Well as usual it never rains it pours. I advise a cup of tea before reading this, because this is a terribly long and horrible storm.
On Friday he took me to the ballet. He was being pretty ok too. I got a little upset about ‘us’ afterwards and he held my hand and said to not worry and that he’s getting help now and we’re getting there. I felt a bit nicer.
I got up tight when he said that it’s such a lovely sunny day – the kind of afternoon where you just want to find a nice beer garden. I got all up tight about that but then I realised that any ‘normal’ person would say that so I let that go. We went to the pub for one pint.
Marvellous.
I perk up a little. I leave to go up north to my parents and he says he has to go to work for a late one because he has stupidly said yes to all sorts of work – none of which he is getting paid for. (His words not mine)
I thought well at least he won’t be getting drunk.
(Why did I think that…?)
The next day I was due to come back and so rang him. He was being all off and funny to the point of being rude. Just one word answers, monotone voice, irritated, that sort of thing. Asked if we were both going out that later that evening and he was all off and reluctant. Anyway decided to ignore and got back home about 7pm.
Found him in the front garden with a vodka and coke. Asked me to promise not to have a go at him because he didn’t go to work yesterday he came home and drank half a bottle of the 1.5litre vodka, worst of all it didn’t touch the sides he says.
I didn’t have a go but offered my support and love and thanked him for being honest about it of which he returns with ‘you’re such a special person, a truly loving and wonderful girl but I am struggling with us as I don’t think we can carry on together, I’m really not happy being with you and I think it’s best we split up. (This is killing me) I then take the tak of ‘alright then that’s ok but as a friend you surely don’t want to be like this’ he agrees.
(FRUSTRATION DOESN’T DESCRIBE IT!)
He then talks and the flood gates open about his life, about his bullying at primary school, at secondary, at work. How one of the bullies he found out some years ago committed suicide and that he feels like ‘ha, serves him right’ he then says he knows he ought to feel guilty for feeling that but doesn’t and that his life was made such a misery. He remembers an older boy helped him. This makes him cry more.
He is crying and crying and crying. Just gently soft crying about everything. I ask him if he thinks he could ever be happy? He shakes his head and then I ask when was the last time he was truly happy and immediately he looks up and says 12 years ago and can remember the exact moment. He then says he became weak and didn’t stick to what he wanted with his life and he knows he only has himself to blame for being like he is now. He said he doesn’t know how to be happy with himself as he never has been. It’s best if he makes other people happy as he can do that. He talked about more things about his dad and the manic depression. His perspective. How he was so unconfident he would run away from girls, didn’t have a gf til he was 25. How he shut himself away in the basement to tinker with engines as that’s what he knew best.
It hurt so much to see him suffering but I also know it’s the only way.
I made a ‘pledge’ for him to sign that said the he would promise to continue to get help and the only way out is to be totally honest about all of his feelings even if they weren’t very nice but that he deserves to find true happiness. He signed it and wrote thank you. He was still crying and I said I wanted him to read some stuff about depression tomorrow. He looked me in the eyes and promised me he would. He held my hand. I then said look lets just at least be friends and go out and forget everything. H said that’s what he’d prefer.
I of course put on my best dress and face and we went out. He said I look very attractive and that he ‘of course fancies me’ I jokily remind him that I’m just his friend now. All through the evening he would notice other men looking at me and then become all protective of me. Putting his arm around me, jokily pinching my bum etc. he then leans in to kiss me and I jokily point out that ‘friends’ don’t do that sort of thing’ he jokes back that ‘these sort of friends do’ and kisses me again!
He was hammered and doesn’t remember us in the last bar nor getting home.
The next day he came back from doing some exercise and was quite up beat although he had pain in his side (liver I suspect). But it was nice it genuinely was. He told me he had had a really good time.
He suggested going to the park and also that his brother and wife had invited us round to theirs later. And this is the point where I felt very uneasy.
Since this started I have received no contact from any one of his friends or family at all.
There has been nothing.
I’ve not gone into any detail about his family apart from my first post. In brief my husbands mother (the wonderful mother in law), has for the past 2 years since we have been married made put downs about me, remarks, jibes, pokes, unpleasant comments all shrouded in a happy voice. Not just to me, but to my parents, to family friends and to her family. Behind my back to my husband she has said things like I am a bit fat and lazy, why can’t I do some exercise, (I had 2 discs in my neck rupture and it has been torture and I’m extremely lucky I am not paralysed) that I am this, that I’m not good enough, that I should be a certain way, that I’m jealous of my H (!). That I am arrogant, I am cold, I am not worthy to be with him, that she ‘has tried to get on with me but I’m not a nice person’ that I am a ‘powerful woman’ (WTF?).
She cuts me out of family gatherings in a very stealth like way. She will invite him to things but not me then makes out I am invited after all. She will say things to him when I’ve gone out of the room and be as nice as pie to my face. To my face she says how good I am and says she offers he support. When the chips are down she just stabs me in the back time and time again.
When I’ve made silly Christmas cards or arty things, she has to make a negative remark but said in a jolly manner. She says bitchy comments to other members of the family. She has been very cold, manipulative and down right poisonous. It has for me, been horrendous, more so because I have been so very ill and in and out of hospital. (I have also been seriously ill with a number of other things which have been and still are even more painful to even talk about)
She blames me for my H not being very good at things, for this that and the other without actually saying she blames me. It really is like stealth. She has told my H that counselling is utter nonsense and in no uncertain terms has made it clear what her view point is on such things. I know from my husband that when she left his father ‘she had a bit of a good time with men’ I hear from others a more serious side of things and just how many men. My H has told me that he thinks she was going to a swingers club. (!) My H’s half sister is a product of that even though she was seeing someone else. Drinks rather too much and has an opinion about everyone. She is a strict catholic I might add (oh the hypocrisy).
Unbelievable.
My h has got up tight about it all before now, but only after I have told him. We have had countless rows about it, says he didn’t hear anything, says I shouldn’t be so sensitive, then got all stressed/angry and then finally said he has ‘had a word’ to her about it.
It has always continued.
He has then turned on me saying ‘it’s just the way she is, she is not mean or anything it’s you who has the problem!’
My parents are very upset how she has treated me and also them.
My bother in law (my H’s brother) has a highly paid job in the city and is a gambler, an adulterer, a cheater, a liar. He was a well know bully at his school. He has had secret credit cards, laptops, he has even borrowed money from my H’s credit card thinking I don’t know about it. (Thinking my H won’t tell me because that’s the way he is to his wife). He has ‘pulled’ various women and when my H has told me, I am sworn to secrecy (which I have honoured I might add). He has also recently given my H money when we have been desperate. (I hated that) He drinks in secret and lies about it and a year ago my H told him he had told me these things he went ballistic. Calling me every name under the sun behind my back and worse that my H is this that and the other, that all women are ***** (fill in as you please) He sends texts to my H begging him to come out with him on the lash or is it because he is with the ‘old slag indoors ha ha’ or things like ‘oh come on mate, why’d you want to be with her the silly cow, come into town I’ll buy all the drinks’. My h has started to defend him by saying ‘this is just the way he is- he doesn’t mean it, stop being so sensitive, he likes you, he always talks about women like that not just you!’
He started to delete the messages, not because I would read his phone in secret, but because I would ask him what was put. He has told me, this way he then can’t remember. (And can’t be accountable nor face the truth that his brother is being horrible)
For the past few months when this brother in law has gone awol his wife is ringing my H because she is pregnant and scared. She has called the police because of ‘his behaviour’. The B.I.L was taken away for the night. Again I was sworn to secrecy. She knows he is like this and has told me she is only still there because of their first child and the one on the way. She then displays classic denial behaviour.
It is her choice and I have never once even mentioned any of the above. It is always small talk and pleasantries.
However we went over there. The Brother in Law is persuading my H to go to the offy whilst his wife is upstairs. My h is looking at me and saying ‘er, I’m not feeling so good today mate so will give it a miss’. (I take this that he hasn’t told him about his liver). The B.I.L is insistent so off they go ‘for something non alcolholic’.
I chat to my B.I.L’s wife and she is past her due date so the baby might come anytime (quite literally) and she proceeds to tell me what the mother in law has been saying over the past few weeks since my H made the announcement the he doesn’t want to be with me.
It is pure nasty, vindictive, poisonous comments, that he can find someone better than me, that he is not to have children with me and thank goodness we don’t have any, that she will help him to find a much nicer woman, that I’m no good for him, worse, more and more pure nastiness. It took my breath away because for the life of me all I could think is what on earth is it I have done that is so bad to warrant this treatment? I can find no reason. None at all. I’d never be one to say I’m Mrs Wonderful, I’m not perfect but I’m jolly well kind and thoughtful and loyal and silly and funny and capable and loving and have never and would never ever behave like that.
It really hurts. Really, really.
I wouldn’t mind half so much if I had done something but I’ve always been honest and loyal to him.
I don’t know why but I guess I went into shock of it all. I think it was the final straw.
They come back from the offy and I just sit there. I barely say a word. I just can’t.
I make an excuse to just go out I need to make a call. I was gone over an hour and I knew I truly couldn’t take this slander, this slagging me off for no reason anymore.
I came back and the BIL let me in, I just muttered I need to go home. He runs up to the top of the stairs and launches into a tirade of abuse, (no one else is about) how my H can do better than me, that I just pull him down, yelling at me to eff off that he is only miserable because of me and comes in close to my face and says ‘if you are still with him in six months time, I will kill you myself’ I then start yelling that I’m calling the police and my H and the other wife come down, she is crying hysterically, their other son is screaming, all I can manage to retort is to tell him he is a bully a liar and a cheat and then he says I am a nasty person who divides people up. I ask but like who??? He says his mother, my H and that I am screwed in the head that my H has married a nutcase. That from the moment he met me he knew I would be trouble, that my H is much better than me, he is threatening me that he is going to get really angry if my h doesn’t remove me. All I can manage to say is at least I know how to love someone, at least I’m not a liar, that I’ve never bullied anyone. I will call the police and maybe they might take him away like his wife did.
He looked surprised that I knew that but is carrying on effing and blinding. The wife is screaming at me to please don’t call the police. He then starts talking over me like I’m not there, saying to my H, ‘it’s ok mate, we’ve all talked about it, you know what you have to do, just get rid of her, we’re all here for you, sadly you married a fruitloop and we’re all gonna be strong for you, just take her away and do what we all said’ He kept saying it and saying it. ‘Don’t worry mate we know it’s hard but just do it, you know you have to it’s the only way’
The whole thing was ghastly, awful.
I was in a complete state.
I am still shaking today and this happened on Sunday. I have been hysterical since. I have barely eaten or slept. I am very afraid and I cannot take any more.
My H behaved like this: I was screaming and screaming for an hour and still when we got home and he sat with his arm around me, kept saying over and over that he is here with me that I am his wife, trying to soothe me, trying to calm me, saying he just doesn’t understand why his brother would say something like that. That he heard his brother say it all. I’m completely hysterical. He is crying too. I am yelling/saying we are finished that there is no way in hell any marriage can survive this constant barrage of stealth attack. I do not want it and who could ever get through this. The undermining, the slagging me off, that his family are just nasty, poisonous and all I want to know is what on earth I have done. I’m screaming and crying all this. I am begging him to tell what I have done, what is it, that he must know and please to tell me. I am begging on the floor for him to tell me what it is. All he manages to say is, ‘they see me as not happy and when we’ve had a row I call them up and they see you as the person who makes me unhappy’
F*cking great!
He is saying that he wants us to work out, that I am to see the positive that ‘I am now going to the Drs for my depression, and that we are going to relate to sort us out’
I am screaming at him that his brother has just threatened to kill me. Our relationship will not survive this. I will never ever be the relaxed girl you met after this. I cannot stop shaking. I am hysterical. We sat there for 4 hours going over and over. His brother text his saying it’s best to get rid of me and I’m sure I’ll read the text but to carry through getting shot of me. I’m just sobbing and shaking. The H kept saying that he means what he says, that he wants to work it out, that he is going to call his mother first thing to put a stop to it all and then speak to his brother. To end all of this nonsense, why do people say things? He then tells me other things that other members of his family have said behind my back to him.
I just can’t F*cking believe it!
What on earth have I ever done?
I point out that his family can’t respect what HE wants because if they did they would respect the fact that he wants to go to relate with ME. That he has chosen to want to be with ME.
Why the eff is he telling them things! I cannot stop sobbing.
I ask him that he must know that what they have done is so very wrong, surely he isn’t blind, surely he can see it all now?!? Does he think it is normal to treat someone like they have me? Can he see how they have damaged us? He is nodding and saying yes, he realises now and it’s not right. I am crying and sobbing and shaking.
I speak to my parents and tell them what has been said, my mother is crying and my dad is saying he is so hurt by all this wicked vindictive behaviour. That his mother must be so very jealous of me, that he loves me very much and that even though I am his daughter and maybe biased, there is no way anyone in the world deserves the way I have been treated. Reminds me that I have set up my husbands business as well as my own, that I have learned to cook a dinner for £1, that through all the financial hardship, the illnesses I have suffered and all we have unfortunately endured that no one deserves to be made to feel like this.
I am blessed for good parents but cannot stop sobbing and screaming. I just do not understand.
My H still holds me then put me to bed, in our bed and held me all night. I kept waking and crying and screaming and he held me. Kept repeating what he said.
He said he will call me throughout the day that ideally he doesn’t want to leave me in such a state but there are appointments at work he can’t cancel. He has his arms around me, ‘that he can’t have me be made to feel like this’. He reiterates that he will be calling his mother.
He called me three times through the day that his brother is at the hospital as she went into labour after we had left. I was now petrified about the stress of it all for her, (but she has given birth to a healthy boy and all is well). He was soothing and calm and told me he had smashed some things up at work because he was angry, because he had spoken to his mother, that her defence was things have been taken out of context, that she was upset. (I’ll bet she was bleating that). He agreed with me that there is no defence, that they shouldn’t be said in the first place. He wouldn’t tell me anything else that was said but that enough is enough and that she is not to ever say anything ever again.
I don’t know.
That his brother had text him telling him to pass on ‘sorry, for what it’s worth’
Sorry?
HOW ABOUT EFF OFF!!!!!
I find an apology even more offensive. My H is saying I’m sure he is sorry and doesn’t see my point that he could have texted ME, that by saying it to him instead is once again another way of manipulation.
I am still all over the place, crying and sobbing one minute, calm the next. I cannot relax properly at all. I am shaking as I type.
However, my h has been reasonably consistent with his support for me, that he wants us to work it out, that this is going to stop. I said I think I may need to hear him show his support for me in front of them. To have them come round so I can see it. He said he can see why that’s important. Said he is struggling with it all now but wants to sort it.
Here I am, shaking and grey and exhausted. I cannot even concentrate and it has taken me 2 days to write this. I can only hope that my H is finally seeing the light and can somehow muster the strength from somewhere.
Please help.