Hi all.
Here's a link to my last post:
https://www.reddit.com/r/relationships/s/IEu3krmvCR
So three days ago, I was talking with my therapist about all of this. And she diagnosed me with CPTSD for the 8 years of living with his emotional/verbal abuse. I haven't been able to stop focusing on that diagnosis and how much I had to have been through to get there. I realized I couldn't spend the rest of my life with someone who had treated me that way for so long, no matter how differently he's acting now.
So, last night I finally got the guts to sit down and tell him I want to leave. I told him that I needed to put myself first and focus on healing my body and mind, and that I didn't think I could do that living with him anymore.
We spent about 5 hours talking, crying, repeating. I acknowledged how hard this is because I do truly love him and it's therefore the hardest decision I've had to make.
We already had couples therapy scheduled for this Saturday and next Saturday, so I'm staying at home and awkwardly coexisting in a limbo state until we complete those. I do have a room for rent I'm going to see on Sunday that I haven't told him about, and that would mean me moving in Feb 1st.
I'm absolutely terrified and heartbroken and I don't know how else to feel right now. But Im so proud of myself for making this decision and putting my needs first.
Thank you for helping me see the abuse so I could be honest with myself. ♥️
Tl;Dr I told my husband I'm leaving.
12 comments
I remember your post and I remember commenting on it. Glad you are doing it 👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿
You said in the link he’s changed, why leave?
you’re very brave for this, and i hope you are proud of yourself. this has not been an easy journey, but you’re equal to it <3
New to the scenario, but happy for you. Sometimes you can’t heal in the environment you were hurt.
My one piece of advice moving forward, based on my experiences with PTSD and friends with it: Don’t let a diagnosis define you. Diagnosis are to explain a feeling or behavior – if the label or thought doesn’t serve you, you don’t have to hold onto it so tightly. I’ve had many friends paralyzed by PTSD. It feels daunting, like a giant wound in your chest.
It hurts, and it’ll take time to heal, but like physical healing, it’s gradual. As the wound closes, the bleeding stops. And after that, it scabs, and then it itches, and then it passes and it may scar if you don’t care for it. Healing may be nonlinear, but don’t be afraid to focus on the present process. If you are bleeding you use gauze. In the same way, if you are facing anxiety attacks, yes it may be because of PTSD (wound), but that doesn’t mean you can’t treat it like how most would face an anxiety disorder. Same goes to distrust, confidence, self-image and more. Identify what you feel and face it day by day, step by step, and slowly you’ll make it over the mountain.
You will be okay. Ground yourselves in love from other sources. Platonic love and familial love are just as powerful as the romantic sort, and often more patient. I truly wish you all the luck and love in the world!
I haven’t seen your posts before, but I just read them all now. You’re doing the right thing, one thousand percent. It’s going to be hard and you’re going to question yourself, you’re going to feel guilty for hurting him by leaving and guilty for wanting your own happiness. I really want you to remember that he hurt you first, and he did it for over a decade. The pain he feels from this might be real, but it is entirely his own design. He had every opportunity to be kind to you, and he chose the opposite – and he chose it *every single day* for *ten years.*
You deserve to choose yourself and your own happiness. You’re doing the right thing.
You’re doing the right thing. I don’t know you but I’m proud of you.
Just read your original posts and wanted to say that I think you’re doing the right thing.
What led me to leave my emotionally abusive ex was the dawning realization that he knew what he was doing to me all along and chose to keep doing it. The fact that your husband acknowledged that he’d been abusive and changed his behavior only after you confronted him suggests the same. There are so, so many people in the world-yourself included!- who would never treat a partner that way to begin with, let alone for so long.
Leaving and staying gone is the hardest part. As bleak as it may sound, I found it helpful to think of the relationship as a long, brutal illness. The recovery process takes time and patience. I found it helped to focus on the tiny daily joys that were stifled from constantly having to walk on eggshells in the relationship, like getting to play my music and dance around in the morning while getting ready for work.
As painful as it is, this is also an opportunity to rediscover who you are, what matters to you, and what kind of life you want to live. Wishing you luck, happiness, and health on your healing journey <3
I was in your shoes 10 years ago in my emotionally abusive marriage, right down to them claiming they’d change and seeing it for a month but not trusting it and then realizing I was far too hurt and there was way too much damage to continue even if they did actually change. Which spoiler alert, they will not.
Leaving was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done but it was also by far the best decision of my entire life. So many amazing things happened because I finally walked away, and I’m in such a happier and better place now. Divorce is a shitty process but it’s absolutely worth it. Good luck!
so true. sometimes we hang onto the “good” moments and ignore the bad patterns. you deserve way better, op
That’s incredible OP. I don’t know if it counts for anything, but I am proud of you. What you’re doing takes a lot of bravery and self love to do.
I am glad you love yourself enough to make this big change.
Hopefully your STBX continues on his own health journey. It’s just not your responsibility to wait and see that change. I think he needs to be single for a while as well. It should have been something he tackled before it got to this place.
A lot of people think being selfish is always a negative personality trait. It’s not. You deserve and need to put yourself first. You take your own air mask before placing it on anyone else.
I know being diagnosed can be scary, but it can also be freeing in a way. It’s not who you are, but you know what you need to do to help yourself now. You have the tools and this is a huge first step.
I hope you stick with your individual therapy sessions as well. They should help with avoiding repeated instances. Abused people are often super vulnerable to future abusive relationships since your normal meter is off.
Allow yourself to grieve the relationship as well.
I hope you can discover who you are as a person being single for the first time in your adulthood.
Travel, explore, pamper yourself, do the things you didn’t (couldn’t?) do while married, join groups, try that restaurant you’ve always wanted to, crank the music up to 20 and blast it, and maybe eventually date around.
Take this opportunity to really learn who you are. Enjoy the *freedom*.
I wish you all the luck and healing!
Take yourself on dates. Go enjoy all the things that are previously known to be a couples activity and it will help you heal. I did. Buy yourself flowers.
I went back and read your past posts. I can relate to your husband in some ways. I just wanted to chime in and say I am a man who changed and give that perspective if that is OK.
I have C-PTSD, GAD and MDD from military and childhood trauma (childhood sexual, physical abuse and rape survivor). My wife who was also my high-school sweetheart, should have left me many times years ago. Been in love since 97 and fully back together since 04 (I went in the military after school she stayed behind to finish school), married since 08, child in 2017. Prior I lost my father, mother, sister and brother in law and a few friends to PTSD and cancer. None of those are excuse for mental or verbal abuse, NONE. Just reasons. I was angry all the time, mood swings, blow up then feel horrible and love bomb, etc..
2021, we had the talk. Get help or im gone. I was at that point looking for an off-switch myself, the childhood trauma had clawed its way free and I was spiraling. I absolutely did not want to lose the love of my life and our family. Therapy and the amazing love of my wife, saved my life. She gave me a chance to heal and I took it and ran with it. I shared my trauma (she knew of military not childhood) and loved me more. I dont deserve my wife, or my family but I fight for them everyday and will spend the rest of my days loving her and our child and proving her decision to give me a second chance right. We are head over heels. Im a better man, husband, father and friend now.
I dont know your hubby’s past, dont know whats driven him to be the way he was. I do feel he should restart therapy immediately, with you leaving he will need it. It seems like you do still love him and have every right given past behavior to chose your own happiness and own path. I wish you both the absolute best. It just hurts this hopeless romantics heart to see high-school sweethearts not make it. So I wanted to say a bit about my own situation and that some people can and do change. Often times its not until life slams into you that you realize how bad or good things may be and see that change is needed but sometimes it can come to late unfortunately. Good luck to you!