I have just had my A-ha! Moment

Well Where to start?

I have been trawling this site (what a godsend it is) for the best part of 4 days and nights (as time and energy will allow at least). I thought it was time I joined to  find some support for myself and to try and gain some insight into my deeply distressing situation.

A bit of back history for you

Firstly I will introduce myself, I am Natalie, I am from the UK and I am married to what I think, is an ADHD spouse. To make matters worse and more complicated, he is not English, he is Turkish, though he speaks English brilliantly (he probably learned it with the same level of hyperfocus it took to woo me)  

To begin with I kind of thought that his "foibles" where infact part of his cultural heritage and mostly brushed them off, our courtship was intense and he showered me with love and affection unlike any other man I had known, I felt as if I was in a misty heart shaped bubble and my usual rational mind went for an extended leave as I fell for the rouse hook line and sinker.

 Our relationship was long distance for a while, so we were only ever our best selves in each other's company. We were engaged within a year and after two I was pregnant with our Daughter. It was after this point, that the period of bliss, that I now like to call "lala land" abruptly began to disintegrate. I duly did what any pregnant and soon to be married women would (well a co-dependant one at least) I clung on for dear life...trying to fix him, trying to fix us, trying to make it work. It was then, that when I think about it, the tables turned and I became the only one invested in the relationship on any sort of level, he just sort of breezed along.

Where I am at now

Fast forward 2 and a half years of living with each other and being married and I can tell you stories that would make you laugh, or cry or feel pity, or probably likely the same rage that I am fueled with on a daily basis. In our first few weeks of living together, once he had moved back from Turkey, I found text messages on his phone from some other woman, our daughter was 5 weeks old. The messages themselves were ones he sent (he deleted any incriminating evidence of any received messages as he often does) kind of insinuating that he was coming to work in the UK, not to marry me, live a family life with our daughter. Anyway, that dented our relationship from the outset.

Then he finds old pictures of me with other men (shock horror) not in any kind of passionate tryst or anything and his attitude to me completely cooled off. We then endured two years of living with my negatron mother, which cumulated in such deep sadness and anguish on all our parts that I told him to get out in March this year (after telling me for the 9 millionth time he wanted a divorce)

We continued to see each other, he got a room locally and on the weekends we would act like a normal family, that is between 10am and 6pm, after which he would go back to his garret and drink himself into a stupor.

He liked his own space and his own timetable so much that he stayed that way until july, when he asked could we get our own place together again. I was full of trepidation, but after a while, I felt like I needed to give my marriage the best shot I've got, so I moved into a new home with him. My dream was back in place, the man I loved had returned to me and it was so lovely...That is, until 4 weeks after moving in together, in a new area, away from my family and friends, I found it. The bank statement with the evidence. He had been out all night with friends "drinking" on  more than 2 occasions since we moved back in together - but I found on at least 2 of those occasions he had in fact been in a hotel with another woman.

Of course he tried to deny it, he tried to blame me for opening his bank statement, he tried to say I was possessive controlling and jealous (why, of course I am!) He said it was for a "friend" I was shaking with shock and rage, I didn't know what to do, say, think, or feel. I was devastated, I still am. Eventually he fessed up, but he minimized the whole thing "it was just sex" "I think I finally found someone that is just like me, she just wanted sex too" I found out that they had frequently had sex while we were separated and that he had spend a large sum of  money on sex toys to boot, none of which were for me, I may add.

Of course he begged me for forgiveness and because I am a woman of faith, I chose to try and work on that. BUT I wanted so desperately to feel loved by him still, that I didn't set boundaries, I just let him continue to walk all over me, I wanted our new life to work, I wanted my dream. So I let him continue to dictate the order of our lives (or this disorder), continue to walk around the place leaving a trail of destruction and mess (he cant even put Landry in the basket, rather on the floor BY the basket) continue to act with reckless abandon, to engineer arguments so he could flee and go drinking himself into a stupor. I felt like I was an utterly abused wife, with no one and no where to go. All my family and friends had long since given up the battle to make me see "sense".

I have  discovered that he was told at school that he was "hyperactive" his schooling ended abruptly for his explosive reactions in the classroom and he was constantly running away from home and getting involved in reckless and addictive behaviors (gangs, drinking, smoking hash). He also worked in a holiday area for a time and had numerous flings and one night stands - I am the only long term relationship he has been involved in... now I am starting to see why.

In the 2 and a half years Since living together, he has "run away" from our home, slept rough in the park, fallen down the stairs drunk, passed out on the kitchen floor, been found in the crawl space in the attic passed out with a bottle of whiskey had blind drunken rages, been in and out of the "big bed" to self exile. They are just some examples of his darkest moments, of which there have been many. He repeatedly says he wants a divorce when I challenge him to look at his behavior, he blames me, the nagging, controlling wife, the needy depressive monster, that I have become (in his opinion)

Last night however was a new low, where I was so enraged at his inability to show me love and affection, he said he didn't love me, and that we should just live together as friends because it's better that way - so we don't have to hurt each other. That was because I even mentioned ADHD is a possibility.  He then starts his mantra of "you are sick, you make me depressed" and threatens to take me off to the hospital. He then of course turns it all around on me, and states coldly, stop crying you are making me feel hurt. HIM.... HIM! This is where my rage starts to boil and I throw anything that isn't nailed down at him and then fall in a heap on floor sobbing. He just sat there, looking at me and then called my dad. Eventually he came over and held me, and said I am not the woman he fell in love with - maybe that I pretended to be someone else during the time we were falling in love.... Does that sound familiar? ERM Hello. That is YOU mister.

On the up shot, he is a loving father who would do anything for his daughter, who is now a toddler,  and is regimented about some things, he cant stand mess or noise, except certain music of his choice and I know our Daughter who is also showing signs of hyperactivity, stresses him out when she cries.

But he despises my daughter (17 year old from a previous relationship) and says that she is a "spoiled disrespectful bitch" they used to get on fine, but she cant stand his hypocrisy and neither can I. All my family find him abrupt and strange (confidence issues I think) and my friends just steer clear. The only person who has any time for him aside from me and his friends, is my Father, who has rooted for us all the way. Sadly though, now even he is telling me that it is time to seriously consider what I want.

I am really at the point where I am so ready to throw in the towel. I have tried everything and more to make him happy, to make our relationship work, but now it's having too much of a detrimental effect on me, where I am so love-lost and I am grieving the relationship and the man I had. This person, I don't even know.

I believe marriage is for life and I truly do not want a divorce, but right now, it seems like my only option. I cant live in a house where he expects I act like the maid, hold down a full time professional career (I also earn far more than him - which he likes to spend on the aforementioned frivolities) and be chief cook and bottle washer and night time nurse for our daughter. He has a job, granted and that is his current area of hyper-focus and is well liked in the workplace, even though his temper gets the better of him there too from time to time.

I just do not know what my next move is, except to work on myself, to try and stop reacting to him and his whim's and detach. But surely this is not marriage? And How do I do that?

Sorry for the long introductory post, but I am just in that place at the moment, trying to make sense out of it, trying to understand and accept it and trying to move on.

 

Natalie