I married an abusive alcoholic three years ago today, 11/1
I met him on 11/1, married him a year later on 11/1.
On our honeymoon he left me alone four out of ten nights to go out drinking alone. I was too ashamed and hurt to tell anyone.
Several weeks into the marriage, after I sold my house, he told me he changed his mind and wasn't putting me on the deed to "our" house, which was his before we married. In the future, however, I would still be expected to help finance it. At one point I told him I wouldn't pay bills which he would have incurred with or without his family living there. If he was to enjoy the complete security of homeownership then he could also enjoy the privilege of financially maintain it. The result of that was his cancelling my health insurance and threatening to lock the thermostats when he wasn't home and let the children and I stay in an unheated home in January in New York.
Several weeks into the marriage I began to see how much he drank. And it made him very angry to hear me complain of it. So he would punish me if I brought it up and disappear for a few days. Or come home very drunk and be abusive. I would awake to my legs being spread open and the smell of jack Daniels. It was easier to wait until he fell asleep. When he came home drunk, if I were awake - or if he thought I were awake - he would often be angry. I never knew why. For just my being there, I suppose. If he were angry, he would turn on the lights, rock the bed, kick me further from his side of the bed when he came into it. Sometimes he would like me when he came home drunk. That was worse and I don't think I need to explain that further.
Now, and for what I imagine will be a very long time, the smell of Jack Daniels evokes an instant feeling of anxiety for me. Instant. Just from the smell of it.
For a very long time, he insisted on going to the same bars as he girlfriend.
And when I asked he at least go somewhere else, he said no.
I was given a choice, though. I could go out with him, to the bar where his ex girlfriend would be. Every time. And listen to her whisper about me, loudly enough for me to hear. And I learned not to say anything, because if I did, I was childish, paranoid and insecure. And he "never saw her do anything" perhaps I was making it up which is the reason he gave for not supporting his wife.
And I knew that when I wasn't with him, he was with her. When I was, they ignored each other.
And so others told me of their behaviors.
And so he punished me for that. By gaslighting me to think I was so wrong... the drinking, the deed, the girlfriend. All in my head. And he would deny all of, state the opposite, to the counselors and the therapists. I adore my wife, I would never do anything to hurt her, and she is convinced I am. If he were caught in a contradiction he couldn't explain or gaslight away, it wasn't a lie - he would say he simply changed his mind.
I was hospitalized for ten days with a nervous breakdown. I was married ten months.
In the hospital, he told me that my children would not be taken care of by him while I was there. He was too busy. The nursing station heard this, and called emergency family contacts. He denied it. They had misunderstood him.
And when I came home, it was almost our anniversary.
On our first anniversary, I found out about his affair with his old girlfriend. The one he told me I was paranoid of. The one he told me I was insecure about. The one who caused me such "paranoia and insecurity and abandonment issues" that I had just come from ten days of inpatient care for a nervous breakdown. During which time, he called me friends one by one to try and get them to help me keep me there. To ask them to collaborate with him. They refused, they told me, they pleaded with me to leave him. I stayed, they left my life.
And several weeks later, I saw them he and the girlfirend who existed only in my mind, embraced. In front of the same bar. That I went to because I just knew. My pride was gone, my sanity was leaving, but my intuition was right on the money still.
And this time, he knew he was caught. So it was a new game of remorse and regret. And he wrote a letter ending it with her at the suggestion of the counselor. Which I found out recently was intercepted carefully from her receiving it with the help of a friend of his, in an effort not to "hurt people unnecessarily - as long as my wife THINKS I did it, she will feel better".
That was right before the first AA attempt. That lasted about 3 weeks.
There was the time he was attacked badly by a dog. I got a call from him from the bar. I went to get him. And he was so drunk I had to half carry him to the car. And in "showing" me how the dog grabbed his arm, he grabbed mine. And his nails dug so deeply they broke the skin. I still have tiny scars. No one can really see them unless they look. But I know they are there.
Christmas, when he invited his friend, a convicted felon - I kid you not. And then sat with his friend and ignored my children and visiting family all day other than to make a comment about how it "used to be his house". And when they smoked pot that evening, I asked them to go into the basement at least, so the kids wouldn't smell it in the morning.
And every time I cried, or complained, or was sad, I was told how ugly I was and how no one would ever want to stay home with me. Who could blame him.
I am 5'3" tall and I wear a size 4 normally. When I was on the anti depressants prescribed to help me deal with it all, I gained 8 pounds. I was then a size 6. And I was told how fat and ugly I was. And how he was repulsed by me. Unless he was drunk. He said, in a later rehab stay, how he only was interested in me when he was drunk.
I wasn't married two years yet.
There was a morning when he came into the living room, took off his wedding ring and announced he didn't love me anymore and was divorcing me. He moved into the basement. Six weeks later, when I was sobbing at the table still looking for a place to live, he told me he changed his mind. And the abused person in me was relieved and thankful.
In all he filed two family offense warrants on me, withdrew both. I found out much later from my attorney its a common was to build a paper trail to deflect any charges that might be filed against him by me for various abuses. He called the police to the house five times in total. Charges were never made, but he has a record trail of it. I found out later that had I sought an atty at that time that I could have had charges brought against him for what is now understood to me to have been harassment.
At a Christmas party, my company Christmas party, he became so drunk he crashed and fell - knocking over people and bar stools. It was at a casino resort and the host had put us all up for the night. I tried to get him to the room. Security offered to call the police, but I said I had it under control. I got him up there and in bed. I went back down to try and do some damage control. I came back up tweNTy minutes later. He had gotten up. Pushed me into the wall, stormed out - past two friends of mine, hollering that I was a c*nt.
The next morning he had no recollection of the events. It was a full blown alcoholic black out.
Ultimately he was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Bi Polar. As well as being an alcoholic. At the time of his admission into rehab, he was also diagnosed with a Klonipin addiction. The Klonipin had been prescribed. In some ways, the fact that he was able to manipulate a trained professional into giving a man with a known substance abuse problem a very addictive drug that could and did cause hysteria and psychotic episodes was somehow validating.
I have been told he has psychotic episodes which may be triggered by things other than the drugs he took at that time. When he is drinking after a period of dry, or becoming dry when he's drinking - either of those changes, which in a person like Paul is a constant cycle, can trigger. It was a lose lose situation. He was released from rehab with eight psychiatric medications; stabilizers, anti-psychotics, anti-depressants, etc.
He stopped going to the intensive outpatient program and started drinking again within 6 weeks.
He accused me, both directly and to whomever else would listen, of manipulating a well known psychiatric hospital as well as a state funded rehab center into taking him when he didn't belong there.
His mother believed that, or so she chose to believe that, and he had a validate back.
I would have done anything to have him back in rehab long enough to maybe have it work. I wish I had that power he accused me of having.
He spent months trying to talk me into allowing him to bring another man into the bedroom so he could watch. When I refused, I was punished by all attention and any affection being withdrawn.
He would, for sport, when I was speaking to him on the phone - particularly if I were upset over another incident, put the phone down and walk away leaving me thinking he was listening. He would say, go ahead, Sweetie.... tell me what you need to say .... I am sorry and I want to hear. And then walk away from the phone. It would still be there, off the hook, when I came home hours later.
My dog, who loves everyone, was terrified of him. We think he abused the dog, because it was something I cared about.
When I finally told my father, who I have been estranged from one and off for months, about the abuse. He actually cried.
At one point during my physical move from the house, he told me that the reason it had to happen, the reason why he could never be the "husband you want or deserve" is because he was gay and planned to live a gay lifestyle.
Because of that admission, at my doctors insistence, I needed to go through a complete testing.
The loss of weight from the stress of this - I lost more than 30 pounds in less than ten weeks - had actually caused malnutrition symptoms to arise. My hair falls out. My legs and feet cramp several times a day. And I am dehydrated. My veins couldn't tolerate the blood being drawn and collapsed. It took 40 minutes or so to draw four vials. The pain in my arm from it brought me to tears.
A week later, on the exact day of my third wedding anniversary - which is also the fourth anniversary of the day I met him and the second anniversary of my finding out about his affair, my separation papers were signed by me and notarized.
My separation papers talk about the homosexuality, the addictions, the illnesses. I couldn't figure out why he allowed in there. Now I understand that he was hoping to set me up. Had I distributed or made public (to the girlfriend, his family who ostracized me and my children rather than admit his addictions and problems) those documents, in NYS, it would be harassment. Aggravated harassment. A civil suit. He was taunting me. Daring me.
That night, I drove by the house with the intention of putting his copy in the mailbox to expedite things. I was just in time to see him and his girlfriend. Their cars in the driveway, they cozy for the evening. The man who was gay and needed to be alone and let me go through the barage of tests = has apparently, magically become heterosexual again. I didn't stop, of course, and managed to hold the vomit until I had gotten far enough up the street to stop without the fear of humiliation of their seeing me literally and very graphically sick over the site of them.
Eight weeks prior, he had been on his knees. Literally on his knees. Begging me not to leave him. I had waited until my children were on an extended stay with their Dad. I packed a bag and moved into a hotel. He spent two weeks begging me to come home and "please just listen" to what he had to say. I did. I fell for it again, and I went back to that house to "listen". When I walked in, he was very oddly completely naked and on the phone in the kitchen. He had an awful look on his face, and he sickly went into the bedroom. He came out with pants on and he was angry. When I asked him what he wanted me to listen to, he told me. He wanted to have me listen to him tell me he wanted me gone. He was on his knees the DAY BEFORE. That was my parting gift punishment for leaving.
At this point, I don't think I will ever fully recover from it all. The hurt is intense. The lingering fear of what is going to happen next wont go away. If I see a truck like his, I panic.
There is so much more, so many stories. I couldn't possibly write them all down.
But that is what it was like. And yet the first thing people ask me is if he was "physically abusive".
A black eye heals so much faster. And you know what, people can SEE a black eye, or a broken arm, or a bruised side. They can't see the marks from being emotionally abused. And so, it's not as horrible in their eyes on the most part.
