JanetC story

This is my 5th try to post my story, I get part way through and fall apart and I just scrap what I have written.

I had a 30-year marriage to my N, which is why it is so hard to try to cohesively write down what happened without rambling. I am suffering from PTSD, cognitive dissonance, depression, and feel like I am carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders. It is hard to write this out, it is like reliving parts, so I may skim over some, but will try to get the major parts written.

I was fresh out of school, a new RN, and another nurse I worked with said her brother had just been transferred to our state, knew no one, and she thought we would hit it off, so we had a blind date. I thought I had found the perfect man! So sweet, listened intently to everything I said, agreed and seemed to have similar feelings and interests (I now know this was mirroring), and pursued me full speed ahead. He lived 2 hours away, so we talked for hours each day, and spent each weekend together. He pushed for a commitment, and I actually slowed things down. However, I had a health scare with cancer and was told that I should have children soon, they thought I might need a hysterectomy soon, so within 8 months we were engaged, and married 1 year after meeting. After I accepted the ring, in retrospect I can see some red flags that I ignored... he started wanting to control every aspect of our lives (I was young and naive and gave in), he seemed obsessed with money and power, and yet I gave him the benefit of the doubt. He still had me on a "pedestal" and I could do no wrong in his eyes, or so I thought!

After marriage, he kept all his money (savings, he said) and he took all my money and controlled all money, bill paying, etc. He put my car into his name. (I had 2 payments left on it while we were married, so he said after all it was his too!). 2 months later he lost his job, and I was working double shifts keeping us afloat! He found another job a month later, but across the country, far away from all my family, friends, and support!

He sold his car and drove mine to the move across country, I was stranded and walked to and from my work (2 miles away) while he had control of my car (now his). I could go nowhere otherwise and had no life outside of him when he was home and work. He started demanding sex constantly, and really pushed it and wanted sex more if it was after a fight, especially if we were still mad, he would enjoy forcing me! I started getting really uncomfortable and balking and he would twist everything, say how everything he did was for "our" future, how could I be so unappreciative? They can really put a spin on things, and I had no support, and so I started thinking I WAS the one with the problems.

We bought our first house with me working full time, with my money. He continued to control all the money, I had no idea of our status I was just a work machine, and in our first 2 years of marriage he had been through 5 jobs. It seemed none of his bosses appreciated him or his hard work, imagine that?? He would try to tell them how to do things better, or so he said, and he would get fired. I saw the pattern and I was scared. But in the middle of this I was pregnant. This was what I had really wanted, so I determined to do everything I could to be supportive and try to work it out.

During an argument we had, he said "I would never have married you except you are a nurse, and I knew you could support us, I never wanted to try to support a family, and knew I couldn't!" Of course, later he denied that he meant this, but I think this was a huge red flag and was the absolute truth!

Big huge red flags now...although he said he wanted a child too, he pulled out a picture he had and said it was his son, he said the mother just wanted a child but did not care about him being in the relationship or a father, and so he obliged her! He said, "see I have great genes, see what a cute boy he is?" I couldn't believe it. He hadn't seen or been involved in this child's life and didn't even know where he was now, the mother had gotten married and he thought her husband had adopted the boy. To this day we have never heard from him, I would love to hear the REAL story here!

And...now I was treated horribly now that I was pg. I had morning sickness really bad, and had to work 3 to midnight. He decided to redo our yard, and had a truckload of MANURE dumped on top of the grass. We had no air conditioner, it was summer so windows had to be open, do you know how awful this was?? When I complained, he went ballistic and called me a hypochondriac, exaggerating everything, how could I not appreciate him trying to better our property value? He would take tuna cans or old cat food cans and SOAK them in the sink so there were bits of the old cat food or tuna floating in these cans, and after working until 1 a.m. I would get up the next morning to find this and I would promptly puke! I had to work until 2 weeks before delivery (I couldn't lose our insurance) and he did absolutely nothing to help. I actually delivered a week after my due date, and it was pouring rain and I was bringing in groceries and had to walk in front of him watching TV to put them away in the kitchen, and I got yelled at for obstrucing his view!

I am feeling pretty trapped now, but we have a beautiful baby girl and I am determined that this will make everything all right! I go back to work in 6 weeks but even though he is working 10 to 15 hours/week in sales, I have to find childcare because he refuses to watch the baby. I get a big long lecture about how horrible I am to ask him to do this...to make a long story short, he would go on and on and on so much every time I asked for ANYTHING, I learned to just do everything myself and try to never ask him for anything.

Nine months later, I had to change my birth control methods, had problems, and had not gotten the new one yet, and he insisted on sex and refused to wear a condom. That happened several times and I got pregnant again! So, 17 months after the birth of my first child, I give birth again to another beautiful girl!

I was really happy in my role as a mother, and found fullfilment here, but had learned to never ask for anything or expect anything of my husband. However, at this point after losing yet another job, he wanted to go into business for himself. I thought he might as well try, as he sure wasn't able to work for others!

Well, this time he actually was successful and he did keep this business and do okay financially for the next 20 years. I was able to only work 3 days a week and I was much more content, even though our relationship was bad. He was home maybe 2 nights a week, and said he was giving estimates and doing work the other 5 nights. Yeah, I know, in retrospect I was pretty dumb to buy this, but at the time life had settled down a bit. Even being on the pill, I got pregnant AGAIN and so now I had 3 daughters, ages newborn, 2, and 3-1/2. I was totally wrapped up in being a mother and had a tubal ligation so this was it!

During this time, lots of conflicts but I blocked most out and with him gone so much, I was actually was pretty happy with raising my daughters. I KNEW though I was on my own and could not count on him. One example that stands out was me getting the stomach flu so bad while my youngest was 4 months old and still nursing, that I passed out on the floor. I came to, in my vomit, and she was crying, the other 2 were making a huge mess (they were ages 2 and 4) and I called him to beg him to come home after work and not go out that evening. I got yelled at, and I knew the children were in danger, and so I called my pastor's wife, and she came over at about 5, fixed some food for them and put them to bed. She wanted to drag me to the ER, but I knew my husband would have a fit and I said no. I thanked her and she was leaving at about 9 p.m. when my husband came home. I could hear her talking to him (and she is the sweetest person in the world, she didn't say ANYTHING bad or try to make him feel guilty, just told him she had helped me and that I had finally stopped vomiting). He said goodbye, came into my room and slapped me across the face! He yelled, said "how could you have her come over and make me look bad you bitch?" and he stomped out. I didn't see him for 2 more days. He said he slept in his office he was so upset that I could do this to him. I was too ashamed to tell anyone, but I DID say if you ever hit me again I will pack up and move to my parents (across country far from him!) I think he knew I meant it and he didn't try this again for a long time.

Things continued as above for the next 10 years, I worked just a few days a week until they were in school, then I switched to medical transcription because I could do this at home, and be with my daughters. He worked a ton, and I had learned to do everything, keep everything running smooth, not make waves, so for the most part things were uneventful.

Then, he discovered the stock market and day trading. He would go to work, but according to others who would tell me (I was never allowed to go or bother him at work) he had salespeople and others do his work, and he would sit there at his computer making trades, or he would be out for long lunches. Every employee he had during this 20 year period would accuse him of verbal abuse and quit. Hmmm. He actually asked me about it and I tried to gently tell him it was how he would invade personal space when talking to people and talk loudly and angrily, and he absolutely refused to listen. I finally said, "so I have told you that you are abusive, all of your family has, and every employee has, so do you think the whole world is wrong and you are the only one right?" He said totally deadpan, "yes, I do" There truly is no reasoning or using rational thought with these guys!

Well then "black Friday" came. He didn't even understand what it meant when he had a margin call. He had inherited close to a million dollars just 6 months earlier, and now ALL of it was wiped out, AND he grabbed a bit of MY inheritance too to pay off the margin call! And still, he continued to accept any responsibility for these mistakes. Our children were now getting to the point where they really needed to be watched (preteens and early teens) and yet I had to get 2 jobs to keep us afloat. And... we know what a great job he does watching and helping raise them huh? The verbal abuse now really was ratcheted up, and it is against all of us. If one of the girls leaves something out or doesn't hop fast enough, he screams and throws tantrums. We are all now walking on eggshells constantly.

I can remember my youngest running from him in fear because of how he was raging, and I ran and stood between them on the staircase. He raged at me and belittled both of us, then pushed me hard to lunge at her, but it caused me to fall down the flight of stairs! I was pretty badly bruised, and the good thing is that stopped him and he did not go after my daughter. I told him I was seeing our pastor and was going to leave him. We had a meeting and he sat there and was soft spoken and the perfect actor, telling the pastor that he was just trying to make the children be responsible and that I tried to keep him from getting our children to obey, and he had just walked fast past me to get to my daughter and didn't realize it and that I had fallen, that he would NEVER do anything like that, and he cried! I couldn't believe it! I got the lecture from the pastor about being a "help-mate" to my husband! I stayed with him, my faith is important to me, but I felt like I had been "raped" by both my N and now my pastor too!

My daughters started resenting my husband and entered the teenage years with rebellion (except for the oldest one) this just confirmed his story that I pampered them, causing their bad behavior, that he was trying to discipline them! I was working 50+ hours, and was not able to keep track of what was going on. My N stayed away much of the time and was home very seldom (which actually helped everything calm down for a bit) but by now they were in full rebellion, angry at me for staying with him, angry at him. To make a long story short, my youngest was addicted to crystal and I inherited some money and spent it all to send her to a treatment center for a year (school, drug rehab, behavior modification) and my middle child ran away but came home pg with twins!

So, I helped with raising the twins (they are 8 now) and my husband just stayed away for the most part. When he was home, he was on the computer 24/7. The Christmas that the twins were 1, he said money was very tight and we could only afford to spend $400 on Christmas (that is for everything, we agreed to give no presents to each other, that is for my 3 daughters and twin granddaughters). Well the first week of December he tells me he has to go to a convention in a resort town about 2 hours from us. I found out he had looked up his old g/f (the one he was going out with right before me, not the mother of his son) on the internet, and he used his business credit card to fly her out across country, and spend 4 days and nights in the wonderful resort town, (I found business charges on his visa of about $1500 for this romantic week, but we could not afford Christmas!) Again, I was ready to leave him, but again our pastor talked me out of it, saying with such a long term marriage we should try confronting him and then restitution! I agreed to the confrontation part, but would not agree to anything else. Of course, my husband finally admitted it was sexual (he first tried to say he had slept in the car the whole time, and did not have sex, let her sleep in the room by herself!!) and he cried and said he was just so beaten down by ME for years and years I had made him feel worthless, and he just wanted to be with someone from his past who actually CARED ABOUT HIM. Oh my God... and the Pastor bought it.

In retrospect, I do not know why I continued to let him do this to me. I knew NOTHING about pathology. But I knew intuitively something was VERY VERY WRONG. But, they are great at making you question your sanity. I didn't mention it, but there was a lot of gaslighting going on as well. I did question my sanity, and I did stay. However, he promised to go to men's Bible meetings, attend church regularly (he had been going once in a blue moon) and work on regaining my trust. I have to say, for about 8 months he did act different, and was actually like the person I fell in love with that I had totally forgotten! I thought, well, maybe this has shaken things up enough to get us both to wake up and to return to what we should be! I had to admit that for the last 20 years I had just performed robotically because of the abuse, just trying to survive.

This takes us up to 6 years ago, things got a LOT worse from here and I discovered how bad he really was. I discover that on the night that he came home at 11 from his men's study, that he actually went to the meeting at 7 and said he didn't feel well and left again immediately! When confronted, he looks at me blankly and said he had to get something to eat because he didnt feel well, but never explained the remaining missing 4 hours! (I later find he was with a prostitute).

He tells me his business is doing bad, and it is now "your turn to support us" huh? What had I been doing for all these years? but nothing can stop him, he closes up his business and is now home trying to control everyone's life! I still work from home! yikes! trying to work and make any money with him around (I am paid by production) is really hard! My oldest daughter has been out of the house since high school, graduated college, and is married. My other 2, and the twins, live at home. The mother of the twins goes to school and becomes a massage therapist and is working a lot, my husband and I are both helping out. He is taking them to the park, picking them up from school, and he talks to everyone and anyone who will listen, inappropriately, don't know what this is or if it is even a part of narcissism? I later find out he is using the twins, to look good, and while at the park talking to everyone and spinning tales of woe, the D and D has begun, saying he is staying in the marriage for the girls. These are just acquaintances of mine, but I have pieced together from some I have later come to know better, that he had different stories.

To some he says I am a pervert, and have young boyfriends, and don't want anything to do with him, and I have told him to get a girlfriend! Others he tells that I don't love him anymore and have told him to get a girlfriend (he is actively looking for supply here)...still others he is telling that I am agoraphobic (remember I am supporting us all working 50+ hours at home, so I do NOT get out that much, but not because I am agoraphobic!) and he tells them I have serious mental illness and he is being a good husband, but trying to find some outside relationships to survive!

I get a phone call during this time, and my oldest married daughter is crying, her husband fell at work, and they have told her to get to the hospital right away, and she asks, "is it bad if he is on life support" Oh my God, she is 25 he is 26 their life was in front of them. He had 2 skull fractures, an orbital blow-out fracture, and was comatose. I flew down the next day to be with her. Of course, my husband wouldn't join me, saying he needed to stay here and watch the house. He ended up being in a coma for 3 months, when he came out he didn't remember my daughter, and had spells of violence (not unusual with head trauma) and spent the next 8 months at a brain rehab facility, is legally blind, and is now finally home and recovering, but still with some short term memory deficits, blind, but personality is back and no more anger. Anyway, I get back after being gone 3 weeks, and my daughters tell me their dad was on web site "Bay Area Escorts" and they could see that he had looked at a bunch of the girls on the site, and he was gone for long periods of time. He claims he only looked at the site because his friend asked him to, because his friend had designed the site! And of course he had excuses for his absences. He then said "I was depressed and having trouble too while you were gone, you deserted me"

Then I didn't even say this earlier, but my mom died the night the twins were born, and I had to fly back for her funeral, and of course he wouldn't go then either. My dad died 3 years later, and again he wouldn't go. He only talked to me twice while I was gone for the funeral, and both times he just wanted to know how much I was going to inherit. When I got back, I found names on skype like "bigtits" and "love2fuk" and found some saved messages where he said bad things about me. I again confronted him and he again said he was lonely, I wasn't calling him and I had deserted him.

So, I finally think that the only way I am really going to know the truth once and for all is to put a program on his computer, since he is on it 24/7. Sometimes I would wake up at 3 a.m. and he would not be in bed, and he tells me he is trying to figure out stock trends and is doing it "for us" Yes he is obsessed with stocks even after losing all that money, telling anyone and everyone how smart he is and how he is going to make a killing!

I investigate, and I recommend this to anyone who is IN a relationship and wants to know the truth, I install a program called "E-Blaster" on his computer. Once installed, it sends reports to any e-mail I designate of all chats, IM's, e-mails, every web site visited, and every key stroke! I sit back and wait.

Well, I have to tell you that BEFORE I did this, I knew of his horrible childhood, and I made excuses, and thought if I could just love him enough, I could fix him! With his gaslighting and 30 years of verbal abuse, I was pretty messed up and had lost sight of who I am, I am a shell of the person I was.

Anyway, OMG... immediately I see him chatting with a woman and making arrangements to meet her... she says she is NOT a prostitute but ONLY does this with contributions to a charity of her choice!! WTF??? He tells her he does not have access to cash, but buys visa gift cards at the grocery store so his wife will not know and thinks he is buying groceries!!! WTF??? I am working 50 hours a week so he can do this???/ Then I see a chat to a woman who lives locally that he has obviously had a long term relationship with, but she is mad at him, evidently things came up and they could not get together for the last month, and he tells her he has found a neighbor, so when I think he is taking walks, he is with her! He is telling her this is only physical, that she and he have the REAL relationship mentally AND physically and how special SHE is to him, and how he gets off just chatting with her! then he is talking to the ex of a high school friend of his, and they are having explicit sex chat, and he is getting her to send him pictures and they are making plans to meet (although she lives across the country). then still in the same day, he is having internet sex with yet ANOTHER woman who lives where his sister lives in yet another state, and saying he is going to go out to visit his sister and will see her! And he is giving smooth lines to each of these women telling them how they are THE ONE! What a great connection they make, their souls unite, they are meant for each other!

Then, he is on multiple dating sites, including hornymatches.com, sexinyourcity.com, ashley madison, cheatinghousewives.com, and he is chatting up multiple women on these sites still IN THE SAME DAY! My God, how can he keep it all straight??? Then yet another one is writing him thanking him for the 2 lace bras, saying how great they fit, she is going to send pics, and saying he shouldn't have been so extravagant, $75 for a bra???

I confront him, without yelling, just telling him I knew and had looked at his computer, and he immediately nonchanlantly says, "Well, guess I am moving to TN" (that is where his sis lives and he moved into her basement apartment and is renting it). And, he starts packing then and there. He calls and has moving companies set and I am busy and not paying attention, and he takes a TON of stuff, I discover a little at a time. A week after I discovered this and our confrontation, my daughter had yet another baby (this time she is engaged and the dad is here and involved at least) and this baby had transposition of the great arteries, vsd, pulmonary stenosis, and almost died, had 2 immediate heart surgeries, spent the first month of her life at Children's Hospital. So, I am not paying any attention to all the stuff he is taking, and he drags me to a paralegal during this time, takes all the cash, but does leave me with the house (and all the expenses) is meeting hookers during this time but won't take the time to go see his new granddaughter in the hospital!

He left last June. I am starting to slowly realize he is gone, but still have the 3 grandchildren I am pretty much supporting, my youngest daughter who has tried to kill herself twice and is now an alcoholic and got arrested last month for domestic violence (her b/f woke her from sleep, had looked through her phone and started yelling at her because of what he thought was evidence of her cheating, hit her across the face so hard she fell to the floor, she came up swinging and gave him a black eye, so they were both arrested). She couldn't get out for a week and lost her job, hasn't been able to find another yet. At least she broke up with this guy, I think also an N, I am consumed with guilt about the legacy I have left my children. She had a prior DUI and is still on probation from that. When they were arrested they did a breathalyzer, she had drunk earlier but her level was 0.06 but that causes her to be in violation of probation, and tomorrow she goes back to jail for that, we don't know for how long. And Charlize, my granddaughter, will soon be undergoing another 10-14 hour open heart surgery for her heart defects.

I am left holding all the responsibilities, as always, for all of them, and he is off without a care in the world, multiple girlfriends, and of course spinning quite a yarn and of course he is the long-suffering victim. I know this because of his sister, who is about to kick him to the street as she is disgusted. This is some of that "third-contact" info that violates the NC and is really hurting... his sister and I now have boundaries that we can chat and be friends, but she cannot bring up ANY mention of him! I am learning the hard way how important ALL NC is!

Sorry this is SOOO long, and I left out lots too! I have to say although I do not post frequently, that I have really started to understand and grow because the love of Jesus and this board and thanks to all!