intheknow

I often pray for a sign of the right thing to do. I am quite certain that HP is left scratching his head, saying..."I threw the biggest boulder I had, and she still doesn't get it! What next?"

honoryourself

Thanks everyone.. I like this forum because you all keep me keen to what it is I need to be doing for myself, and you keep me moving.

Honestly, I know the right thing to do is to leave. But also the right thing for me is to give myself a chance to swallow all this whole too. I know I have written this before, but "the good husband" image and all the love and respect and all that I thought I had has really just begun crashing down around me recently. like 2 months. The AWFUL behavior has only been going on in the past 2 months.. but the more I think about things the more I realize that his actions in the past were not respectful towards me either. But I allowed it, so I was a willing participant then. Just recently, 2 months or so, I have been an UNWILLING participant in his game. That has made him amp up his game.. which has made for circumstances like those you see in my posts.

Thanks for all the constant reminders to keep the focus on myself. I have done a pretty good job of getting out of the house to avoid interaction on the weekends when he drinks more. I have not nagged about alcohol and for the most part not mentioned it at all, or what he does, or asked him where he goes or any of that. However the fact that I was out with friends over the weekend and got home early in the morning seemed to tip him off as he slept on the couch probably waiting for me to come in. He stays out until 3, 4 am all the time lately (previously would never have stayed up past 11 pm, and espeically not if we were with my friends to go out and have fun.. I always thought he was just boring / getting old), but now he is out partying w/ his friends and closing down the bars. The one night I do the same when a friend from out of town is visiting, I caught an earful of how I was gallivanting about town and how awful of a person I was for this. (I haven't done anything wrong..)

Anyway... I go to work, I take care of the dog, I do the house work that needs to get done, I leave his mess to himself, though sometimes I have to pick around it or clean dishes in order to be able to live comfortably. I am talking to the lawyer this week, it's been hard because of work and getting privacy to make these calls.

I was going to try to hang in there so his next paychecks which should be big would go towards the debts he's wracked up lately, but that might be pipe dreams.
If it was the man I knew 3 months ago, they would. And he still should be making a nice couple of paychecks next month.. But he seems to have changed a LOT for the worse in just a few months. I guess I just have to suck it up and recognize that I'm ruined financially for a long long time. I don't know how to get out of that.. but I guess it's my own doing

honoryourself

Oh yeah-- and I am going to 1 or 2 alanon meetings each week, plus I have been seeing a counselor, though It's not really in the 'budget'. She is good though, so it's usually worth it. I think seeing her planted the first seeds of change in my mind. She made it OK to me to move on, if I wasn't getting what I needed. Al anon is good, though I do wish there were more younger women in the groups that I could relate to. I still relate to a lot of their emotions and all, but it's always nice to have some peers in a group. I also have books and have been doing reading and SR, which has helped greatly.

left4lonely

i think i am finally at the point of not caring what my ex's diagnosis is, and believe me at one time i was obsessively researching on the internet for an answer. mine is more absent than i'd like, but hey, maybe that means he realized this was never going to work and moved on, like a healthy person, unlike me.... who occassionally, and lately, fantasizes about a miraculous reunion. lol. makes me laugh today. didnt yesterday. more worried about my own diagnosis... heartbroken... and how to fix that myself. atleast today i am... yesterday, not so much.

Live

I needed to leave for my own sanity and safety....but it still troubled me for a couple of years. I had a need to understand. For me, the dx of the XAABF did make a difference and helped me reach closure.
I have forgotten what the statistics are for sociopaths in the population is..but chances are...you know one. And they do very well in certain careers.
That is scary.

(The extra A in XAABF is for abusive.)

left4lonely

i read that sociopaths have a hard time with facial expressions... i forget if it was reading them or having much change in their own or both... but if its little change in their own, couldn't we get confused when faced with a narcissist with botox? lol.

i think if there were a sociopath in a room full of great guys, and the sociopath be the one im immediately, strongly, attracted to, lol.

shugabooga

honoryourself, watch out for this man. he is going to leave you broke and who knows what else. if he is drinking so much, he could get into trouble involving law enforcement which could cost a lot of money, he could lose his job...i just really think you should start your plan to get out of this relationship. you say he is avoiding responsibilities, including not even buying dog food. this is exactly what my exboyfriend did...he knew i was planning to leave him and he didn't pay his half of the rent in June, nor did he pay in July...he also stopped paying the electricity bill without telling me. he started cheating. or maybe he'd already been cheating. he tried to kill my cat. this man was definitely a sociopath. he was physically abusive, selling drugs and stealing.

honor, just get out now, even if the love hasn't faded yet. i STILL love my exboyfriend - and guess what - he died Dec. 9 - he drank himself to death.

s1seven7

Honor, have you found that many of these posts from so many different people (for the most part) sounds like we are all taking about the same person? In the middle of my relationship I found out my XABF was looking on dating sites (the raunchier sites) and actually posted an ad that he and I were looking for a threesome! His reasoning was that he just liked looking at the pictures. It took me a whole year to confront him about the ad...Me being so foolish I actually thought, 'well, at least he mentions me...and what guy doesn't fantasize about that?'

Anyway, there were also some texts that were sent that were neutral enough but made me uncomfortable. I could never prove any of my doubts. Later on in the relationship he told me he was sexually abused as a child, so all this behavior of validating his manhood & alcohol/drug abuse makes sense. But he never consistently got help and I finally had the courage to end things. I too was waiting for the "love to fade" it never did--it was one of the most difficult decisions I had to make. I hope whatever you decide brings you peace.