AnvilheadII

PS - was the card he used issued in his name? meaning did he have authorization to use it? if not, filing a police report would be in order. because that is THEFT.

secondly - and i know i'm just the pixie of happiness here, but my spidey senses tell me it is likely he was also doing drugs......coke immediately came to mind when you mentioned bars and strip clubs. dancers and escorts have connections. being gone for three days and the first day back "don't wanna live" sounds a lot like a coke binge/crash.

you didn't sign up for this. and you don't have to allow anyone to treat you like this, ever.

53500

That is absolutely true, in his current state.

OT, to add to the people who have said get rid of him - GET RID OF HIM. This is terrible behavior. He disappears for days, uses YOUR money without your permission for booze, comes back, verbally abuses and blames you?! He sure does sound like an active addict.

Please, please, move into the house without him. You do not need or deserve this. Your kids don't. DO NOT give him keys and if he has access to any more of your credit cards, cancel them and end his access permanently.

I'm so sorry for your pain.

Bekindalways

Hi OT4kids, I hope you found some support for yourself. This kind of thing is very typical of alcoholics. Really hard to deal with.

Like Theseithakas, your story brought back memories. At this point (years later), I can laugh; it just got so predictable. Like your situation, my qualifier expressed passionate attachment to me and then . . . nothing. gone. no contact. It indeed made me crazy as it made so little sense. I always felt like one of Pavlovs' dogs in the control group. I didn't learn for a long time.

Big hug to you and let us know how it goes.

puffy

How is it going OT?

firebolt

oh we all know this feeling all too well.

I PROMISE - this is not the end of the world. They can just suck the soul right out of a person, and it takes a long time for us to see that we let them - hell, we HAND it to them at times.

You can take your power back, you can put an end to the suffering, and you can move forward into a happier, healthier, and more secure future. Please keep posting, and check out some alanon meetings, and take gentle, good care of yourself. (((HUGS))) THere is peace on the other side of this if you want it!

OT4Kids

He disappeared again for 2 days about a month from the last time. Supposedly wasn't drinking but who knows. He says he left because he was too stressed out. That he needed to get away from me because I am a bitch and stress him out and because he says my kids are disrespectful to him and don't accept him as a father figure (I was divorced 6 months ago but separated for over 2 years before the divorce) I had been married for 22 years so of course my kids have trouble accepting a man other than their father. This man punishes me by disappearing or withholding affection and intimacy and blames me for everything. Last night and tonigjt he slapped me across the face knocking my glasses off and pushed me down tonight breaking the TV. He cursed me out. Says he is leaving me....that he will just disappear forever next time. Yet I still feel like I can't live without him. I hardly slept for 2 nights when I had really important things going on at wOrkney. Now he is sleeping like a baby and I have been awake for 21 hours. What is wrong with me.

Seren

Violence, my dear woman, is never, ever, ever OK! Please, please consider calling the Domestic Violence hotline and getting help!

1-800-799-SAFE (7233)
1-800-787-3224 (TTY)

Second, contact a local shelter. They will be able to talk to you about how to protect yourself and your beautiful children! Is violence toward you something you really want to model for your children? Love is working to benefit the beloved. Is what he is doing really for your benefit--at all? It seems very one-sided to me.

As to why he does this? He is a sick, sick man...this kind of sick is not something you can fix for him--not even a little bit. He needs the help of professionals and of those who also struggle with addiction.

Please keep yourself safe!!

FeelingGreat

OT please reach out for help. He has gone from deadbeat and alcoholic to dangerous abuser.

If you can't do it for yourself, do it for your children who, with you, are living a nightmare. Is there somewhere you can go until you get him out of the place?

Please think in terms of ending this relationship as the abuse is escalating.

Ladybird579

he knows that I need money for my house he called me a bitch and told me to stop stressing him out and the past was in the past so I shouldn't nag him about his disappearance or anything that he does.

My heart is breaking.

Please, please leave to a place of safety until you get your new house. This is only going to get worse. He has crossed every line going and he knows he can get away with anything he likes now.

LexieCat

What they said. Call the DV hotline and/or your local women's shelter and talk with an advocate. Sounds like the abuse is escalating. You and your kids are in danger.

You CAN live without him--trust me. I've worked in the DV field professionally for a very long time. One of the things abusers do is to tear you down emotionally until you do feel like you can't survive without them. It's an illusion, though. You need support, and a plan, to safely escape the abuse.

Abuse is a completely separate issue from the drinking. .

He is capable of putting you in the hospital, or worse. He is capable of wrecking your credit. Please call someone. I'd suggest the police, but somehow I don't think you would do that just now. An advocate won't try to force you to do anything you're not ready to do, but WILL help you plan for your own safety (and your kids' safety). They could get caught in the crossfire, and they are also concluding that it's OK for a man to treat a woman this way.

honeypig

What difference would his drinking make, one way or the other?

He vanishes, knowing it scares you. He slaps you and pushes you down. He threatens you. He spends money you need for living expenses. ALL of these things are completely unacceptable, whether or not he was drinking before, during or after them.

You may feel you can't live w/o him, but I can assure you, that is simply not true. If you're objective about it, what good things does he bring to the relationship that you couldn't provide for yourself? Hmmmm....thinking.....thinking more....still thinking....I believe the answer is going to have to be NOTHING.

What would you really lose? Physical and verbal abuse? Belittlement? Abandonment? Financial problems?

Please do as suggested by others and contact DV resources. Lexie, as well as many others here, know their stuff about DV. Others have escaped, and you can too.

honeypig

And OT? XAH knew I had issues w/abandonment and on a number of occasions used that knowledge (actually leaving or threatening to do so) to shut me up and/or punish me, so I understand your fears. I was so afraid the day he actually moved out, but the Universe was looking out for me.

A story I found especially inspirational was this one, and I suspect you might be able to relate to it as well:
http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...rd-health.html

Again, please use your DV resources and start to make a plan to get your kids out of this awful situation and save your own sanity and self-respect as well. And please stay in touch here, as long as you can do so safely.

Ariesagain

Why should your children respect him? They see what he's doing to you.

Please, please for their sake, get out of there. Children learn what they see, not what they're told. They are being set up to repeat the pattern of abuse and codependency in their own lives...and then in their children's lives.

Wishing you strength and clarity.

SparkleKitty

One of the best things I learned here at SR is this: Feelings aren't facts.

You absolutely lived without him before you met him, and you absolutely can do it again. But you're going to have to be brave. I won't rehash what everyone else had said about what you're children are learning in that house, but consider this: YOU have a choice of what environment you live in and who you live with, YOUR CHILDREN do not. No one will advocate for them if you do not. And as a child who grew up in a home with alcoholism and codependence as the primary relationship dynamic I can promise you they will be dealing with the aftereffects of this dysfunction for far longer than they live in your home.

I know that you are scared, and I am so sorry that you find yourself in this position. But the only one who can change this for you and for your kids is you. There is help and support out there for you but you have to reach for it. Sending you strength and courage to do things you feel like you cannot do, but that we all know you can.

SmallButMighty

Love isn't supposed to hurt.

You said he was breaking your heart.. and now he has escalated to hurting your FACE... He hit you!!!

You left a 22 year marriage ( so did I) It was hard.. I survived that and so did you. You can summon that strength again to escape the hell you are in with this user-abuser who is only going to get worse. Not only will he get worse, so will you. I know this because I lived it.

He doesn't deserve respect, not from you and definitely not from your kids who see what this jerk is doing to their mother! His actions are deplorable.

Please, please, please reach out to every available resource, and take the help and advice of those people who really do care about you and your children.

Wishing you so much love and strength and clarity.

***BIG HUGS***

dandylion

OT4kids.....just so you know....the folks at the DV
centers deal with situations like your every day
They are very committed to h elping...this is why they exist--to help. They are very understanding and they are non-judgemental. They are familiar wi th your fears......
They are NOT a government agency....in other words....you will not "get your husband in trouble"....Your conversations with them are strictly confidential.
He need never know about them.
They will listen to you and your concerns. They have a lot of resources at their disposal that an ordinary person may not know about....
They will not make you do anything that you don't want to do..or are not ready to do . You are in charge of your life...and they will just help in any way that you need them to....

I hope that you will keep posting...as we all care about your welfare and we know that his actions are not your fault!!

Refiner

He's an ABUSER. Plain and simple. Please look inward and ask yourself why you think you deserve to be abused? Drinking or not, he is an ABUSER. Please do NOT allow this ABUSER to move into YOUR new house. All this is NOT ok.

amy55

Hi OT,

I was in an abusive situation very similar to yours. It took my ex longer to escalate, simply because we lived with my mother for the first 9 years of our marriage. (What I learned from that was that abuse is about "control"). It's not about that he lost his temper, or that he was stressed, or whatever he felt like saying. He was able to control his abusive behavior in front of other people.

When we bought our own house, and moved in, that was when his abusive behavior really started to show. We moved in, in April. In July that year, I was just trying to find out why he was mad at me. He threw me to the floor and kicked me in the back. Then he just went upstairs to go to sleep for the night at 8:00pm.

Things were a little better after that for about a year, because I was already starting to walk on "eggshells", and tried everything that I could so that I would not make him angry.

The "raging" started, the "silent treatments" started. Then he would go out after work, not call me, and show up at 11:00 pm. It just kept getting worse.

I preoccupied myself so much with reading "self-help" books, but I wasn't reading them for me, I was trying to fix him, to try to get the person back that I fell in love with.

I never talked to my friends or family when this was going on. Everyone thought that I had the perfect marriage.

I started talking to people in 2004. I had joined a verbal abuse website. They gave me the phone # for DV. I didn't call that # for at least 15 months. I finally called it. I felt like I had no one to talk to, I was using up my friends, I started hiding in my garage so that he wouldn't see me, thinking if he didn't see me, he wouldn't get angry at me and yell at me. I started sleeping in my car because I was too afraid to go back into the house. I was at my lowest point ever. This time though, I had my cell phone with me. I had just gotten a cell phone about a year ago. I called the DV #. It was the national #. 1-800-799-SAFE. I don't know, I just needed to talk to someone who would talk nice to me. A young man answered the phone. I told him that I didn't know why I was calling, or what I was supposed to say. He told me to just say how I feel, and he listened to me, and it all came gushing out. He stayed on the phone with me for a really long time, listening to me, and validating me. He also gave me the phone # for the local DV shelter, told me to call the national or the local whenever I needed to. He made me feel human again that night. I can never thank him enough for that. That was I think about Sept 2005.

In Oct 2005, when my ex grabbed me by the neck and threw me to the floor, I knew what I needed to do. I called the local shelter, and went to stay there...

I just want to tell you that sometimes the hardest phone call you can make is the one that might just make the most difference in your life.

I did go though 3 more years after that phone call. It was during that time that the disappearing acts were going from 2 night to 2 months, at a time.

You don't owe this guy anything. He will get worse. I at a time thought he was only acting like that because he was drunk, but then he wasn't drunk and he was still acting the same way.

I stayed way too long. I hope you don't. The main reason that I stay here is so that people don't make the same mistake that I did, and so that people who are going through this have someone to talk to.

((((((((((((hugs))))))))))))
amy

PuzzledHeart

I was abused as a child. So was my sister. I had to cut the abuser out of my life. My sister didn't, and my sister is now the reason why I'm on this site. My nanny's abuse played a huge part in splitting my sister and me apart.

Sometimes I think the worst part of the abuse wasn't the actual hitting. It was the mind games and the mental gymnastics to convince myself that it wasn't actually true. And then it was the waiting for the axe to come down. It was praying that today wouldn't be IT and she wouldn't lose her temper again. And she convinced us that we were bad, bad enough so if we told our parents about her abuse they would believe that we deserved it. I was fortunate enough to realize that it wasn't true. When I blew the whistle, my sister said that we were spoiled brats and we deserved her punishment.

My sister is now dealing with twenty years plus of pot/alcohol use. She says that she's quit, but her actions, delusions, and inability to deal with stressful situations, such as my parents' cancer diagnoses, say otherwise. She essentially ran away and left me to pick up the pieces, including telling her own children that their grandfather had cancer.


The longer you stay in your situation the longer you're asking yourself and your kids to accept that kind of behavior. It becomes their normal. You run the risk of teaching them that it's OK for people to treat their partners that way.

Walking away from an abusive situation is NOT running away from your partner. When your home is on fire, you take the kids out of the house and THEN you worry about putting the fire out. And if you realize that your home is sitting on a lake of gasoline, as much as you loved that home you need to leave it.

The love that you had for that partner is that home. The addiction and the abuse is the gasoline. Either one of them is enough to burn you. And as long as he continues to pour gasoline into the house the only thing you can do is leave.

As SparkleKitty said, your kids have no choice. You do.

You've reached out in this forum, so you've already taken that first brave step. Don't stop.

OT4Kids

He went to weekly addiction recovery meetings and promised to make things right. He went to work yesterday then never came home.

I know I should let go. Why is it so hard. I have been learning about addiction. I still feel like I can't live without him.