Buffalo66

I have been posting replies and trying to give support to the other folks on here. But I feel like a sham.

The truth is, I am so truly strung up in anxiety. I am lost, I have lost ten pounds in two weeks. I am smoking like a chimney. I am completely flabbergasted and still engaging him when he calls.I have no interest in food, friends, I have a move to a new apartment looming and cannot do anything. I am immobilized.

I have gone back and read some stuff on Narcissistic personality, and I do think he is a candidate. And no, that does not matter. I am being abused in a sinister way. he truly has no concern for what he says or does. I record the phone calls, because I cannot fathom that it is not a nightmare if I do not have the proof.

Our interactions are nothing more than him ranting on and on about how I ruined him, I am the ONLY and a powerful negative force in his life. He wishes I could die in a way that my son would not be affected, and so really, because of our son he does not really want that.

He says I am a walking talking representation of his terrible past, and he hates that I want him to fail( i do not). He calls me his mortal enemy (i am not). He keeps saying that over and over.

If I try to point out that I have been here all along, waiting and encouraging his health he denies that.

I am physically sick. I do not know how to find myself again.

I can see that I was a volunteer for a long time in being his victim, but I did and want to love him. He is so full of hate. It is so strong.

I have trouble seeing the future for myself. He is probably saying bad things about me to anyone who will listen.

I am embarrassed by my weakness. I am embarrassed by the years I have wasted on someone who is now discarding me. I am hearing him call me an alcoholic, and I know he is projecting.I know that I am a reasonable and responsible mother, but he is projecting this alternate reality so fiercely!!

He will drive drunk 4 nights a week, and then if I do one night in a blue moon( after a few drinks on a girls night), I am irresponsible and criminal.

He calls me from the bar to ask hypothetical questions about parenting...The latest:
HIM: " If a single father works all day, comes home and cooks dinner for his son, then has a sitter or nanny put him to bed while he goes out from, say, 8:30 until 12 midnight, is that frowned upon by society?"

ME: "I dont know. How often does the single father go out?"

HIM: " Say, four nights a week"

ME: " I wonder why that single father would not want to experience the joy of bedtime..He is missing out. I think it is frowned upon, but it is your heart and your conscience that is the proper barometer. I go out, when son is with Grandma. I feel OK about that. It is generally one night a week, but I feel like I need to be with my son the other nights. He needs me. I want to put him to bed. I want to be here if he wakes up. Dont you?"

You can see here that he is not even hampered by inhibition. His little brain is plotting out how he can appear to be a good father, while doing the absolute minimum. He is calling and asking me how to act.

And this is the man who has given me grief for getting a sitter a night a week, AFTER child is asleep. Why would you need to be social? Where do you need to go? You are 40 years old!! (he is 31). He brings up my age CONSTANTLY. says it is unbecoming for a 40 year old to be out with friends having drinks. It is trashy, says the formerlyhomeless- fall down drunk who is still at the bar EVERY NIGHT from 6-12.

I am heart broken. My heart does not work. I cannot believe that there are people out there who are buying his crap!!! People who saw how he was for all those years! And now he is working, and saying he cannot tolerate ME!! And there are people who are tellling him, yes, she is bringing you down. You dont need this. WTF???

I am embarassed that I am so flip floppy. I have moments of clarity, then I am completely enmeshed in hatefulness. I feel like I am afflicted by a morbid sense of curiosity over how low he will go. What will he say next?

He says things like, "you better be careful. I will stop putting this money into your account. You cannot go through the system because of our sons tumor. You will lose your health insurance, so you just have to shut up."

He then says to whoever will listen, "I am paying for my son,more than is necessary by law, and I am happy to do it. She is a b*tch who is ungrateful"

Every morning I wake up, and I am still obsessing over who he was with, if he has someone, if he is happy with her.

I am so screwed up. I am a mess. Just like he has taken to telling me.

whereisthisgoin

Oh gosh, Buffalo. He sure has you in a mental headlock. You are a good person, I can just tell how you write - and deep inside, you know you are a good person. Even though he talks badly about you - people will eventually see the truth, especially if he is drunk while doing this.

When I have too much to do (and it sounds like you have a lot with your move) I try to do just one thing off the pile. Tackle it. That feels good - now do another. If you take it in manageable pieces, the work will eventually get done.

I do this while listening to 80s tunes - only happy dancy ones.

I hope you have a better day today. You're going to have to take some initiative to do so.

Startingover2

While reading your post I feel I am you in alot of ways. I am the cause of all of exah's bad choices and decisions. We are divorced and still I am the one who ruined his life. No, I am the one who begged, pleaded, cried and bargained for him to quit drinking. I am the one who forgave over and over again.

My exah has a mental hold on me as well. Not so much financially, but emotionally. He knows I really dont have a life outside of baby and he manipulates me emotionally.

I have no advice as I am an emotional wreck too, but I just wanted to let you know you werent alone.

Kittyboo

Buffalo, ugh, I can feel the pain in your message. But I think it's so good for you to get these thoughts out.

You are NOT a sham. The responses that you give to others offers support and strength and that is what everyone here needs. It's always easier to offer support to someone else than to yourself, and see someone else's situation more clearly than we see our own.

Sometimes I feel that I don't have much to offer here as my relationship with my A was never as volitile as many here, but I do understand the loneliness, codependancy, consuming myself so much with the pain of someone else that I lost myself completely, and am just finding myself again.
The pain is still there. I still think about him, I have had dreams about him the past 2 nights; and I have VERY vivid realistic dreams and they have made me wake up with anxiety, in each one I see him with his girlfriend.

You KNOW that what he says about you, is NOT about you. It seems they ALL seem to do this....good grief, all I heard was how horrible is ex wife was, he went back, and now I KNOW he's telling his friends that I was just obsessed with him. After the times I was there for him.... and it's not true. Nothing they say is true.
His words are not a reflection of you, they are a reflection of HIM. They are a reflection of his guilt, manipulation, loneliness, desperation, and his twisted little mind.

I understand feeling like you don't have a heart anymore, the sinking sadness. A couple of times in the past couple of months I cried so hard, just thinking that I don't want this pain anymore so maybe I should end it. I totally get that feeling!
But I am focusing now on positive things, completing my degree, learning to be happy with myself-which can seem like the most difficult, and knowing that this man who brought me so much pain, who was so hurtful to me, is no longer in my life.

You sound like such a caring, beautiful, loving woman, who is priceless to the world. YOU know what good you bring to the world, and you are the one who has the grip on reality, not him. Go look in the mirror and tell yourself that.

SUPER BIG HUGS.

Still Waters

Hey sweetie, stop kicking yourself. It doesn't help a damned thing, trust me, I'm the worlds foremost expert on kicking oneself.

My opinion? You need help. Don't be embarrassed to ask for help, God knows all of us here in this forum have needed it (and continue to need it) at some point. A trusted friend who will support you yet not allow you to wallow would be great. A good therapist would be excellent also. Both would be most wonderful.

You have got to get up and move, for you and that child. Obsessing over what your A thinks about you will get you nowhere good, as you know very well - you're there right now.

Now - tell us what you want to do for YOU Buffalo - and maybe we can come up with some workable plans.

Ago

Physical & Emotional Abuse Discussions at DailyStrength: Worth Reading and re-posting...

Free108

Hi Buffalo,
I'm so sorry that you are in such horrible pain. I know this state all too well. I know the feeling of being so anxious and hurt that you just can't seem to function either physically or emotionally.
I am 2 months post breakup and the first month was a living nightmare. The second has been calmer on many levels but the pain is not gone.
At first I managed to drag myself to some Al-Anon meetings. That helped - I felt less isolated for a short time at least. I also found a therapist who basically listened to me cry for an hour and half every few days. I couldn't afford her but I just had to get some help.
I still feel that I'm just sitting on the pile of wreckage that is my life. Increasingly I have the will and energy to pick up a few pieces and tidy them away or put them in the trash. That feels good. But most of the time I just let myself contemplate the mess and feel the sadness and grief. Time IS making it all seem more manageable.
As far as what he's thinking or saying or feeling, well, you can guarantee it's going to be weird and screwed up. I'm learning not to take it so personally. Your husband sounds really really mean and certainly not someone whose opinion you should value, and the other people that he's talking to probably don't take him too seriously. He's just making himself look bad.
As the weeks go by and I become more confident socially, I've had a lot of feedback from mutual friends. When my xabf first left, I felt so humiliated and abandoned. He turned his back on us so completely and went off to have the time of his life. I thought that HE looked good and that I looked like someone who had so little value that she could be just discarded in a second. Now I know that our friends think that he's a lunatic and obviously unstable. Most people don't understand that he's an alcoholic, but whatever.
Try to get some support for yourself and also try to be patient. Just sit though the pain and you'll very slowly start coming out of it. Sending you HUGS.

wanting

When I read your post, all I could think was no contact, no contact, no contact. I think that truly is the first step to take when you're so entangled with someone that you can't function.

Cowgirl1265

Its really hard to be self-focused when the relationship with our addict (or in my case mentally ill) spouse or partner has felt like the source of our pain.

It is very painful to have this push-pull rollercoaster with someone you either once were or still are in love with, someone you care about. It is very easy to fall into the trap of being other-focused, obsessing over things they do, things they say, how we feel when they do and say these things.

I agree that some medication would probably be helpful to you right now, something to lessen the depth of the despair you feel right now, help you to understand that there is a pathway leading upward out of this madness. Therapy will help as well.

Keep reading the literature and keep reminding yourself to focus not on him but on you. No contact is a GOOD idea. Out of sight, out of mind. It is YOUR recovery from codependency that matters for YOU.

**********{buffalogal}}}}}}

Chrysalis123

I love this because it is so true. You are not evil or bad in any way. He has been abusing you and you are experiencing the signs and symptoms of an abused woman.

Domestic Abuse does not have to be physical. If you can talk to your local Domestic Abuse place they can help you. They can point the way to resources and books and other things that can help you out right now.

Starting today, right this moment, you can start growing stronger. We are all here surrounding you and encouraging you. Can you imagine that....all of us encouraging you?

husbandofacoa

This kind of behavior is typical of the addict or alcoholic. He will mentally abuse you as long as you allow it. He is miserable and is lashing out at the easiest target, you.

I no longer worry what my spouse tells others about me. Generally no one pays any attention to her and if they do, what do I care. It does not affect my life.

I lived in a marriage where I thought I was to blame for everything that was wrong in my wife's life. God opened my eyes and I began to see that it was a game that she was playing and that her problems were not my fault. Your partner's problems are not your fault, they are his.

The best thing that I did for myself was to attend alanon. It gave me clarity and a support group of people who were experiencing the same thing that I was going through. It let me detatch from the accusations and let go of what she thinks of me. It let me see around the lies and the mind games.

I hope that you can find a program that works for you. I think this forum is a great start. You deserve friends that will help you see that all the crap that he is saying to you is not true and that it is just a part of his illness.

Remember that you are as sick as he is. You are sick from living in the mess and putting up with the abuse. Do something good for your self. Get yourself better. You deserve a better life. If you find yourself a good program, whether alanon or celibrate recovery or whatever, you will look back on this one day and be suprised that what he says to you meant so much to you. There will come a day in your recovery when nothing he says will hurt you.

Good luck. I am praying for you.

JenT1968

gosh yes, his words are poison: stop drinking it.

I see you trying to be unfalteringly fair to him, and expecting him to appreciate it and to be fair in return.

Doesn't seem that is what he wants to do right now. Could he actually think much worse of you? In which case, do you have anything to lose from ditching being "fair" to him, treating this as an emergency situation for your own health, and doing whatever is necessary (and legal) to be free of this torment?

detachment is hard: being able to hear hideous, ugly insults thrown at you, wishes for your death, threats regarding your livelihood, questioning your sanity, said in a hatred by someone you love, without it affecting your self-image or damaging you in any way is possible. Possible but very hard. Is there any need for you to put yourself through that? There is no detachment competition, and no prizes for s/he who wanders serenely through the most vicious insults without blinking.

It also can take a while to get out of the habit of one's thoughts turning immediately to another person.

One thing that helped me with my hatred (and with batting off his opinion of me, although it still takes me a while deconstruct a conversation if I let myself get sucked into an in depth one) is to view H as suffering from a mental illness (which is the truth) and treat his words and opinions accordingly: I might be a little shocked and taken aback if someone with clear mental health issues shouted "you are the devil" at me in the street, but I wouldn't take it to heart, I wouldn't care whether this person thought it was true, I wouldn't care if anyone else heard this, I wouldn't expect others to believe it just because they'd heard it said, and if they did, I would see that as a reflection of them, not me. Clearly this is more difficult if this comes from the mouth of someone we love, but I found therapy to be very helpful with that.