*Please note: I REALLY needed someone out there to know that all of this has been happening to me, and I tried to change any offensive wording so it would be more appropriate for this website. If anything else is unsuitable, I will gladly edit it further. Thank you for taking the time to read my novel.*
Hello everyone. I can't believe that I have to write this, but I am a thirty-one-year-old female who is disabled, unable to drive or work, and I am basically homebound most of the time. I have no friends to speak of in real life. For the past four years now, I've found myself living nearly three hundred miles away from home with a man who is quite literally the most abusive person I have ever known. Important sidebar: I had been on medicaid and SSI, but now because of a priorly held mortgage I had with my ex husband, I am deemed permanently ineligible to receive any government funding. Social Security counts the value of that propertyagainst me, so now I have no income of my own. Worse yet, my ex husband refuses to remove me from that mortgage, and I have no way of hiring any attorney to fight his decision.
My past requires much explanation, so please forgive my candor. You see, my first marriage ended in 2011 (and that was the last topic I posted about here at CF), and it wasn't until the next few months passed that I realized that my entire perception of that relationship had been completely tainted by the grips of my borderline personality disorder and severe anorexia. It's so difficult to admit this, but in the wake of those looming issues, I actually allowed myself to become the most tyrannical, controlling, possessive, and selfish person imaginable toward my spouse, and I was so wrapped up in myself that I couldn't even see it. For seven years, I tore the man who was the absolute love of my life to utter shreds, and all he ever did was try to appease me. At the time, I honestly believed that HE was abusing ME, when the truth was that I was treating him like utter crap, and his cruelties toward me were for the most part his attempt at defending himself against ME.
Looking back at just how awful I had been to him, I simply cannot believe I let myself do all of that. In hindsight, I had felt so strongly that I simply didn't deserve my then-husband's love that I made it my mission to destroy him, without even noticing what I had done.
It's been nearly seven years since my then husband severed all contact with me, and I yet I still cannot think of him without crying. I miss him every day. It is likely it hurts all the more because of the situation that I'm currently facing. That said, here is the main reason for my post.
I have been married for four very long years to current spouse, who has markedly severe ADHD, although he denies its intensity.
When we first met, he seemed very caring, charismatic, and loving. Initially, it seemed that we had a connection that was worth exploring. He even made a number of hours-long bus trips to visit me at my apartment. Strangely, it wasn't long before we ended up engaged, and I found myself preparing to leave the only place I'd known for twenty-seven years of my life.
Soon after we were married, he began continually binge drinking and physically or psychologically abusing me as well. He did and said everything cruel thing that you could even fathom, from telling that he would love to watch me kill myself to stating that he "wished he could cut out my tongue so that he'd never have to hear my voice again" and he was obsessed with comparing me to his ex-fiancee, whom he constantly told me that he still loved and missed. He spent all of his off time either out at the bar binge drinking until very late in the night, home in front of his computer playing video games, or going out to hockey games, and sadly ALL of that still rings true FOUR years later.
A normal day in my life now consists of him forcing me to spend all of my time by myself in our bedroom alone while he sits in the livingroom playing video games and watching sports and inappropriate contentography. This means that I typically spend about twelve hours a day alone when he's here, and double that if he isn't.
Not a day goes by now that he doesn't still psychologically and emotionally abuse me EVERY TIME I ever try to speak to him in person, so unfortunately, I'm left only ever being able to converse with him on the phone without some sort of problem arising. No matter what I say or do, he will find a reason to batter me with the most heinously cruel threats and insults imaginable- every time I come near him. Most days I am called "an insufferable b****" at least twice, and "divorcing me" is always a go-to topic if I ask him to speak to me. But, those things aren't even really scratching the surface. I could post examples, and I will if someone is curious.
Still though, when he's off, he spends the night before binge drinking until the next morning. If I'm lucky, he sobers up enough not to be abusive when he finally stumbles home.
So here is my new problem, my current spouse forced us to continue to live in a roach and spider infested apartment for THREE YEARS until just three months ago, when due to his mistreatment of the apartment management, he got us forced to officially vacate the apartment.
In my naivety, I actually believed that this new living situation might be a slight improvement in our relationship. To my utter dismay however, not even three weeks after moving to our new apartment, he called me at 3am from the bar and said that HE HAD JUST CHEATED ON ME!!!
This was after all of his excuses over the past four years for refusing to be intimate with me, and then most recently, he told me that he "HATED (intimacy)" and that it was a waste of his time, and that I'd just have to be celibate and deal with it. Worse yet, he tried to make me believe that he had been RAPED by this homewrecking woman he had met at the bar, when the truth was that he didn't fight her off, he "kissed her a lot", and he even allowed her to drive him to the gas station in order to buy protection for the sole purpose of being (intimate) with her!!! To top all of this off, he when got home from having his affair, he mocked me for being angry, and even asked if WE could be intimate the following morning!! He even said that he wanted to use the remaining contraceptives that he had purchased for his affair to be intimate with me!!!
The next day nothing had changed, and he literally expected me to forgive him immediately. He spent the entirety of the next THREE DAYS following his affair playing video games and only stopping to eat, sleep, or be cruel toward me. My reaction to his affair and subsequent behavior was to tell him that I wanted a divorce right away, because I had always told him that cheating was an absolute deal breaker in my opinion. I thought he had agreed. Instead, he told me if that was the case, thst I should pay for the divorce myself, and find somewhere else to live, because he wanted to move on with his life if I was unwilling to forgive him and continue to be married as though nothing had ever happened.
At one point about a week and a half after it happened, my spouse suddenly seemed to have a change of heart and told me that "he would do whatever it took to save our marriage including counseling, medication, even wearing a chastity belt so that I felt secure about him not cheating on me again whenever he's out at the bar". These, of course, were all false promises, because he never followed through with any of them. Instead, it's as though he never cheated on me, as he has already forgotten about it, and told me that it's "my job as a wife to forgive him and give him (intimacy) whenever he needs it, if I expect to continue to have a roof over my head and food in my mouth." He knows that I've called all of the shelters in the area to no avail and I have no family or friends to turn to for help. Also, due to permanent financial constraints, I'm now forced to stay with him indefinitely. He has told me every day since his affair that "he has a RIGHT to be intimate with whomever he pleases whenever he chooses, and since I am unwilling to put out for him, he will ABSOLUTELY be getting intimacy elsewhere, because I CANNOT deny a person intimacy, because he "needs it to stay healthy and sane, so he WILL get it when he wants it". He told me that if I'm not happy with that, to just move out, because I serve no purpose to him now, and he WILL be bringing other people home with him, whether I am still living here. He told me most recently that he "simply isn't monogamous" and he "needs se*(intimacy) in order to stay healthy and sane, and he will NOT be celibate because of me", and that he is "putting his needs above this marriage, because he matters more than I do, so if I want to live with him and still be married, I had better 'put out, soon'".
I have attempted to contact every local homeless shelter I could find to no avail. There is currently only one resource (a shelter advocate) who has agreed to try to take on my extremely twisted case, but due to my particularly odd circumstances and lack of income, even she told me not to hold out much hope of there being much that she can do for me. That being said, I really am frightened out of my mind that this is literally my doom: being trapped with a lying, continually cheating, binge drinking, physically and psychologically abusive spouse who sees no reason to ever change any of his behavior. This can't really be it for me, can it??
