OurPath (formerly SSN) Open Forum » It's been a long time and I'm in serious trauma

OnMyOwnTwoFeet · June 25, 2021 9:00 pm

Hi all! I haven't posted for almost 2 years. I separated from my closeted gay husband almost 2 years ago, after a year of "trying to work on the marriage" after discovering his secret life in a traumatic way. And that was after years and years of his distance and dismissiveness in a 30 year marriage. There were so many frightening psychological turns at the end that I needed a safe plan to tell him I wanted a divorce.

Now, I remain married, because it is a never-ending divorce. My husband is using the court system as a weapon. My attorney says that in 30 years, he has never seen anything like it. I have extraordinary debt just to defend myself from all the court documents and stuff. The case will be going to trial (because I'm on trial--it's DARVO and "all about her" for sure). There were times when he threatened to withhold financial support, and times when he did withhold financial support (teens still at home, me traditionally a SAHM). He has hidden 80% of the retirement money and contests almost all other assets. He insists I should receive NO alimony at all. My two adult children are angry with me because they don't know everything and their dad makes it like I am the betrayer who just gave up and I'm hurting him and focusing on money, etc. He sends me emails that are accusatory and full of lies and distortions, and then he builds and builds on these. I am exhausted and terrified. I do not deserve to be treated like a beggar and a criminal.

Lately he has been laying claim to parent time saying that we don't have agreement, but the truth is he has entirely ignored his son. But now it is "all my fault." Frankly, I don't know how his attorney feels ethical in what she enables him to do.

It is upsetting enough to have had to make the decision to detach, and to come to terms with the deception, and all the years of lost life and memory. I learned he did not even like me when we got married but told me he loved me. I learned he was thinking of coming out just before I discovered things 3 years ago but then he decided he "didn't want to give up his lifestyle." But the trauma of the extended divorce where he just accuses me of all kinds of things and threatens so I fear my financial future--it just begs understanding, and I don't know how I am going to make it. If it were not for my children still at home, I wonder if I would get up in the mornings, I wonder if I would take my own life. There is just no end to it.

It is too upsetting for me to list all the things that have happened, but there are issues small and large. I frequently am lying down panic breathing. I can hardly function. I don't know if I will have enough to live on after the divorce, even though there are plenty of saved assets that I should legally have a right to half of. But he has hidden them. He also has money in cryptocurrency now. I have been trying to work, but having been out of the workforce for so long, my skills are truly not up to par with the many young people with current education and experience. I gave up a very successful career to raise our family, and now he points at that career from 30 years ago to say I should be earning 100K/year now. I am in my late 50's.

He is so incredibly cruel and dismissive in any communications. Because of upcoming trial, it will probably be at least 6-8 months before the divorce is final. My credit cards are almost maxed from legal debt and I have had to take out a promissory note from my brother. When we mediated personal property, he led with straight-out lies and a set-up to make it like he was being generous, but he did not acknowledge all the things he had already. then he targeted a list of things that were especially dear to me--things connected to my parents, my religion, our children, my most formative hobbies and loves, etc. The cruelty is just astonishing, and this is one reason I panic.

In court hearings, his attorney just yells at me and mocks me and accuses me of all kinds of awful stuff.

His emails also show these "gotcha" setups. And he will then drop a second email an hour later with a reference to a detail he left out of the first--the detail that changes his story. It is so calculated and truly sadistic. But I am also afraid because it is hard to prove such things when he is referring to private conversations and events. i mean, some of his emails are like the letters from psychopaths who are sending clues because their joy is not complete without letting people know about what they are doing. So I fear I seem crazy. I also have withdrawn from most social things because I am like an emotional leper. If I start talking about my experience, I start to panic-talk and cannot easily stop.

The damage to me and the children is awful. it is like he is going to sap very speck of potential joy out of life. our youngest will be graduating by the time the divorce is over. I have not been able to make plans for the future or do happy things with the kids.

What kind of a person does this? Takes decades of your life, then takes more years just to punish you? For God's sake, I am the mother of his children. He does not have to be so cruel. I accept--though painful--that he did not care about me. But why so calculatedly cruel. So much just to hurt, hurt, hurt. Hasn't he hurt me enough already?

But to other people, he seems like this really nice guy. And he "tried so hard." He "just doesn't understand" why I wanted a divorce. Etc. But "I guess she would rather struggle than stay married to me, etc."

So my husband could work out a reasonable settlement any day with me--but he won't settle unless I walk away from significant assets and agree to a small enough alimony figure that will leave me destitute by age 70--and even that's with me working and also if I actually am able to have half the assets. Meanwhile, he earns an astonishing amount of money. in the 4th tier of the 6-figures.

Recently our minor son took him to task and said he should finish the divorce, and that he was worried about if he or his mother would have any money to live on in the future. Then my husband followed up with how the long divorce was just because of "the legal process." He said he was "doing things behind the scenes" to settle it (this at the time I learned he was hiding assets, and then soon after, he filed for a pre-trial conference so it's not like his behind-the-scenes was toward anything out of trial--it was to make trial go more his way apparently). He said, to our son, basically: sorry son, it will probably still take many months, because the legal process, you know, the legal process. Then in a BIRTHDAY letter to the son, he basically said, your mother may or may not have what she needs to live on; that's up to her. But I love you even though you might not believe it because I haven't seen you much for more than a year. But once your mother is out of the way, I will give you everything you want, and then he lists cars, computer, and more. What kind of sick parent responds that way to his teen, when the teen has said he is worried about his mother? This is a sick, sick, gross man.

If anyone has any advice to help me, I would appreciate it so much.

Lynne · June 25, 2021 9:50 pm

((OnMyOwnTwoFeet))

He is a sick man and please, please I hope you have someone, like maybe your brother, who knows all the details of what you're dealing with and is there for you.

Don't take emails from him. Only communicate through your lawyer. I take it you're sharing all the communication you're getting from him, including the threatening letter in your son's card with your attorney. There are others on here who have gone through awful divorces and hopefully they will post and offer advice.

Last edited by Lynne (June 25, 2021 9:57 pm)

OutofHisCloset · June 26, 2021 6:00 am

OnMyOwnTwoFeet,

I'm so sorry you've had to come back in such trauma, but hope the support you get here will help lift you. Having read back through our messages to each other in 2019, I have to say that what you've endured and are going through is horrendous abuse. To discover what you did about your husband, to have him lie to you when you asked for details, and then to discover he'd lied, to have him manipulate you in the early stages of your separation and divorce--all that is in itself so destructive. Those experiences alone, together with the realization that the life you thought you had was a lie, and the ideas you had of your husband were false, and the ways you were trained to think of him and the ways you cut your behavior to fit so destructive to your own well-being, require even in the best of circumstances years of sustained effort to understand and recover from. To be further abused in the divorce process by a man so clearly disordered, who, having lost in his bid to re-secure you after your discoveries of his long secret life, has now shifted into an offense intended to destroy you, is outright torture. That you have the wherewithal to seek support here is testament to you.

I wish I had good advice, legal advice, to help you in your high conflict divorce with this closeted malignant narcissist. He is an evil man. I assume you trust your attorney. I assume you have inquired about retaining a financial investigator/forensic accountant to ferret out the assets your to-be-ex has hidden. I assume you are minimizing contact, and maintaining a strategy of non-engagement, while forwarding all his emails to your attorney. You already know that your to-be-ex's communications with you are designed to wound and to keep you off balance. You already know that money is not an issue for him--he has enough of it he doesn't need fight you--so for him this is about punishing you for refusing any longer to be his beard and cover. I wonder whether you have any leverage there? Do you know any of the names of his partners, and could your attorney threaten to depose them? Would this be more likely to bring him to the table? I ask only because you're so clearly on the defensive, and maybe you need some leverage, a way to play offense.

Last, I don't know if JenS ever reads here anymore, but I know she went through a very high conflict divorce herself. So perhaps you could PM her, or she will weigh in.

Navy-seal box-breathing--I find it helps. It activates the parasympathetic nervous system. It is essentially the same as "panic breathing," but I found that when I discovered that it was a technique taught to Navy Seals, that warriors used it, and had their own name for it, it helped me re-frame it from thinking of it as something I did when under attack to something I could do to maintain my equilibrium when I needed to be alert and effective. A small, but as it turns out, very useful shift in perception. It became more than something I resorted to when I felt whipped; it was something I could use to prepare to carry out my own mission.

Again, I'm so sorry you're here in such dire circumstances.

Edited to add: This post from Chump Lady, an interview with Dr. George Simon, on divorcing the character disordered: https://www.chumplady.com/2016/12/divorcing-disordered-interview-dr-george-simon/

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (June 27, 2021 7:07 am)

MJM017 · June 26, 2021 11:18 am

OnMyOwnTwoFeet,

Am appalled by the abusive and unethical tactics your STBX and his attorney are pulling. You do not deserve any of this harassment and character assasination. It's personal, but do not take it personally.

I didn't have a high conflict divorce. I had a high conflict GIDH and have a high conflict and manipulative immediate and extended family. I have some suggestions (sorry if these are repeats or actions you are taking already)

1) I echo the great suggestion to email him once to tell him to direct all emails to your lawyer. You will neither reroute his emails to your attorney nor respond to any emails he sends you. Thank you. He may still continue his email tirades. Have them go directly to a folder, bypassing your inbox, so you don't see them. Read them once a week when your are calm. Do not delete these. Your lawyer can help you if they show a pattern of abuse and harassment. The STBX is not ceasing and desisting. That's against the law.

2) Judges like the most reasonable person in the room at court hearings. Bring your calm face and do not react to questions by STBX's attorney which are meant to elicit an angry reaction from you. You know this is a trick. Say yes or no sir as you calmly and unemotionally state the facts. Don't look angry, roll your eyes, etc. You can call this legal gray rock. I believe this will help you get through these hearings and make your STBX's attorney look bad.

3) Justice most often is obtained by those that can afford it. It's unbelievable that he's hiding assets He has the means to get away with financial abuse, unfortunately. On your end, you gave up your career at his request to be a SAHM. That is a 24/7 job and is priceless since you raised wonderful children. It should be worth a lot of money here. Family courts are all about families. Is it possible to negotiate a lump sum settlement using this as a bargaining chip? This creep is bleeding you dry knowing you are fighting this. Think of how much you need to buy a place and money to invest which will allow you to earn a good income. For example, ask for $2 million. Take the money and run. Do you really ever want to hear from this jerk ever again?

4) He's using your kids as pawns. I think the psychological term is triangulation. He wants you to have a melt down in front of the kids. Be calm and don't participate. You can tell your kids it's a difficult time and you love them very much each time they relay a message from your STBX. Don't tell them anything else; don't fight by proxy. Take the high road. He may be pumping them for information to use against you. Money cannot buy love from anyone. Keep repeating that to yourself.

I don't know if these are helpful. This STBX has taken so much from you. Don't let him take your peace of mind, calm demeanor, and highly intelligent strategizing skills by his continued bullying. I hope it works out.

Vent away here as often as you need and want. It helps to let loose here so you can remain calm while facing these hearings.

Best,
Maria

OutofHisCloset · June 26, 2021 11:59 am

MJM,
I'm glad you brought up the lump sum settlement idea. I was going to ask about whether that was possible, but forgot. The advantage of a lump sum settlement is that one never has to deal with the ex again, and when someone is so clearly interested in making life miserable, it's wise to avoid that if at all possible.

Soaplife · June 26, 2021 8:48 pm

Onmyowntwofeet, i am so sorry you are being put through such a dreadful harrowing experience by your stbx.

My only constructive suggestion is to visit the Chump Lady site - or even write to her. Her advice is excellent. Check out The archives and. I'm sure sonewhere She provides lists of places you can access legal help in various US states. If you are not in the US There is still a heap of support on her site plus practical info for people going through what you are enduring with drawn out acrimonious divorces.

Your lawyer should be advising and defending your interests better for all that you are paying them. They are there so you don't have to deal with your ex - so make that happen as others advise.

I also second the advice to cut direct contact with your ex So you can clear your head and deal more calmly. They are so cruel and ruthless and know how to mess with us.

I hope things improve for you.

Last edited by Soaplife (June 26, 2021 8:48 pm)

JenS · June 27, 2021 7:57 pm

OnMyOwnTwoFeet,

OutOfHisCloset messaged me as your situation reminded her of my situation and she thought I may be able to offer some support to you at this difficult time. Both OutOfHisCloset and Lynne had endless patience with me when I was sorting through a similar situation. I am so grateful to them both.

Your STBX's behaviours match those of my ex. Your post could have been written by me two years ago. Without recounting my story, this is how I finally managed to get through it ,broken down into tips.

Read about going grey rock and actually go grey rock. The way I finally did this was by not engaging with his manipulations (which he was prone to send in long emails or letters). I stopped allowing his words into my head and I engaged with him from a place that was devoid of emotional energy. When he would write a long, manipulative and abusive letter - perhaps 5,000 words - twisting the truth into something unrecognizable and alleging all sorts of horrible things about me, I would try not to read it and learned to scan it for salient information that required a response. If I had to respond, I would say: "This is noted." Stop engaging and debating reality with him - it's pointless and exhausting and you will not win. To this day, I am very careful to pare my communication down with him to the barest minimum.

Consider changing your cell phone number and only giving him an email address for correspondence. That way, he can't bombard you with his texts and emails at his will. I used to feel sick when I would see my ex's name pop up at random in my phone . This way, I could check for communication from him on my terms.

Find something about yourself that you have lost touch with as a result of this life suck of a marriage and grow it. Part of the point of divorcing is to get back to being you and you can start, even now, in tiny increments to work on finding yourself again. Guard that for yourself and don't tell him about it or allow him in.

It helped me to consider my mind "closed" to my ex. By this, I mean that I literally willed my mind closed against him. I think you should try to do that. Just say: "my mind is closed to your words." or picture him saying "blah, blah, blah" when he talks. Closed, closed, closed. His words are not allowed into your brain. The time for that is over and done. No more. You can do this - it just takes some practice. This is probably the #1 thing I did to get away from my ex - to will myself psychologically out of his reach. The kids will notice you doing this and it will carry a lot of weight and you don't need words to do it; it's actually less words!

Give the lawyer any instructions he/she requires in a timely fashion, but remember that when divorcing a narcissist, the end result will likely not be 100% fair to the non-narcissistic partner. You want to get a good settlement but the win is in getting out. Although my lawyer wasn't perfect she was practical. She knew that getting me out was imperative so we found a way forward.

You need a team of people for support when going through this... this team can be comprised of friends, family, professional therapists, your lawyer, a yoga instructor, a pastor ... make sure you have supports in place. SSN counts as part of that team. But try your best to not get into the emotional side of it with your lawyer. Stick to the business of the divorce with your lawyer. This advice will reduce your legal bill. My lawyer flatly refused to engage with me on the emotional side of things and I realize now that she had to keep that distance.

Know that the kids will figure this out without endless explanations and words of justification. They were witness to much of it. They will figure it out. They are probably really sick of his words and BS. They will gravitate - if they are inclined to be healthy - towards the healthier parent (which is clearly you) so things will settle in time and I'm sure it will be to your advantage to just let it play out. You don't need to counter every stupid, stupid, manipulative thing he says. Let him spew his garbage and trust that it will get sorted in due course. If they ask, answer honestly and matter-of-factly but resist the urge to overshare. It's not necessary.

Consider rehearsing conversations with the kids with a therapist if you are worried about getting the messaging right. It helped me to script it.

It helped me to read and re-read Chump Lady, Elinor Greenberg, Lundy Bancroft and to also see a therapist. I found that understanding narcissistically abusive behaviour was helpful to me as I navigated his psychology.

Trust that you will heal, find space, find joy, find peace and laugh again. You will find new ways to be you and resurrect old lost parts of you. Your relationships with your children will improve and they will heal in your healthy home. You can do it! You are on your way!

Take care,

JenS.

Last edited by JenS (June 27, 2021 9:05 pm)

lily · June 28, 2021 2:36 am

HiJenS,

good to hear things have gone well for you. excellent tips.

xox, Lily

MJM017 · June 28, 2021 9:01 am

Those are great tips. I would add ignore and block/send to spam without opening unknown telephone numbers and email addresses. There are websites/apps where someone can easily create numerous email addresses and telephone numbers. Change your voicemail to the generic one offered by your carrier- (male voice saying - you have reached xxx-xxx-xxxx. Please leave a message.)

Sorry if this is a repeat. Have been there and done that. It works. We're rooting for you!

Best,
Maria

Ellexoh_nz · June 28, 2021 2:08 pm

JenS wrote:
........from a place that was devoid of emotional energy............

Such wonderfully practical advice!
I'm still with my partner but I found when I had no emotional energy to waste on him it became easier to be here

Elle

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June 25, 2021 9:00 pm #1

It's been a long time and I'm in serious trauma

June 25, 2021 9:50 pm #2

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June 26, 2021 6:00 am #3

Re: It's been a long time and I'm in serious trauma

June 26, 2021 11:18 am #4

Re: It's been a long time and I'm in serious trauma

June 26, 2021 11:59 am #5

Re: It's been a long time and I'm in serious trauma

June 26, 2021 8:48 pm #6

Re: It's been a long time and I'm in serious trauma

June 27, 2021 7:57 pm #7

Re: It's been a long time and I'm in serious trauma

June 28, 2021 2:36 am #8

Re: It's been a long time and I'm in serious trauma

June 28, 2021 9:01 am #9

Re: It's been a long time and I'm in serious trauma

June 28, 2021 2:08 pm #10

Re: It's been a long time and I'm in serious trauma

JenS wrote:

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