Abuse

» BetrayalTrauma - When I met my wife, she seemed so easy to get along with.

When I met my wife, she seemed so easy to get along with. We had fun the first few times we went out. Then she pushed the idea of moving into my apartment. I told her I did not think our relationship was headed in that direction, we weren't a match made in heaven for the long term. She pushed it and it finally happened. I got a job transfer and told her she should look around for another apartment where she is because she shouldn't follow me. She did anyway. I suspected she wanted to make it work because she saw that I made a nice living and was more career oriented than most other guys my age, plus I was easy to manipulate. I just did not have the heart to tell her "NO" firmly enough to hurt her. She would cry and I would feel like a man who just hurt a child, so I would cave in. This led to accidental pregnancy, marriage and a life of living with a narcissist controlling beast. She was very more verbally and emotionally abusiveas time went on. She used withholding sex for long periods to get me to comply. I got depressed. She spent money like it was water. Mention budgeting and the result was temper tantrums and a loss of sexlife for a month or more. She came to work in my private advisory business due to boredom. About that business she knew nothing. She made it miserable at home and work. Within 2 years I had a nervous breakdown and into a hospital, lost all my business and went broke . Doctors told me I was being abused and need a divorce. I love my children too much to live apart from them. She already told me I will never see them again if I leave her. She has alienated them into thinking everything bad is my fault and that she is perfect. They won't even admit to remembering the temper tantrums she threw on a fairly regulart basis.
This is 5 years later and I am functionally inefficient enough to not hold a job or feel secure around people. Dazed and confused is a good way to explain how I feel. I can't concentrate or remember well anymore. I don't see how I have any future left after my children move on in life. Please don't try to tell me everything will be alright because I know it can never be again. I saw a document on my condition and it said that the goal of ongoing treatment is to avoid suicide. Men are not always the abusers and women the abused. Men, in general, tend to suffer silently and alone.

-- posted by BetrayalTrauma