Confused. Or am I?

[DesperateHousewife101]

 

Anyone else been here? I am struggling because I’ve moved forward in my head what feels like leap years. My husband doesn’t understand because I’ve not been sharing my thoughts with him until now – mostly because it hasn’t been emotionally safe to do so.

I feel like I’ve reached the end of the road with my relationship/marriage. Very recently we agreed to separate and then the next day he begged me to reconsider, that he’d ‘woken up”.

I was ready to walk out the door, I only gave in because he seemed so heartbroken and prepared to change. Previously when I’ve raised uncomfortable issues he’s gone off at me, saying he is the provider for the family and I shouldn’t be asking for more, and sometimes threatening divorce.

He’s not been violent but there have been other red flags that I’ve only started to wake up to in the last few months. I can’t come out and say I’ve only now realised that our relationship has been punctuated by a whole lot of emotional, sexual and financial abuse.

I’ve been questioning myself having brought up a few things with him and he’s had rational explanations for it all.

He wants me to get clear, do I love him – and if yes, he thinks it’s enough alone to make it work. When I pushed back on that, he projected, saying that I knew that staying together was right.

He’s fighting for me, for us, our family. He’s pressuring me to come through this and out the other side (because it’s painful for him), and move forward in our relationship (or go back). He’s saying he 100% supports me. He says he ‘genuinely’ loves me. But. I don’t particularly believe him.

But I also wonder if I’ve gone so far away from him that I wouldn’t recognise it. I’m so caught up in my own realisations, and its too hard to confront him about it: that I believe that he’s used the power imbalance in his favour ever since we first had children. Even before that. That he lied to me about a major life situation. That he’s time and again emotionally beaten me down to get what he wants or avoid what he doesn’t want. I’m so bogged down by everything that’s happened over the course of our relationship that I don’t see a future with him.

But what if he really can change, can be better? Do I give him a chance? Now that I have more clarity than ever before, can more easily put a finger on what’s wrong, can we use that to move forward?
Do I share this with him to see how serious he is about me and our relationship? I think already know the answer- but it’s just so hard to reconcile and to give him some kind of explanation as to why I don’t see myself in this relationship any longer. He’s not going to make this easy…

[Lisa]

Hi,

Thank you for your post. I’m sorry to hear about your situation. This is something you have been dealing with and processing for a long time. It sounds like you are seeing his behaviour for what it is and the impact it has been having on you. Its completely up to you where you go from here- there is no justification for domestic abuse- its common for abusive men to make promises of change and then the cycle starts all over again.

You can access free online courses created by or in partnership with therapists specialising in trauma at Bloom. These courses can be accessed in your own time and at your own pace and cover topics such as trauma, abuse and boundaries.

Best Wishes

Lisa

[Author]

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