A little hope and guidance

@Sharni-lea , I can feel your pain and desperation. This is a very hard situation..I am sorry you are going through it. You are in the right place, this community is wonderfully supportive. We are all here for you.

Has your husband been accessed by a GP and psychologist? Could he have complex post traumatic stress disorder? CPTSD for short? People with cptsd suffer from shame spirals that makes them dettach themselves from others and struggle with closeness, communication etc. Are there children in your marriage? I ask because sometimes children can trigger things from a parents childhood that can impact them years later. It happened to my husband when he became a parent. Was there any specific event that brought on this change in behaviour on your husband? Understanding why he is behaving this way may help you see the situation with clarity and also help with your healing and coping mechanisms. Is there a way to encourage him to seek help? He sounds like he is going through a trigger or a cptsd episode. My husband has cptsd and before he started therapy and marriage counselling he was very closed off, emotionally unavailable, would not take responsibility for his words or actions and overall had a lot of anger. Therapy helped with finding a diagnosis for him and he is slowly making some improvements in his behaviour. Unfortunately cptsd has no cure and takes years of therapy and real commitment to improve. As a support person it is an incredibly hard road to travel together but I have hope that the therapy will help us.

Are you seeing someone that can help you process and protect yourself whilst still remaining empathetic and supportive? Please, please look after yourself. I know your heart is breaking but there is hope for your healing. We are here for you. Sending you love and hugs 🫂.

Thank you,

I read your reply as I sit here in tears as I have just received messages saying that he has invited a female friend to a concert we had tickets to even though he knows I have an issue with this person. He said he obviously can't do and right when I said I'm hurt he invited her without asking me first and when I asked if he's coming with her or me said he hasn't thought about it yet, so obviously no thought of how I might feel.

The only past trauma is emotional from his mum. We have 4 teenage children biologically mine. He struggled when they went feom kids to teens as they no longer idolised him and he took offence to them not putting plates away as said it was reflective of them not caring for or loving him.

He had seen two gps, said he is suicidal.at times and also that he wants to hurt others emotionally seeking fights and imagines hitting people when driving etc. They just said to exercise! We saw a psychologist together and she said she can't help and that be needs to go alone, he promised to and hasn't. We are rural and he doesn't like zoom so access is an issue. Psychiatrist is in may and he has a psych in march, non medicated

@Sharni-lea , this is very hard to read. I echo what @Bee36 is saying. I think you need a break and to start focusing on yourself and your healing. I know it's hard because you still love him but this is a road he needs to take himself with real commitment for improvement. I am hoping he does.

Someone that doesn't love themselves enough can't love others.

Focus on yourself for now and your teenagers if they are still at home. Seek the company of friends and family that make you smile. I find that taking time to myself to draw, colour in, read, helps with distractions and finding peace.

We all deserve genuine love that doesn't hurt like this. Sending you hugs 🫂. I'm thinking of you ❤️

Thank you, I'm not very good at self care, have spend the last months alone working hard to exercise, work, raise the teens, live on 100acres so pick up the pieces here as well as work, I just ruminate and analyse and want to 'fix' it so badly I have read and read to the point I feel like maybe I am codependent, have narcisitic traits and am the one with mh challenges and trauma bonded , although I know it's now me as it's affecting all aspects of his life and only my relationship in my life, all other parts of my world are functioning as usual so I think I am over reading and a little gaslit over the years perhaps. I got an I love you via text yesterday and I almost die, I am scared it's al out like a Stockholm syndrome although please don't get me wrong there's no physical or terrible abuse, but definitely manipulations gaslighting 😞