Hi everyone,
I am extremely new to this. In fact I have just checked out this site for the first time. I am so relieved to find a place to talk about this. I am in the process of leaving my husband of almost 25 years. I believe him to be a narcissist however I am just new to all of this information and am going off of what I am reading in relation to his behaviors. I don’t think he will ever admit to any sort of personality disorder so I’m going off of my own and my childrens opinions of what sounds like him. Narcissistic behaviors with controlling behaviors fits him perfectly. In fact it’s almost scary how much it sounds like him.
Anyways, like I mentioned, I am in the process of leaving. I am going to look at an apartment tomorrow and hopefully will soon be moving out. I am terrified of how he is going to retaliate. To complicate the matter even more, we have a 20 year old son who was hit by a car 9 years ago. He was left with severe traumatic brain injury. This injury has left him completely dependent for all of his cares. He is unable to speak or do anything for himself. So, I need any advice I can get in regards of how to best protect my son and myself. How do I leave with my son? What do I have to do to protect him? He is going to do whatever he can to get placement of my son or use him to hurt me. He has just for the first time gone and put in an application for getting hired as his aide. You see when my son turned 18 we as his parents are able to be paid to take care of him. So, I now know that he is planning something. My husband has not taken care of my son except for rare occasions where I am not able to and or we don’t have another aide to cover. My whole world evolves around my son and I am his primary care giver. I make all of his appointments, I make sure there is coverage, I tend to all of his cares when I am home with him, I buy all of his necessities and I do all of the paperwork. I haven’t had a choice of this, this is how my husband chose it to be for me. He is more worried about working on his cars and what he feels is important at the time so he left my sons cares up to me as he did with raising our 3 children. I was like a single mom. My lawyer said that now that my son is an adult they will look more at who has been taking care of him but I am so afraid that he is going to whitewash everyone that they will believe that he is the best father that ever walked the planet and decide to have him involved in his cares on a full time basis.
You see my fears in this matter came about the first time I was going to leave him. He had the guardian believing that I was coaching my children and that I was the manipulating one. They went with 50/50 custody with the kids even though my daughter hated him. They said that her and I were grudge holders and that yes, he wasn’t the father of the year but he really wanted to do better and he was willing to learn. This is also the same man who was arrested for trying to keep his family from getting help by pulling the phone cords out of the walls and held my arm so tightly as an attempt to keep me from leaving in HIS car that I had a full hand print on my arm for weeks after. We also stayed in a shelter for two weeks waiting for a restraining order and access to the house without him there. All of this because my daughter wouldn’t go outside and hand sand our 1/2 of a mile long driveway. So needless to say, I haven’t had the best experience with the courts in getting them to see him for who he really is. He is so good at what he does that sometimes he even gets me to feel sorry for him.
The second time I left was because our daughter was 16-17 years old and was becoming increasingly depressed. I feared that I was going to lose her either by her running away or suicide. So I left and took the kids with me but ended up both times going back because I fell for it. I truly believed that it would be better and he was acting so much like the man I married and loved. He was saying all the right things, doing all the right things and made me feel like I really was important to him. The sad thing is slowly and slowly things went back to the way they were. The garage and cars were always more important. We didn’t do anything unless he wanted to do it which was very seldom. He seems completely content with me sitting in the house, taking care of our son and having limited friends. Whenever I needed something done, he wouldn’t do it for years. Something as simple as hanging a big cabinet in a bathroom. The cabinet just got hung up now and has been sitting on the floor for 4years. It seemed like everything I wanted, especially things that I really wanted like him going to bed instead of always sleeping on the couch snoring every day, he would continue the behavior. There was never any giving in. No compromising, no nothing. If he wanted to sleep on the couch he did even if the aide was there forced to listening to him snoring over the t.v. I just don’t understand how things can get so twisted and distorted.
How can a human being have so little regard for the person they swear they love? I don’t understand the twists and turns of all of this. I did everything for him. I even had to put up with having sex in the same bedroom that our son slept in. Believe me it has not been pleasurable for me in the slightest way. My disabled son slept in the same room as us because there were no other rooms on the main floor and I didn’t want to be on another level in case he needed me through the night. It just seemed the more I wanted something the less interest he showed in ever doing it. Now it’s been 9 years since my sons accident. We talked about adding onto the bedroom 8 years ago to allow for some privacy. I have asked him several times but nothing has been done about it. Now we are in battle again, he thinks we are making up and so now he suggest me to let him know my ideas of how to add on to the bedroom. It’s like being slapped in the face. I don’t get it.
Anyways, thanks for listening to me babble on. I just needed to vent and get some outside input. After awhile I start to wonder if it isn’t me who has lost it. You know?
Thanks again,
photomems
