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1 - Anon2222
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Personal Torment
It is 2 am and I can't sleep.
Yesterday, both myself and my gay husband arranged to do something with our respective friends. My friend came over to the house, so he planned to meet up with his friend in the city so we could both have some space. The plan was for each of us to go out for the afternoon to get away and then get back to home renovations etc in the evening.
Original agreement was he would be home around 6:30pm. So, my friend and I had a great time and she left around 6. I was waiting for him to get back (and I also texted earlier to confirm and he said he was the one that said he would be home around 6:30/7).
Time is incredibly important to me. It has been our entire marriage. And this has been an area of contention many times. To me, if you say you will be home at a certain time, you are home at that time. And if you aren't going to be, you let the other person know. It's a simple matter of respect for the other person. To say a time, not bother to show up, and not even communicate with the person, to me, shows how little that person matters to you. I also get extreme anxiety when someone says a time and then doesn't bother to communicate....the whole what if scenario. I have never been shy about how I feel about this. He is well aware.
6:45 pm roles around....nothing. So I send a text asking him what's the plan as I want to figure out how the evening is gonna go (supper, etc). I get back "make other plans, I'm not gonna be home". So I asked him what time he was thinking now and he says maybe around 9:30.
And I just broke down. It just felt like the ultimate "you don't even matter" moment. I had set my day around the time he had planned to be home. And he couldn't even be bothered to give me a heads up. That's what did it for me...how hard is it to send a 3 second text saying change of plans???
We have been married for 16 fricking years and he is well aware of my anxiety around time and lack of communication. I have told him many times that it is utter torment to me to have him do this.
I have never restricted his time. I have never interrupted him going out with friends, or doing what he wants. I don't tell him to come home early. All I have ever asked is for some communication. He ended up being gone 12 hours yesterday...which was not even remotely the original plan. While we are in this grey area of figuring things out I honestly don't care if he goes out and does what he wants....but his actions still impact my life and all I want is a little common courtesy while we're still living under the same roof. Once he moves out, I don't care (or, what I should say is I will learn to not care but it will be easier cuz I just won't know).
After a long evening (where he also didn't come home at 9:30 *eye roll*) I realized something I know the anxiety is my problem, and it is something I am going to have to deal with (although it becomes a mute point when he moves out because that worry is gone) but I came to the realization that either he is well aware of the personal torment this is to me and doesn't care, or he has no idea after 16 years of marriage and has ignored me and my needs that whole time.
I'm not sure what to expect in the morning. As I just went to bed, wasn't going to bother staying up. I also realized that it really doesn't matter what he does or says. Because the simple issue at hand is he is aware of how I feel and disregarded it. And it's just one more thing that shows how little he cares.
It's funny, because of all things, this broke me. I actually sat and cried until I was just shaking. Such a simple task. Follow through on what you say you will do....
- Ellexoh_nz
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Re: Personal Torment
Anon2222 wrote:
It is 2 am and I can't sleep,.....
It's hard not to care, not to react, worry or feel aggrieved when you are still tied emotionally to what your husband and you had.
It's a mental chore, you have to teach yourself to not care about how what he does affects you.
Hugs... Elle
Last edited by Ellexoh_nz (August 7, 2022 4:34 am)
KIA KAHA
- OutofHisCloset
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Re: Personal Torment
What you just had was an epiphany, one that causes the scales to fall from your eyes. He's been doing this to you your entire marriage, and you've been telling him not to do it, and he's kept doing it, and you've been thinking for years that he just doesn't "understand," and that if you just explain it to him again he will stop doing it because he must care for you.
Now you've understood that this action, repeated over sixteen years, does not represent a lack of understanding that he can be educated out of, but a lack of care for your feelings, and a concrete expression that your anxiety doesn't matter to him, and that he's willing to turn this back onto you, making you the one with the problem-it's your anxiety, not his behavior--which is another way to say, it's not what I did that's the problem, it's your reaction to it, which is an abusive DARVO tactic ("deny, attack, reverse victim-offender").
Now that you've seen this, you're going to recognize it elsewhere in the dynamics of your relationship. It's going to help you disengage emotionally, and give you some laser focus on what it is that you want.
- Victo
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Re: Personal Torment
It sounds to me like your partner was never actually a partner. Sounds disturbingly familiar to me.
I put up with lies, constant disrespect and deliberate undermining. And people still sometimes ask me why I stayed so long.
I was never going to leave my marriage. I was in it and I was doing the right thing because at a certain point, I thought it was the only way to get her to act decently towards me.
So, when my ex then described the marriage as a battle for moral superiority, I was shocked. It was never about ‘superiority’. I didn’t want superiority. I wanted mutual love and respect.
That wasn’t even a remote possibility in her mind because SHE was gunning for superiority all along.
Anyway…. I bring this up because it is relevant to what you went through last night. It sounds like you had an awakening as you tried to sleep.
Your partner was likely never your partner in any real way. His primary relationship was probably always with his lie and likely never with you.
I’m so sorry this is happening to you, but I am also hopeful that when you get the chance to focus on just yourself, you will be able to overcome the damage he has done with his lack of real love.
You deserve way better than what you are dealing with.
- Rob
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Re: Personal Torment
Anon,
Yes..I know the feeling..my GX would go "shopping" with her friend till 2am.
I would physically shake with the betrayal and anxiety. It is a trauma. Make sure you seek medical help for yourself for this as he is not going to help you. What you are seeing is the real them coming out..showing how much they really care don't care.
Know that you don't have to put up with this forever..there is a place, away from them free of anxiety and hurt. A humane and moral place.
Wishing you strength and fortitude
"For we walk by faith, not by sight .." 2Corinthians 5:7
- Ellexoh_nz
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Re: Personal Torment
......and you've been thinking for years that he just doesn't "understand," and that if you just explain it to him again he will stop doing it because he must care for you. .....
Omg yes! *I* thought if I talked/explained enough he'd realise it was him that needed to step up/be better. It was usually late at night when I would 'start' on him. Asking questions about why he wouldn't talk to me, how I knew something was wrong "why won't you talk to me"....and I'd talk and he'd lie there and listen, but I know now he only listened to allow me to talk, hoping I'd get it out and leave him alone. Man I was so stupid! and it's a pity I only have the realisation now, in hindsight, of what this did to my self-esteem.
Elle
KIA KAHA
- Anon2222
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Re: Personal Torment
When does it get easier?
I thought as time passed it would at least become a bit more bearable. But I would say I'm in a worse place now than I was a month ago. I just keep getting more and more depressed. At first I thought I could do this...and now, I really don't.
What I have come to realize is that I just don't want to do this. I don't want to go through a divorce. I don't want to see him date other people. The thought makes me physically ill. The thought of going on a blind date repels me. I don't want to live in this house alone. Work myself to death. I don't want to grow old alone. Like....nothing in my "new" life is remotely appealing. I honestly want nothing to do with it.
I love being married. Having the companionship. Someone to come home to. It's a part of my identity. Now I have to change my entire self. And I want to say to life...no.
My life has reached the point where I just don't want to live it. I take the meds. I have both a psychiatrist and psychologist. But I honestly just don't feel like doing this. I have dealt with my mental health my entire life but this bout of depression is unlike anything I have experienced before. And it's a real struggle.
I am trying to tell myself it will get better, but I'm not buying it.
Any advice for someone down in the dumps and just at the beginning of the mind fuck? Anyone else already have mental health illness and this is exacerbating the hell out of it?
- •
Thread Starter- Marianne
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Re: Personal Torment
It does get better. Slowly, bit by bit.
You are still living with him and that is wearing you out, sapping your strength. Yes, divorce is nothing to look forward to... but when you separate physically, you get much better opportunity to heal. You can't see the way out when you are depressed... that's the hardest part of it... but there IS a way out. There is a future. There will be good things in your life.
I've been alone for 6 months and looking back, I'm now much stronger and happier than I was in the terrible nightmare days after his coming out. It's still hard... I'm often sad... but it's getting better.
- Blackie563
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Re: Personal Torment
Anon2222 - I am new here. I am at the beginning stage, where I have been married for 19 years (together for 23) and knew something was off for the last 4 months. This Saturday my wife told me she had developed feelings for a female workout buddy. (But apparently hasnt acted on them. She put up walls and was cold and distant for months, I finally forced the issue and she told me. Its been the longest 4 months of my adult life.
I dont know where we will end up. I can't possibly understand your specific situation, but I empathize. I feel cold, have barely slept and just ate my first meal in 2 days. I go between work meetings to cry. I feel like its not worth it. But then I remember my kids and the 23 years we did have that were wonderful. I dont want to divorce or lose her, but realize that is a potential outcome.
Hang in there. Without knowing you, the world is better with you in it. I've struggled with mental health my whole life too. You can make. I am telling you as much as myself 
- Ellexoh_nz
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Re: Personal Torment
When does it get easier?.......Any advice for someone down in the dumps and just at the beginning of the mind fuck??
To get to the other side of this we have to go through it Anon. That's it. We can't go around it, we can't fly overtop of it. There is no shortcut.
I'm 5 years on from the Mindfuck and I think the hardest part of all of it is that I've been doing it alone, because for the first 3 I was still hoping we could get back to what we had but coming up against negativity of him wanting more, and for the last 2 I've been carrying this whole shambles on my own since the intimacy, and talking about anything remotely to do with intimacy/sex/how we were...stopped. If I could go back to being angry about the Mindfuck.....maybe I would get to the end of this sooner but it is what it is. I'm not going to compromise my safety (my health) and my survival (what I would come out of this with) just to throw it all away without being certain I have all bases covered.
It got easier when I took my partner out of the equation. Yes he's in the picture now but when I think about a future without him I can't get all emotional about the life we had because...that's all gone. Even if our partners turned around now and said "let's go back and be like we were" we'd never trust them. I know I wouldn't anyway. I've known for years that my partner would carry on without me quite happily, because that's the kind of self-sufficient person he is. So it all came down to me making myself comfortable being without him. It started with the first time I took a holiday without him. 5 weeks! Visited my children in 3 cities, really enjoyed being on my own, but with people I love. Proved to myself, after always stressing when we were apart, that he isn't necessary in my day to day life but also admitting to myself that we have a history that's so deeply embedded that I need surety, a plan, a goal...so that when (if) I ever leave I'll have the strength and backing to not regret it.
Elle
Edited to say.....it's one word Anon. Mindfuck. This forum is the only place I use it.
Last edited by Ellexoh_nz (August 8, 2022 3:08 pm)
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