no responsibility that I asked him for compromise for a year and he ignored me completely rubbing his selfishness in our faces and acting flaky. Now he’s off meds so he is probably going to be the very angry jerk of the past who bullies until he gets his way.

I let him interrupt my work today with this junk, throwing me off my tasks, making my heart pound with anxiety, and my head feeling stuck in a loop. Then hatred sputtering inside me. Taking my breath away.

His communications swing between immature and plain mean.

now I wonder If can even count on my short term plan, which was to pay for everything, make things more presentable here, get my kid started in high school, grow this puppy up so I won’t get kicked out wherever we’ll live if it’s not a house (starting over with a new house already??), and I have three dogs.

I know its rough. You can keep your home if you want it. And stop him in his tracks when he gets mean and disruptive. All I'll say is the words "I'll discuss your demand to sell the house with my attorney" are a very effective shield against this type of conflict.

A word of caution about keeping the marital home... a fresh start in a new place where there is no history and no 'bad memories' can be helpful in healing. Before you commit to selling or keeping the house, look into options for a new place. A little soul searching about what you want for yourself a year from now, 3 years, 5 years.... it may help you to decide what's best for you. It's OK to take the emotional high road, but make sure you put your needs and wants first. Your husband won't put you first so you have to.

Hope your daughter and son are coping with these family changes. Hoping for the best for you too.

Thank you! The kids spent a lot of time together today while I was at work. It’s nice that my son came over on his day off to spend time with his sibling..he even took her to an appt while I worked. He’s protective and wise like a much older brother should be.

I am thinking about whether to keep the house or not. The place is in rough shape. It’s too big for two of us. It was good for four people. Properties are way overpriced here right now, so to find something I can afford, I’ll be looking at a small apartment, a mobile home, or some place so far from my job that it would upset the solutions we have now for getting my kid places while I work full time, letting the dog out mid day, etc. I want to have a somewhat comfortable lifestyle and feel like here I will make it month to month with a little something to put away, but husband will never allow that for me if he can help it. Whenever I can take a breath he is certain to make things complicated again.

I don’t want to be tied to him anymore. So that’s a good development for me.

I have been making many minor adjustments but no major decisions. It’s not good to make decisions based on what he pushes for because he’s impulsive and unstable. I will make decisions based on what’s best for my minor child, that’s it. She can tell I’m contemplating something, but I’m not saying what. She keeps asking me if I’m okay because I guess I look mired in thought.

So he is throwing things at you to get you to react so he will know what you are up to.

Do not say too much in texts or on the phone as he may be recording conversations. You need to sit with a lawyer to learn your rights. That is also your home and your child’s home. Notice how he is being selfish in wanting money for HIS life and is not considering his child?

He has to pay child support and I do not think
He can push you and your child out of that home. That’s why it’s important to see a lawyer so you can learn your rights legally.

Thanks! He won’t talk to me on the phone. Yes, I noticed he cares about what he wants and doesn’t consider our child, he is selfish always. He says he needs to procure housing. I asked him why doesn’t he just rent a place month to month and what’s the big rush about selling all of a sudden? He does a good job of making out what he wants to be the only possibility and on his timeline. I told him I’d think about it and talked about filing for divorce reminding him whatever we don’t agree on doing the court will decide. I’m not moving right now because I have three dogs, one being a puppy (he brought into the picture). I’m not trying to put dogs before people but what am I supposed to do with them? Sure give them away to other people because I am not willing or capable of making these three dogs work in an apartment. Not willing and it’s really not allowed anywhere either. Honestly I think the dogs are the only reason I feel like I can’t move right now. Otherwise, I think kid and I would be fine in a small apartment somewhere close to my work and her school. It’d be cool actually to be downtown, maybe, although we would lose a good investment with the house, but I could put money away to grow and help,with the future. But my life will suck with a crazy puppy and two old dogs, one that pees on my wood floor off and on because he’s so old now, in an apartment.

To be clear, I wouldn’t give our dogs away. Just saying he wants us to sell right away and perhaps he’s thinking I should do whatever it takes to make that happen for him. I looked around at apartments and houses to rent and saw nothing that would fit right our situation or that I could afford. He’ll have to wait!

Talk to a lawyer. He can’t make these decisions. The house is in a rough shape likely because he wasn’t contributing. It’s going to be tough to sell. But you won’t know what’s best until you talk it over with professional. He wants you to sell because he wants the money. In a meanwhile he must pay child support which needs to be court ordered. Stop talking to him about all this.

He can’t just discard you and his child.

Please see a lawyer so you know your rights

Thank you open eyes and divine. I need to see a lawyer. I just spent 320 on emergency vet bill, so now I’m a bit anxious to pay for a consult until next paycheck, or until he contributes. I could borrow money from a friend if need be but am trying to avoid that. I know I don’t have to do sell the house right away and I am resisting his pressure. it feels more stressful suddenly. He said he is “practical” and not to “bad guy” him when I said I will do what’s best for our child, first. He is very manipulative. He is the farthest from practical. I didn’t sleep well last night, so it is not good for me to talk to him about this stuff.
I don’t want to move for minimum 6 months. I’ve seen divorces take years to resolve, or three months. I doubt the court would or could force me to sell sooner than six months.

Some lawyers provide free consultations. Or maybe seek legal aid. It takes awhile to sell anything. Our neighbor is selling her townhouse and it’s been months. She already moved out and place isn’t selling. You might not be able to sell as fast as you wish, or rather he wishes

You can do a search and find out the laws in your state. You have a minor in your home and many states have a law that your husband can’t just kick you out.

Knowing your rights can reduce the stress and pressure.

You can get an idea of your homes current value and projects that may increase value be talking to a realtor. Explain your situation, tell them you aren't ready to sell, you're trying to understand the current market and options, etc.

A written appraisal may be needed anyway. Laws vary, but it's likely a declaration of assets and liabilities will be needed and a home appraisal is a solid start at gathering that info. In my opinion, you don't have anything to lose by asking questions and getting a professional perspective.

I hope whatever choices you make, you put yourself first. It's important to teach your daughter how to do that for herself. You are her best example for healthier behaviors.

Rollercoaster is right. You’d need written appraisal anyways in a division of assets regardless if you sell or not