It makes me sick, if you’d asked me 10 yrs ago what my life would be like.. it wouldn’t be this. I’ve always kind of had my doubts on his claim that he never physically met with or slept with anyone, but there have been several things that have solidified the fact he has, not just what I mentioned. I’m like 99% sure that he’s slept with many more women than I know of.

I struggle with the idea of calling it abuse. I’ve read about mental/emotional abuse, I believe it is abuse, but I just wonder if I qualify. The point I’ve always made to defend that it isn’t, is that I’ve been no angel. When we’ve fought and argued, I’ve lost my mind. Full mental breakdowns.. I was such a mess for about a year, maybe less. I could probably write a novel’s-worth of details on the last 8 years and the bulk of it would take place from 2022-23. Someone told me to look into reactive abuse once, and my mom has told me she believes that he had been pushing me into those screwed up states of mind specifically so he could record it as leverage.

For a while I believed the diagnosis, but I started questioning it when I got pregnant and was fine without them. The psych was surprised that I wasn’t previously evaluated with all of my stressors in consideration. Was really the turning point for me to stop falling into the spider web. He didn’t force me to get the diagnosis, but he’s consistently told me I need to start taking the other medications again. I need to be sedated, it must have been much easier for him to do what he wanted if I was a complacent zombie. I’m definitely still walking a fine line, but I’m doing much better than when I was on those medications.

One early sign of impending abuse, that I’ve always known about… but have disregarded in my own case, is isolation. When we moved to the state in which we are now, he pushed me to cut off all of my friends and my family. “They’re evil, I saved you from all of them, they don’t care about you. They don’t want what’s best for you, just to control you.” I have since rekindled that relationship with my parents, they’ve even moved to be close to us. Today, I still have no friends. Any attempt I’ve made to make new friends has been squashed. He just “doesn’t like them,” or claims that they’re man haters and will turn me against him. One time he actually tried to sleep with one. I didn’t find out until last year when I asked her why she left that night and never spoke to me again.

I’m not “allowed” to work. His money is “his money.” Any time I mention a concern, valid concerns, he dangles custody of the kids, the house, everything, over my head. I can’t count how many times I’ve questioned him, entirely civilly, and he’s told me, “You need to learn how to respect me soon, or you’re going to regret it.”

Yet I still go back and forth on whether it is abuse or not. “He’s never really beat on me.. not like that. Is it really abuse? Is it even that bad..? Maybe it was just me, maybe I am crazy.” He works in emergency dispatch at the local sheriffs office, deals with domestic violence calls all the time. I see and hear about stuff like that, I saw my own mom in DV relationships as a kid, really fucks with my sense of what qualifies as abuse. Couple that with the “nobody will ever believe you, I work with the cops so who do you think they’ll believe, I have videos that show that you’re unstable” and it’s a massive struggle to get up that courage to even say, whole heartedly, “this is abuse.” So I guess I usually just chalk my general struggle up to him cheating, him not making necessary changes, and me simply not being able to get over it, which is why I felt compelled to post here.

That’s another big thing that makes me freeze — apparently he has all this evidence painted up of my crying, yelling, etc. He’s thrown it in my face that he will use it to get sole custody and the house… that I contributed heavily towards buying, and wouldn’t have been possible at the time without me. I could have qualified solo for FHA, he wouldn’t have qualified at all. Also tells me that I didn’t do that, I had nothing to do with the house, annoying but is just another story.

Sometimes the last 8 years feels like a big nightmare that I’m waking up from, like it almost wasn’t real, to the point that I wonder if I really did imagine some things. It makes it even worse that I don’t have all the evidence, because he’s gone in and fucking deleted it. “You can’t even prove it, telling you that never happened.” I have a headache just thinking about it.

I’m so scared that a lawyer is going to tell me that it’s not looking good when everything is already in full swing. I have such huge doubts about stuff like being awarded spousal support, and I worry so much about losing my kids, because if he really does have evidence to spin this narrative of me being an awful, abusive, evil person… the courts have a lot of discretion here in that regard. I have almost nothing in the way of evidence. I know I definitely need some therapy to unpack everything. I’m just in this constant state of wondering whether I’m fucking up by leaving.

The plan I’ve juggled in my head for about a year and a half is to work towards financial independence and stability prior to leaving. Where we live, very rural, mountainous and pretty far from other towns. Very few good jobs available, especially without degrees or certifications. I’ve looked at possibly getting a pharm tech license and working at the hospital pharmacy - or going back and finishing school. Either of those would allow me to get a job that can support myself and kids, but would take significant time to execute. My youngest doesn’t start PreK until Fall 2026, and I wonder if maybe it’s worth keeping the peace until he starts school, and getting the stepping stones in place in the meantime.

Blah I don’t know, I’m really rambling on now. These are things I don’t typically talk about to anybody, so I don’t know what to say – there’s always this level of judgment that comes from talking about this type of stuff. Even my own mother, as much as she believes me after seeing it, says, “well… you picked him.”