March Update in February

Ugh! To write all of this down is to have to face it. To share it with you all is to be held accountable for the decisions I make going forward. I try to avoid posting he-said/she-saids at this point, because after a while, all the events go down the same way, over and over, and we’ve all heard it before. I am going to break it down, though, so newer sisters can see my mistakes, what I’ve gone through, what I am still enduring. And what I’m enduring now should come as no surprise to myself or anyone else. I made choices–knowing the history, knowing your histories–choices made in malignant hope.

Brief summary to catch new folks up: Discovery happened four years ago in December. I believed his promises that he’d make recovery and our family the priority, that if I stayed with him, he’d make sure I was glad I did. About 8 months into that recovery, he stopped attending SA meetings and dropped his therapist. He offered to take a polygraph to prove he didn’t need those things and he failed. Then he took another, which was inconclusive, then he took another and failed. He appeared to be devastated, claiming that he’d have never offered to take it if he’d done anything. He printed out a stack of articles, etc. about the bogusness of polygraphs; he wrote the guy from antipolygraph.com–a long, passionate letter about how the bogus poly was ruining his life. I wanted to believe that the things the anti site said about polygraphs was true. Who knows? But I asked him to get back intro meetings and therapy, because by then I had “nothing to hang my hat on”–he wasn’t in active recovery and he’d failed the polys. All I had was his word, which will never again be enough. He refused, so I filed for divorce. He started back, but I went through with it, fearing that he’d just stop if I dropped the case. The day the divorce was final, as I was leaving to spend a weekend alone at the beach, he called and begged me not to give up on us, said we could make it work. We could start over. I spent the weekend at the beach, in shock after sitting in the courtroom. He stayed in the house. I told him that I would not shack up with my SA ex-husband, that if we were going to move forward together, it would require our remarrying with a prenup that would give me 3/4 of everything he has if he fucked up again. He agreed to that.

Things happened. In the divorce, I was given half his retirement account. He was surprised when I actually took it and invested it. My position was that if we were still together when we retired, he’d still benefit from it–it would be ours, just as his own would be ours. But I was protected either way. He couldn’t STAND not having control over that money, and he proceeded to punish me, raging, throwing tantrums, ignoring me, whatever he could do. So I told him to leave. When faced with leaving, he apologized, made more promises…it went like this, back and forth, for months, until, finally, in October, I actually kicked him out. He found a loser’s basement apartment about two miles from the house, a one-bedroom with NO space for our daughter. He was in there for a week before he came back, hang-dog, distraught, looking like he’d been in a war. He’d relapsed, and he wanted to share with me all he’d done, telling me, “But I can’t lose you….I’m afraid….I can’t lose you…” He showed me his new email account he was using to post Craigslist ads, ads for men, ads for couples, ads for a woman to be his partner to get into a sex club. Ads that said, “All alone in my new apartment, bi-curious”…exchanges with a gay (men) couple, an application to a high-end prostitute ($400 for 90 minutes). He’s joined a Yahoo strap-on group. In one week, he’d accelerated past anything he’d done before. He claimed nothing physical had happened. Again, who knows. But I was glad he came to me, showed me. I didn’t feel traumatized this time, but have felt a low-grade anxiety ever since that has gotten worse in the past few weeks as he’s reverted back to raging and blaming and gaslighting.

I reiterated my conditions for moving forward. If he was willing to sign everything over to me if he relapsed again, if he agreed to double down on recovery, I would stick it out as he recovered. Sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas, he sort of moved back in. He has spent every night in the house, has full access to his family and home…and I have YET to get what I asked for. Right before New Years, he bought me a beautiful ring–a Lotus sapphire, set in rose gold, with little diamonds. We picked it out together. He paid for it and I put it on. He said nothing to me–not I love you, not thank you, not kiss my ass. The next week, when I asked for the money for the prenup, the raging began again. He said, “You’re too angry…you have issues…you are crazy…we can’t get married until you deal with your shit….” You all know the rest of the things he said. You’ve all heard them. He kept saying we needed marriage counseling, to which I responded, “I won’t waste another second of my time in marriage counseling with you unless we’re married.”

Then he gave me the money for the prenup, after which he began punishing me in fresh ways. He started drinking in the evenings after work, spending weekend days in bed. He keeps lists of what I owe him and deducts it from my child support ($60 to rent the steam cleaner so I could clean the carpet, when HE LIVES THERE TOO). 30% of Lola’s lacrosse camp, etc. When we go out to dinner, he wants me to pay half. When I balk, he says he’s just sticking to the divorce agreement, which was written the way I wanted it. Of course, never mind that the agreement only allows him to see his daughter twice a week and every other weekend…When I tried to talk about any of it (stupid me), he raged, beat his head against the wall, screamed how crazy I am and how nothing will ever be good enough for me: “You have the money for the attorney…you’re getting the prenup…and you STILL AREN’T HAPPY!”

We went to see a female marriage counselor Monday, a CSAT, who is not herself an SA. She was referred to me by a good friend of mine, a female CSAT. That went down the way we all expect: he blamed me for everything. He even blamed me for his relapse. When she asked him to tell her three things he needs to change to make this work, HE COULD NOT THINK OF ONE. He told her he’s a good person, he’s changed, he’s fixed his anger issues…. She took lots of notes, didn’t seem convinced. She asked me to table the prenup for three weeks so she could do an assessment. Not to push him to sign anything. She wants to meet with each of us separately and one more time together in order to make that assessment. Three more weeks. I told her that I turn 50 March 21, and that I do not intend to start into my 51st year in this limbo. She assured me I wouldn’t. She squeezed my hand as we were leaving.

I went home Monday night and wanted to throw in the towel. Finally. I wanted him out of my home. I wanted peace. I wanted to put his ugliness, his darkness, his illness in my past. But then I thought: I have the prenup being drafted. In three weeks, I will have an assessment that just MIGHT put this all on him. Slim chances, I know, but maybe, maybe she sees through him, gets it. After all, she did say, out loud, that I appeared to be experiencing terrible PTSD. And IF, in that assessment, she recommends that he get intensive treatment, or go to Minwalla, or something, and he refuses, I can kick him out. And THEN, when he hits his true bottom, as I know he will, and he comes crawling back again, I’ll have the prenup, the conditions he has to meet (given by the therapist HE insisted we go to), and he will NEVER get back into my home without meeting them.

Or, I make him go away now.

Yesterday, I went to the gyno for the first time in a couple of years. I’ve been afraid to go because my insurance is shitty and if I have something wrong, it will be a preexisting condition. All this time I’ve been expecting to get remarried and put back on his awesome insurance and I didn’t want to have a preexisting or to be on meds on record, etc. I’ve given up on that. I went, I got the check-up and STD testing again. I got a mammogram. I got a prescription for Prozac. Small steps, really, but empowering, to finally take care of myself.

I am truly a mental case now. I am losing weight, am unable to sleep, feel revved up and anxious without relief. It is as bad as Discovery. It is 20 steps back. He is a sick, sick man, and I’ve allowed him to nearly destroy me. Two and a half more weeks, if I can make it.