But it's not always fantasy. This past year R really, truly was saying he loved me. It's as though he read my mind of what I had wanted all those years (I had NEVER told him) and finally it was coming true. He wanted to get married, to have two houses (one up north, one in the south), to travel, and if we had been younger have children. It finally wasn't a fantasy. But then, POOF, it was gone, and he turned into this ogre that must have been there all along. He binged, he cheated, he no longer was a pleasant person to be around. So no, it wasn't all fantasy.
Otis, it was the belittling at the end that made me leave too. I was NOT about to put up with that kind of treatment! I put up with it for years with my dad, then my x-husband, and it just wasn't going to happen again. NO WAY. \
Anvilhead, your story is so interesting, but so is every recovery story I hear. You say you were a train wreck ... what was your bottom?