Hi, I'm new here. I wanted to ask you all for some...

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butterflykiss Hi, I'm new here. I wanted to ask you all for some advice/perspective/insight. I'm at the precipice of leaving an abusive marriage - a relationship in which I was endlessly controlled, isolated, disrespected, demeaned, and suffocated all in the name of "obsessive love". I know now that my husband is suffering from a personality disorder, and that he is truly incapable of understanding how much he has hurt me, abused our marriage, destroyed my trust in him, and burned down all my hopes and dreams of what-could-have-been between us. After living separately for almost 2 years, I'm more than certain he can't change, he won't change, and he can't be the man I thought him to be the day I committed to him. Am I wrong to leave a man like him? Is it wrong for me to walk away from a husband who is in the grasps of a personality disorder? Does he need me now more than ever? Or am I doing the right thing by walking away? Am I saving myself (and my two little precious sons) by leaving him? Does anyone else here have experience dealing with a spouse who is suffering from a personality disorder and has a psychological condition that disallows him/her to behave "normally" in an intimate relationship? I'm open to any words of wisdom, advice, stories, perspectives, and opinions. As much as I have convinced myself I must leave him, I'm finding it very hard to cut off the emotional ties. 9 years ago * 10 replies User reported
- 12345 @BUTTERFLYKISS RUN DO NOT WALK. RUN FOR YOUR LIFE. i am very serious. this man will suck you dry and destroy you from the inside out. and boys raised by pathological narcissists turn into very sick men. RUN. get help to understand why you have stayed this long. have you done a lot of research on his condition and do you understand that he will NEVER change? it's really important to understand that. and this 'love' that he speaks of is a manipulation tool so he can stay in control. please please please treat this as a life & death situation. because it is. men like this are soul destroyers. 9 years ago User reported
- TDOG this guy Sam Vaknin has really good information about personality disorders http://samvak.tripod.com/npdglance.html if you can't leave for you, leave for the boys' sake. 9 years ago User reported
- butterflykiss Thank you, 12345 & TDOG, for your responses. I am only now understanding the seriousness of the situation. I know my priority is to take care of my children, and the last thing I want to do is to take them back to that toxic situation. You said it best, 12345, when you said "men like this are soul destroyers" … I feel like he has killed my spirit and buried my soul. I'm in the process of resurrecting all of that right now. TDOG, thank you for the link. I'll take a look at it. 9 years ago User reported
- JennieNYC My first husband sounds exactly like yours: he was horribly emotionally abusive and erratically behaved, so when he was diagnosed with a mixed bag of personality disorders (including bipolar disorder) it came as no surprise. He had been self-medicating for years, but rejected the diagnosis and wouldn't attend therapy or take meds. My children were at the time 3 and 4 and were very attached to him, though he didn't spend much time with them, preferring instead to shut himself in his home office and look at porn. I struggled with your same dilemma: should I stay or should I go? My parents had a horrible rancorous divorce and I was the center of a custody battle- I didn't want them to go through anything similar. When he was arrested for a violent episode culminating in his passing out naked in my daughter's bed, he was arrested and removed from the house so my decision was made for me. I got full custody, and while it has been a long, hard row to hoe alone, I am so grateful for his relative absence from our lives. You will not be doing your children any favors if you stay. The less exposure to him they have, the better, until and unless he gets treatment and improves. Good luck! 9 years ago User reported
  - anonymous1 yes read up about children of parents with personality disorders... not pretty!! and the kids end up blaming you for not leaving them..... so may as well rip the band-aid off now and start healing. 9 years ago User reported
- springmcm I, too, an new here and I could have written this exact same thing with the exception that we are still living together and have never separated. My husband has not been officially diagnosed with anything but that is only b/c he's never gone to be evaluated. He's extremely emotionally/verbally abusive and each episode is only getting worse. I struggle so much with this decision b/c of our kids - we have full custody of his daughter who I have raised since she was 18 months old and will soon be 9. So I will effectively be walking away from my child b/c I have no legal rights to her. I'm so conflicted b/c I feel sorry for him in ways, but at the same time he put himself in this situation with the horrible things he's done and said to me over the last 3 years (the first several years were not like this). I'm not meaning to hijack your thread - I just want you to know that I can totally relate to this and I wish you the very best of luck. 9 years ago User reported
- Jennifer Doe I understand how hard it is to cut off emotional ties--it's excruciating, especially when you're used to the day-in-day-out drama of living with someone with a personality disorder. Plus, you love him. I really, really get it. Here's how it happened for me. I always thought that if certain things fell into place, there would be peace in the land. And I worked myself to the nub, making every possible to get them to fall into place. And there *would* be peace in the land for awhile...but everything would ultimately (like, maybe a few weeks, if that) fall apart again. Back with the rage, the attacks, the terror...the unemployment. He definitely needed me. He needed to blame me for his shame, guilt, fear, anger. He needed to abuse us all to feel powerful. Plus, with a personality disorder, he had no real grasp on his sense of self. He was either a fun, charming outward personality--or an explosive, roiling storm. I think, in the end, it was the contrast of the peaceful times between the sh*t-storms that made it so tough for me to let go. They were so perfect...compared with Hell. I kept chasing those elusive, happy places. Until, with the help of many people, I finally really got it, in my gut: The "happy places" weren't even remarkably happy but actually just how life was *supposed* to be. They were what most couples just experienced as regular, workaday life. I thought they were crazy-awesome because the inevitable alternative was *always* devastating. Please, do get out, as a first measure. You're in danger, and the kids can't be in it. But then, keep good people around you--people who know what every day goodness is like. Really *hear* them when they tell you that the "good times" aren't what you think they are. They're just what every day life is supposed to be like. Real good times are coming your way, sister! 9 years ago User reported
  - SVONE run! 9 years ago User reported
- plasterdust I recently learned I'm co-dependent thanks to this site, the fact that my wife said it is over actually allowed to confront my issues which I may never have settled on. So maybe leaving your husband will actually make his life substantially better if he decides to figure out why it happened? The earlier you set the boundaries the more likely you may be able to have a friendship later? Sad to say but when it's comfortable, change is challenging. 8 years ago User reported
- TRICKYDIX Save yourself and your little ones and most of all stop making excuses for your husbands behavior. Leave the failed marriage and free yourself, heal, reset and move forward, life is too short to be depress and stress. Your husband has shown you who he truly is, believe him and leave him. 4 years ago User reported

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