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1 of 1- Chris77
- New member
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Overwhelmed and feeling lost
Hi. I'm new here and frankly petrified as to what my life is and what it will be.
Little history- 44 yr old married mom of 5. Spent much of my adolescence severely dysfunctional because of my transvestite biological father. The trans part was the least of his issues but needless to say it took me into my 30's to get over my "daddy" issues.
Fast forward to current marriage (previously divorced). Husband of 11 years, father of my last two children. When we met I had some solid rules. Porn together was fine, solo was not. He agreed. Caught him a few years ago and had our first big fight. Trusted him again and then found out in August 2020 he has watched over 3k videos from one of the sites in the lst 18 months. It has a counter on it...go figure. The other sites just show a wide variety in his taste. Gay, bi, straight, mom fantasy, etc...a little bit of everything. There was a secret google account he created, and I was devastated. We started marriage counseling in August and then in January I feel like I got hit with a mac truck. I went to his "man shed" where he spent a great deal of time. There I found a dildo covered in feces, women's underwear and a variety of things. I had a panic attack, called my parents to come get the kids and we had it out. Talked to our therapist the next day and she said that it would be best for me to send him away for the weekend and gather my thoughts before deciding what to do. So now we are about 9 weeks out from that event. About two weeks later he takes a lot of money out of the bank and runs off after leaving a suicide note. While out he spends a few thousand on a new computer, phone, and a variety of sex toys and lives it up. He had turned his phone off originally but turned it back on after he rented a car so I was able to find our vehicle the next day. Instead of finding just the vehicle I found him with the vehicle on the phone with his parents rushing to get to me. He was about an hour away from our home. He voluntarily went to in patient center, then checked out a few days later. The psychiatrists and therapists think he was mislabeled as ADD as a child and is really bipolar. Diagnostic testing says he has qualities of bipolar and schizophrenia. Meds really have kicked in the last two weeks and I can see a huge difference in his personality. But I don't believe a word he says. My heart is broken and my life feels like a complete mess. He is on FMLA leave trying to get his mental heath in check but I'm juggling kids, being the bread winner in a high stress job and trying not to lose my mind along the way. I thought my life was finally what I had always hoped it would be. Now I'm sitting here in my mother's previous shoes wondering why the world's sense of humor is so cruel. There was nothing feminine about my husband that I noticed. But now I feel like a fool. A fool who has no idea what to do most days. He is still in our home, working on himself, making promises and trying everyway he can to put the pieces of our life back together. Meanwhile I'm acting as a surrogate mother...making appointments, dealing with all of his stuff. I'm overwhelmed and could use some words of wisdom from someone who is/was in a similar situation. I'm just at a loss right now.
- lily
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Re: Overwhelmed and feeling lost
Hi Chris,
so sorry, just read your post and bashing off a 'hi' note because I feel for you so much - it is uncanny the way the daddy thing comes back to haunt a person. Not sure if it happens to everyone but in a different way, it did to me too.
I have a suggestion to make - go to the doctor for a general health check up. I did this and I can't tell you how reassuring it was. I went because I had a panic attack - I think it is common to have one of those when this awful news hits.
The trouble is it affects the way you remember your past, you realise things were very different to the way you believed them to be - the ground is swept from under your feet, I found it took a while just to get back to feeling normal again.
tbh, my response on reading your story was unequivocal - does he do anything useful, does he do housework, take out the rubbish do shopping make you cups of tea and do the yard work? anything???
I do not think you are a fool, you sound kind and intelligent - it is just that like me, like most of us you are probably easily fooled. If he is always talking you into giving him another go then now's the time to step back and see him for who he is. They can call him bi polar as much as they like you are not his mother and his actions are emotionally abusive towards you.
I feel concerned for you because it looks to me from your story that his parents as well as himself are trying to make you his nursemaid. Marriage is supposed to be a two way street.
So my other suggestion is to talk to a lawyer.
- OutofHisCloset
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Re: Overwhelmed and feeling lost
Chris,
I am the daughter of a father who was bipolar, and whose condition worsened as he got older (which is a fairly common progression of bipolar: higher highs, lower lows, and more frequent cycling over time); he became paranoid and believed people were watching him 24/7. The delusions added to the manic phase can indeed lead to the type of behavior you describe in your husband. My father refused to believe he had a problem; to him, the problem was that we didn't believe him. I learned over time that I couldn't help him, so I had to erect some strong boundaries to protect myself. My mother eventually divorced him, after 30 years of marriage.
I was also married to a man who after 32 years of marriage, at age 58, decided he was a "woman in a man's body" and transgender. He "experimented," including by wearing my underclothing, for at least three years before he told me (I say "at least three years" because I have no idea if what he told me was the truth, and I have reasons to believe he wasn't telling me the truth). Like you, I had no clue, and there had been no evidence to suggest this about him.
After his disclosure to me, he displayed a lot of disordered thinking, telling me he was "multiple," and had "many women and many men" inside him. He believed that he was superior person because unlike me, he had transcended "the binary" and was "multiple." Listening to him reminded me of nothing so much as listening to my father's delusions, and like you, I began to wonder what cruel joke the universe was playing on me, with my husband reprising my father's delusions and disordered thinking.
I second longwayhome in saying you will need to establish boundaries to protect yourself and your children.
I'd also say that you aren't required or obligated to bear the burden of your husband's mental illness by staying married to him. A marriage takes two people both contributing, and if his mental illness renders him unable to be a fully functioning partner in the marriage, you cannot carry it--and him--alone, nor should you be expected to, or expect yourself to.
If you are not yet ready to make the decision to separate and/or divorce, then especially in the case of someone who has acted the way your husband has, and for the reasons he has, his "promises" should not be sufficient for you to simply re-set the marriage. He should have a treatment plan, and demonstrate by his actions, including taking medications and getting psychiatric help, and with benchmarks of behavior for him to meet. Based on my experience with both my father and my ex, I can't imagine that he is even able to forego the desire to wear women's clothes or to give up the porn. What you are seeing is the form his fixation/illness takes, the way it manifests.
Given your history with a transvestite father, the resultant trauma of discovering similar behavior in your husband is in and of itself sufficient for you to leave and divorce. If his tendencies are not acceptable to you in the marriage, you have every right to exit the marriage.
I'm sorry you are living this nightmare.
Last edited by OutofHisCloset (March 13, 2021 11:46 pm)