Thank you all for the comments and feedback. The neighborhood where our home is located has rapidly gone down hill (two shootings since the summer, and two homeless camps on surrounding roads causing the road to be littered with used needles and more) so I don’t ultimately want to stay living in this home with the kids. I’d like to sell the home and be done with it (plus he picked the home out and nothing about it was really what I wanted- I don’t want to be stuck in a home he chose to his liking because of him). I’m realizing I’m continuing to allow his behavior and need to just take steps to move forward like talking to an attorney.

I unfortunately made this connection as well. I survived childhood sexual abuse, as well as later abuse and trauma. I never received any recognition from my abusers- they wouldn’t admit what they did to me, or offer an explanation or apology or anything. One accepted a guilty plea which is the closest I got. But I think it all haunted me more than I realized- because my relationship with my GID husband led to a cycle that was harmful and abusive but at the time felt positive and loving and looking back on it I think it’s because I was finally getting apologies and recognition of the abuse, which I’d craved my whole life. My GID husband for example missed our first wedding anniversary supposedly because he had to work late (I believed him then- now I don’t), and when he got home he screamed at me and was awful to me, blaming me for ruining our anniversary because I was upset he got home so late and missed our dinner. But that weekend he planned an elaborate date and apologized profusely for his behavior. That type of behavior was repeated for years, manipulating me into believing I deserved the treatment and to just wait hoping for things to improve. I honestly don’t think I ever would have realized how toxic his behavior was if he hadn’t stopped the apologies and such- last year he reached the point it was just all lies and abuse all the time, with no apologies or reprieve for me at all, and it took that for me to finally realize what was happening.

I’m currently stuck with my husband in our house with our two children dealing with this pandemic and it’s making me feel even crazier than I did before, so I wanted to reach out just to get a perspective from others.

Our marriage started going downhill when I was pregnant with our second kid. We’d planned and tried for this child and yet my husband acted like he was unhappy with the pregnancy. He did none of the kind things he did for my first pregnancy, and had no interest in appointments or anything. At the same time, he’s begun texting and being on the phone at all hours and changed the password on his phone. I became unable to see his Facebook friends list or posts. He chose to go on a week long conference, adding extra days he claimed were for the conference but hundreds of pictures were posted by his coworkers of him sight seeing those days (their pictures were public), The extra days had caused him to miss the birthday trip I had planned for him and had to reschedule so he could go do those tourist things with the coworker I was suspicious of. He spent the trip staying out until 2am getting drunk and refused to answer my calls to tuck our kids in. He refused to FaceTime me at night and I think someone was in his hotel room. Shortly after that trip, that coworker announced her divorce. My husband started coming home late from work, he went out with a friend a few times and came home several hours late each time. I was positive he was having an affair with that female coworker.

By December, our second kid’s first birthday, I was ready to make it through Christmas and then try to figure things out. He was constantly picking fights and then choosing to sleep on the couch, never wanting physical contact. One night, I went downstairs and found him asleep with his phone and it was buzzing in a way that wasn’t a text alert. A notification on his screen said he had a message from a man on a  hookup site.

I used my computer to login (the notification h