My eyes are open after 20 years!

I don’t even know where to begin, in truth I am shattered to have very recently learnt what my husband of 20 years has been doing to me, and to my kids. So, here’s my story, its kinda long…’

We met at school when I was 13 and dated on and off for 3 years. We always kept in touch afterward though. Seven or eight year later I got a phone call from him saying that his wife is leaving him, I consoled him through the divorce, and we reignited our friendship. His divorce was finalised in April 1999 and by November 1999 we were married. It seemed that we were always meant to be together and at the time I was blissfully happy.

I had worked with horses my while life, I had studied and worked hard and was very happy doing what I truly loved. At the time I had been working for a terrible person, so I resigned and joined my husband’s business. This was on the complete opposite end of the scale to what I had been working towards for my career, but I agreed on the basis that if I am not happy doing this type of work that I would be able to leave and continue with my career. Well that never happened! Every time I approached him saying I was unhappy and wanted to go follow my dream career he would tell me that my time is far more valuable in the business and that I would never make enough money outside of the business and that I am not sticking to our plan. By our plan I clearly mean his plan, which he told me about on our honeymoon, he laid it our very clearly what he wanted and where he wanted to be by 35, and at the time I was fully in favour of this plan, it seemed so exciting and grand and who wouldn’t want to be part of it.

He is an entrepreneur and a very clever one at that, so business and money is his thing. His plan was to put all our time, energy and money into the business for 10 to 15 years, build it up so we can use the funds to buy properties that will ultimately fund our early retirement, so we don’t have to work so hard in the future and travel. It’s a super plan really, but it had some flaws… It didn’t involve children; it didn’t allow for any time or money for anything that didn’t fit into the plan and it certainly didn’t allow for me to follow what I wanted out of a career. And this is where the trouble started because I was deviating from the plan…

I wanted a family, I wanted children, and if I couldn’t follow my career then I wanted to be able to have a horse. I felt that it was only fair since I had given up my career to follow and support his business and the plan. After much discussion he agreed that we could have a child and three months later I was pregnant. I remember standing in the bathroom with the positive tester and I was so happy and overcome with joy, he did not seem as happy, but gave me a hug and said congratulations. I was sad and hurt by his response.

In 2002, our beautiful daughter was born and as all new mothers know, it changes your whole world. We brought her home on Friday from the hospital, on Monday morning he woke me up and told me its time to get to work. I was horrified, not only had I just had a baby, but I was reeling in pain from the birth and had had about 6 hours of sleep in three days. Because we worked from home, he said I can just put her next to me and do my work. I wont lie, this made me very angry and hurt that he didn’t care about anything other than the business. I lost a bit of respect for him that day.

In 2004, I finally found a horse, he was perfect. I told my husband and we ended up having a huge fight because of the costs and how selfish I was being wanting to spend that kind of money on myself. How does the rest of the family benefit from me having a horse? We can use that money to put towards the property! I was not going to cave and eventually he agreed. But this obviously came a cost. Every time anything went wrong or there wasn’t money for a night out or whatever, it was because I spent it on the horse. He guilted me all the time about my horse, about the fuel and time I spent getting there and that I was neglecting him and not spending time at home. After 18 months of this, I eventually gave my horse up.

By this time, our business had grown extensively and had basically overrun the entire house. The only privacy was in our bedroom. The lounge, the spare bedroom, the double garage and every other possible space was filled with people, desks and computers. If I said anything about this, I was reminded that we had a plan and that this is part of the sacrifices we have to make, he would also throw in a snide comment that if I hadn’t spent the money on the horse that maybe we would be a little closer to our goals. We eventually found a second property that we converted into offices and moved the entire business out of the house. Can’t even tell you how happy I was about that. But once again he was complaining that he now must drive to work every day, spend money on fuel and how inconvenient it actually was having the business away from the house. If I wasn’t so ungrateful or if my standards weren’t so high, then I would have been happy to just continue living as we had been.

By now, I had started to accept the fact that everything was my fault and that’s just the way he was. That I am to blame for all his losses and the slow growth in the business because my focus is not where it should be. This is where I started to believe what he was saying, that I am selfish and ungrateful, that I am a bad person who only thinks of herself, the money and time I had spent on my horse was continuously thrown in my face. I felt like he never forgave me for my wrong doings and would use them against me at any given moment. I tried to leave, but he promised me that he would change and for a while things were good again.

Then one day I found an advert for a small holding. It was a perfect solution for us as it had many buildings and houses on it that we could convert into offices, it had stables and a place for his parents (who by the way we have supported our entire lives). So, in my mind this was the perfect place for everyone. He could have his business at home again, I could have my horses at home and run a small livery yard and his folks could live there too. We went to look at the property numerous times, made sketches of where we could build and make alterations and how we could afford to pay for it. After much back and forth, many fights and arguments and a lot of convincing from my side, he finally agreed. I could not believe that this was happening, that he was going to do this for me. I felt loved and seen and heard for the first time in a very long time.

Not long after we had signed the deed of sale and the bank had given us the bond, I found out that I was pregnant. This news did not go down well at all with him. How can we have a baby now? Do I really want to have a baby now that I have this beautiful place? It’s going to hold me back from doing what I have just accomplished? He did a really good job of gaslighting me on this and he made me believe that this baby is not what I want. We went to the doctor and got medication to make me miscarry. Deep down I knew it was wrong, deep down I wanted this baby, but I was so confused at the time that I just went along with it. As I sat on the toilet with the medication, I sobbed and apologised to my unborn child and told it that I loved it as I slid the medication inside. I have no words to describe how I felt when I saw the blood the next morning. Anger, resentment, disappointment, hate, embarrassment, for both myself and my husband. After a few days the bleeding stopped, and I buried those feelings and the thought of my unborn child deep down inside me and I carried on.

A few months later I went to the doctor as I hadn’t been well. She checked me out and did an ultrasound scan to see what was going on. As she slid the scan over my belly, we heard a heartbeat and there was my baby! I burst into tears and sobbed and sobbed. I was 18 weeks pregnant with a healthy baby boy. I thanked God right then and therefor saving him and I named him Theo (which means a gift from God). I obviously had to tell the doctor what I had done, and she sent me for a full medical ultrasound scan with a specialist to ensure that my baby was healthy and that he hadn’t been affected by the medication I had taken. My husband refused to go with me, so I had to go do this on my own. It was probably one of the scariest things I have ever done, lying on the bed watching every measurement of every part of my baby, holding my breath that he would be healthy. After a two-hour scan, the gynae assured me that my baby was 100% healthy and was growing at the normal rate. My heart soared.

After we moved onto the new property, there was lots of things to be done and we were both very busy, but I feel that this is when he started feeling like he had lost control over me, over his plan, over everything and this is when I really started feeling his wrath as he amped up the guilting and the blame and the gaslighting. I was told numerous times that I have derailed his financial freedom plan and that we are now stuck with a property we must pay for the next 20 years and how that goes against everything he believes in and has worked towards. That I threatened to leave him if he doesn’t buy this property for me, which I don’t remember doing or saying, but he’s adamant that I did, and I have tried leaving before so maybe I did, who really knows. My version of reality is so skewed that I have been doubting myself and believing him.

In 2013 I had really had enough, he had been partying with is friends for two years or so, taking drugs, going out and only coming back the next day, drinking and basically living like a bachelor. When I confronted him, he said it was because he deserved a break and that he hadn’t experienced this phase because he had been so hard working in his younger years. He also blamed me saying that I had been so busy with my own life and the horses that I had abandoned him and the children for my own desires and needs. I told him I wanted a divorce and that I was done with all of this. He was enraged that I could do this to him, that I was so ungrateful for what he had provided me with and that after everything he had done and the sacrifices he had made, that I was just going to leave him now. He drew up various plan and options of how we could work out a divorce plan and tried to control the outcome. Eventually he changed his tactic and promised me that he would change, he joined the local church and changed his ways and I really felt that he loved me enough to really and truly see me and make the changes needed to save our marriage. I agreed and put 100% of myself back into the relationship, I also joined the church and made changes that he required from me. After 3 months he stopped going to church, I was concerned as this was one of main reasons I had decided to try again.

Over the next 18 months things seemed to be going well, until one day a switched seemed to flick over in his brain. Seemingly out of the blue he told me that he’s been thinking of leaving me. That he just doesn’t understand how I could just leave him like that, after everything he had done for me, right at the pinnacle of his business career I want to leave. He didn’t seem to understand that he had a role in the demise of our relationship and no matter how many times I tried to explain it to him, he just didn’t get it, he just couldn’t see what he had done wrong. He went into a depression for about a year or so, he hardly got out of bed unless it was something he wanted to do. He was withdrawn and sullen and I felt every moment of his resentment and bitterness towards me. I tried to be as supportive as possible, caring to his every whim, offering to take him to the doctor to get anti-depressants so he can get better. All this time I ran the business, the household, the children and the property on my own with very little help or assistance from him. He only seemed interested in working with his new business partner building a new company and spent many hours doing this. I felt guilty that he was in this state, he’d made it very clear that I had done this to him, and these are the consequences of my actions. So, I spent vast amounts of time and energy trying to prove to him that I am here to stay and that I am committed to making this marriage a success and how sorry I was about what I had done. I have been doing this for 6 years now and the past two and a half years have been the absolute worst. He has been doing less and less to help me and he has been getting more and more difficult to deal with or be around. Everything turns into a huge argument with him blaming me for his actions and guilting me about every little thing he possibly can. Calling me pathetic and stupid and f@cked up. I have been given everything that I possibly wanted in my life, from him, sacrifices that he and his parents have made in labour and equity to give me what I want and keep me happy. I am ungrateful and spoilt. He even told me that he had been purposefully doing what he had been doing so that I could feel what its like. That I wanted all this and now I must work to keep it.

In January this year, I pulled right back from him. I had had enough of his crap and I just stopped everything I had been doing for him. Once I stopped providing for him, things fell apart. I told him that I was no longer his little slave. Things got really bad for a short time, there was constant fighting and arguing, door bashing and smashing things. One day he was in a particularly foul mood, he had fought with his business partner and then came into the house and fought with me. Thing escalated and he sat and wrote a divorce agreement and made me sign it. I took the letter and went to my folks for a few days, ignoring his messages and phone calls. When I got home he decided that he’s ready to mend the relationship, we sat outside for hours on end while he told me how he was feeling about everything that had happened and wanted to know exactly why I had wanted to leave in 2013, because he still cannot see his fault or responsibility in the demise of our marriage. I told him that I wasn’t prepared to do this on our own and that we should go see a therapist. At first, he disagreed, but then he said he would go along. We’ve been for two sessions now.

Our poor kids have been subjected to all this too, my daughter (17) moved out of the house in February because she could no longer deal with her father, who by the way treats her really badly, often calling her a horsey bitch to her face and being unsupportive and critical of anything she does. Our son is his golden boy who can’t do anything wrong and blame is passed onto our daughter whenever he can. I did not fight with her when she moved out, I can’t blame her for not wanting to live in this environment. Her father couldn’t give a damn and often comments that that’s one child out of the house. She will take our son out of the house when things get bad and is protective over him at these times.

My husband has been away on his own for two weeks and I have used this time to do some soul searching on our lives and what I want. Then I was doing some research a week ago about why my husband always blames me and can’t get over things. The first thing that came up was narcissism. I read one article and then another and another and I could not believe what I was reading. This is my husband! How have I never noticed this before? The more articles I read the more the wool has lifted from my eyes and now I am left feeling a while new range of emotions and more than anything all I want is OUT! Because he is in an area with no signal we don’t speak to each other often, but yesterday he phoned me about a disagreement we had had over whatsapp, where he’s been demanding that he requires admiration from me and why am I being resistant in giving him the one thing that he needs that will fix our relationship. I was in the shopping centre when he phoned and the conversation very quickly heated up, I told him I cant do this right now and that I would phone him back when I got home, his comment – Do you know how f@cked up you are! I hung up immediately and sent him a message stating that I will no longer entertain him guilting me for everything. I am not responsible for his actions and that I am not f@cked up.

He is supposed to come home tomorrow. I have written him a letter stating I no longer wish to be in a relationship with him, that I will be away for a few days and that he is to move out before I get home on Sunday, (we have en empty cottage on the property he can move into). I am not willing to negotiate or talk about this anymore.

So, this is where I am right now. Scared, angry and worried for my kids, but I know I HAVE to get out.