Well, I had to see him yesterday because kiddo and I needed to get some of our things from the house. The house itself was unbelievable. There was rotting food all over the place, a pile of dishes in the sink, and there has been no running water since before we left in February. But he is still using the toilet, eww. He has been packing things up, both is and mine, which of course is helpful.
I asked him to leave us alone but of course he wouldn't, and eventually sucked me into an argument. It was exactly like before we left. Nothing but a bunch of word salad. Apparently he thinks I want to stay married to him, but he has (by his own admission) little to offer me. He will never express deep feelings. We will never enjoy emotional intimacy. He is not interested in helping me heal from his infidelity, which he insists was not actually infidelity since PIV sex is the only way a person can be unfaithful. It is my own fault I never got to go to med school; he worked two jobs for "years" so I could have the time to go to school which I wasted (it was like a year when kiddo was little. I went back to work when she was 2. And he worked to pay the mortgage on that house he had to have, which I hated.) His pornography use was not actually harmful to me. He is not responsible for the lies he told me around his pornography use. And blowing him off for the holidays since I left this past year is every bit as bad as what he did to me.
I am the love of his life and his soulmate but if I want to leave he won't feel too bad. He is not going to beg me to say or "kiss my ass." He still loves me but if we get divorced (is there any doubt at this point?) he is going to go after me and try to take away my trailer and get me to pay him support. He is even going to go after the patio furniture I took (Value, $50) just so I won't have it. But he is becoming a better person since I have been gone. He is a good man now.
This morning I felt like I had a hangover. It wasn't just being tired, I actually felt sick and drained like I had been drinking all night. Yesterday was, to say the least, a painful day.
However it was also very educational. Now I can see how he fucked with me so badly. For years, I have been listening to his word salad and believing it was normal conversation. So then of course I started to believe there was something wrong with me for not understanding what he was saying. It seemed like the conversation changed directions all the time and without warning, because it did. I didn't really see what was happening at the time, so I would be blindsided. Then he would gaslight me (which he claims he was not doing because such a thing does not really exist) and further add to the chaos. I would get turned around and lose track of the conversation. After years of this, I labeled myself easily confused.
His petty bullshit ate away at my confidence in myself as a human being and as a woman. He kept us in financial and emotional chaos and thwarted everything I tried to do. He got me believing I couldn't balance a checkbook or manage a household, when he was actively going behind me and messing things up. I always believed he was doing it but I could never catch him. How the hell was I going to continue on the path to med school after he convinced me that I couldn't handle basic math? And I knew that being a med student and the mother of a small child at the same time would take a ton of support. When I realized I didn't have that, what was I supposed to do?
He also subtly let me know that he was not a big fan of intelligence in a woman, so If I wanted to continue on this very brainy endeavor, where would I be in my marriage? And he had the trauma bond so firmly established, I obviously had a hell of a time breaking away.
So I'm kind of ranting, but the more I think about this, the more it irks me. Also the more I think about it, the better I see all the subtle ways he controlled me. Ironically, my own belief in myself both kept me trapped and eventually allowed me to walk away. It kept me trapped because I really believed if I cold just figure things out, I could make everything come out all right. But fortunately, eventually I realized the truth, which is that some things just can't be fixed.
[This message edited by WarriorPrincess at 5:29 AM, Monday, August 16th]