Why cant i leave...

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-15-2005
Why cant i leave...
2
Fri, 08-12-2005 - 8:49am
I just cant figure out why I cant bring myself to leave. I keep thinking things have to be worse in order to leave him. A little background, he's been emotionally/verberlly abusive for most of our 9 year marriage, but just recognized it as that in the past year or so when things got really bad. We would have numerous arguements about how he talked to me and I would tell him the things i didnt like and his lack of help with anything, house, kids. Things would get better for a couple weeks then right back to the old way again. About 5 months ago, he found an email that i had sent to a male friend. It was just a casual email, nothing romantic about it, as it was just a male friend that i knew in HS and had ran into recently. But of course he did not believe that. One of our biggest issues is that he has always accused me of having affairs, always meaning it started a month after we got married. When he found it he asked me what was going on and if i was going to leave him, then started crying saying please dont leave. I told him there was absolutly nothing going on but I wasnt sure if i was going to stay or not. I told him once again that i didnt like the way he talked to me, the way he treated me and the kids, and the way he didnt help out at all around the house. He said he was sorry and promised to do better and I agreed to give it another chance. He asked that I cut off all contact with the friend, which I did. After that things got better, but laterly i have seen it slowly slipping back. For a while he would come home and actually play with the kids (they are 7 and 2), now that has pretty much stoppped. He would come home and help me with dinner or help clean up after wards. That too has stopped. For a while he would still make comments about the friend and that he thought there was more to it and that he thought I had feelings for him and had slept with him. All completly not true. I told him that if we were going to work on things he had to quit saying that stuff that it made me feel like he didnt trust me. He said he was just joking that some of the guys he works with and there wives joke like that all the time. I said I didnt care but I didnt like it. Anytime he would say something like did I talk to my BF today? or he would call on his way home from work and say he was just calling so i could tell my bf to leave. He came home one day and started asking if i had seen my bf today and i told him to please stop saying stuff like that, that i didnt like it. He just said thats how he was, and that was never going to change that i had to quite being so sensitive. so i looked at him and said well thats who i am and thats never going to change. Since then he still makes the comments and I try just letting it go and even saying things like yes i did talk to him today. Well this week he was away for 2 days on a buisness trip. It was so nice around here. I felt so relaxed and it was nice to not worry about how i was dressed or how the house looked. He came back last night, and i told him that i missed him and he kept saying are you sure. Then we went to bed and i said it was nice to have him back, and he said it was probably nices with my bf in bed then him. Then this morning he was looking for a pen and found one that had "sleep inn" on it (the hotel) it was one that my daughter brought back after she went on a trip with my dad and stepmom and that was the hotel they stayed in. He asked me if that was the hotel that i meet my bf at. It really is annoying. I say things to him, i can play along or get mad or tell him to stop and it is continuious. Am I asking for to much?? Is this ever going to stop? Am I being to sensitive, is it just me and i need to lighten up? Thanks for listening I just needed to get that all out.
iVillage Member
Registered: 02-08-2005
Fri, 08-12-2005 - 9:14am
No you don't need to lighten up.
5yrssm 
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-28-2003
Fri, 08-12-2005 - 9:20pm

Ditto what Wishful said.

I can't imagine putting up with him a moment longer - how exhausting that must be for you.

When you get sick of it enough, you'll leave.