I live in a state where same sex marriage is legal so that will explain the femaile pronouns.
Here's my story: I met S. three years ago on a blind date. She was about to have surgery. Because my former partner had died of cancer a few years earlier and I had PTSD from that, I told her I couldn't see her until she was well. By December she seemed to be fully recovered and asked me on a date. Soon we were a couple, and in a few months she wanted to buy a house together. Problem was that she had the down payment (turns out from 80k her former domestic partner had paid her to leave) but not enough income. How perfect that I had the income and no downpayment. We bought the house and two months later she had a heart attack. Then eight months later she had a stroke. Then three months later heart surgery, then another hospitalizetion, which pretty much brings us to this year.
By the time I had been through all this with her (juggling my job because I now had the health insurance for both of us) and being at her side day and night at the hospitals, I had full blown PTSD again myself. The deal was that I was going to go to my healer in March when I had some vacation time and money accrued. In February she flies into a rage one night, pulls me down the stairs, pushes me around the kitchen and verbally abuses me. The next day she is gone and although she told the neighbors where she was (a crisis center) she didn't let me know for four days. I'm sure she didn't tell them at the cirisis center about her assault. She cut me off from access to her medical records at this time.
In March I went to my healer and stopped self-medicating for the PTSD. This seemed to enrage S. even more because now I didn't have a vulnerability she could attack at will. She tried telling me I was a bad buddhist, but I told her anyone who said outright they were a good one probably wasn't so that didn't stick. She kept hammering at me about alcohol saying "It doesn't matter whether you drink or not, you're still an alcoholic because you have the personality of an alcoholic." This was a few months after I had still had nothing to drink. She became more and more verbally abusive.
We were married in May 2004 as soon as it was legal. At the time the uppermost thought in my mind was her having health insurance (it was three weeks after the stroke) and me having access to her at the hospital. We'd been living in the house together for two years. When we bought the house she said "This is our final resting place." When we were married she said: "When I make a committment, it is for life."
I believe all this with my whole heart. I knew we were having problems but I attributed them to the stroke. I thought when she got better physically our relationship would be "perfect" the way it had seemed at the start.
On June 18th she told me: "I know I can never repay you for all you have done for me. But I've decided to divorce you." When I asked her why she said: "You're not the person I fell in love with." That night she physically assaulted me again.
Since then, it has been a legal nightmare. She denies in court that she assaulted me either time, accuses me of being controlling and abusive, and refuses to come to even the simplest agreements about separating belongings. Everything has to been done with lawyers and the judge. This is ruiining me financially. I just want to hold on to the house which is my only source of comfort at the moment.
I' still can't believe this is who she is. I can't believe it happened. I can't believe I didn't see it coming. My mother is a narcisssist so of course a lot of it felt perfectly natural to me.
Not to mention what my heart feels like. One moment I am happily married for the rest of my life, the next I am living a nightmare.
