Stuck-abusive relationship-why can't I leave?

miss_anthropy Joined: Oct 13, '10 Status: New User	2010-10-13 01:58:19
	First off let me start this post by stating I am a 34 year old woman, I just graduated law school, and my husband is a 37 year old 5 star chef (we both have professional careers) I have been in my marriage for a little over a year; we lost twins this past March at birth and I am now 5 months pregnant (accidental, yet wanted) again...with a boy. My husband is verbally abusive and VERY immature. I know he isn't right for me, and I am extremely unhappy with him...yet I stay and I can't figure out why. I think maybe I have this sense of compassion for people who abuse me because I grew up with both of my parents being extremely abusive...I'm not sure if this is the way to describe my situation correctly or not. My husband has been physically abusive as well, but it's mostly mental, verbal abuse. We dated all through high school, he was my first love; he cheated on me, I broke it off and we didn't speak for nearly 17 years. We then got in contact again through a popular website and began dating and married quickly. There is a lot of reasons I feel he stays with me, but I really don't feel that it is out of love. He is extremely SELFISH, SELF-CENTERED & MEAN. There really isn't a time when he is sweet and caring towards me, yet that is what I YEARN for. I did have that type of relationship several years ago, but ruined it, and I can't figure out why I did that, either. Now, I would give anything for it to be that way again. I, for the life of me, can't figure out why I stay with him. Everytime we get into a fight...verbal or physical, I think about us being away from each other and it makes me want that desperately (for us to divorce/separate) yet when it comes right down to it, I panic when he threatens to leave me (which he does at least 3-4 times a week lately). Can anyone please give me any advice? Does anyone else experience anything on this level? Should I seek counseling before I actually separate? Because I fear what I may do if we do actually split up. Any advice would be greatly appreciated :( ALSO: Sidenote...I am prone to cheating for some reason, to get the affection that I don't get at home, but could never leave him for someone else...I have always been that way. My previous relationship never found out, either.
HopeforDead Joined: Jun 16, '10 Status: Senior User	2010-10-13 20:59:32
	Well, separate..
vidz_22 Joined: Oct 16, '10 Status: New User	2010-10-16 08:19:46
	Both of you are just lying to each other by saving the marriage because of guilt that both of you are cheating. What I meant to say is guilt pushes you to 'be good to your husband/wife and not leave him/her." Try to tell him your concerns and if both you cannot reach on agreement in how your married life should work then there's nothing wrong with separating for a while. It would be more traumatic for a child to see arguing parents.
Shelless Joined: Jun 18, '10 Status: Junior User	2010-10-22 02:58:40
	It's very hard (read: impossible) to reach an agreement with that type of person. And if he is abusive to you, he will probably be abusive to your kid as well, so unless you want to ruin your childs life, I would suggest leaving him.
Mel Joined: May 26, '10 Status: Senior User	2010-10-22 05:13:10
	What do you actually see in him? Sounds like you're attached to 'familiarity'. You said your parents were extremely abusive. Therein lies your answer. ' If you stopped and thought about your husband's characteristics, does he resemble either your mother or father in any way? You know, often people get attracted to what is familiar, even though they don't want it. Sounds like a classic case to me. Seems that I fell for someone who is abusive too, although I didn't grow up with abusive parents (to each other). My father absolutely idolised my mother, he loved her constantly. I have to say, I always sought my mother's approval, which I finally got about a year before she died. So, I wonder if the man that I've wanted for a long time is my familiarity. I'm waiting for him to acknowledge me, to show me that I "count", that I'm someone worth loving, but NO....this guy can't or won't do a thing. He treats me like s---. I'm now realising that there may well be a link to "seeking approval" that I'll never get, or if I do...it won't be until I'm 80+ (in which case, I won't be interested). Sounds like a co-dependent relationship :((
psychoanAlice Joined: Oct 19, '10 Status: New User	2010-10-22 11:11:04
	sounds like you don't have a stable sense of self and you are projecting your power onto him and then identifying with it in him; therefore you can't leave because you would feel like you were losing all stability in your life. it is an illusion. leave. it may suck for a long time but you will feel better eventually. and now you have the kid so who needs the dude? my girlfriend found out that her husband was cheated on her with underage girls on the internet the day before she gave birth, and she kicked him out, and it has been tough but she has been so happy with just herself and her daughter. seeking counseling sounds like a good idea.
Mel Joined: May 26, '10 Status: Senior User	2010-10-22 16:24:28
	WOW, what a great explanation psychoanalice. That's so true..."projection". Classic behaviour for a lot of people actually. The guy I want is what I think, projecting onto me. He is SO angry with himself, that he projects it onto me so he can kick me, because kicking himself - would be way too painful for him. You're right...miss anthropy would be better off working on herself first. So many people refuse to work on themselves, yet want to jump into relationships with the hope that "the other" will either remove the problem, or fix it. Both concepts are ridiculous of course.
1_schizo_grl Joined: Mar 15, '10 Status: Senior User	2010-10-22 16:40:00
	Great advice from all of you. :)
psychoanAlice Joined: Oct 19, '10 Status: New User	2010-10-23 12:46:50
	aw thanks mel. it's really good to talk to you guys about this. i think a lot of women and men get into these kinds of relationships, and it's good to talk about it to realize what we are doing and try to figure out a way to do it differently. or at least that's why i'm trying to do. it's really scary actually. i used to do what you guys are describing, and it is so hard to get out of but when you do you will find that your life is your own and your decisions are your own as well and it is kind of great. on a related note: yesterday I had this crap interaction with my father in which I bought him a book that I love (about how mindfulness can help people to listen to each other better) and he felt threatened by it (partly my fault as I was going on about how great it was and thus drawing 'authority' to myself) so he started talking about this stag party for Engineers that my brother went to (my father and brother are both Engineers and they valorize this identity) and how the door prize was a woman (a prostitute). So basically my father was reinscribing women within the realm of objects exchanged by men, which is the only place that they can be if he is to feel comfortable and safe in his masculine identity. He then told me I 'paid too much' for the gift I gave him. I was so f---ing angry and deflated. Then that night I was stewing about it to my boyfriend and he said that the thing he finds sexy about me is that I like what I like and don't pretend to just like whatever he does, just because he likes it. I don't know why but it was so nice. Relevance to this discussion, I guess is that my father needed to remain in this world of interaction where only the man can have the power (and if I try to meet him with my own he will knock it down) and then my boyfriend said that actually I don't need to be that way and he prefers it that I am not and does not feel threatened by it. It's nice to get some sign from the opposite sex that it does not have to be this way.
psychoanAlice Joined: Oct 19, '10 Status: New User	2010-10-23 12:49:19
	oh and exactly Mel, you describe the reverse kind of projection so well, how he projects his weakness/attachment onto you and identifies with it in you Elizabeth Howell's 1997 article "a bridge to the other side of abuse" describes this dynamic so well, I highly recommend it
Mel Joined: May 26, '10 Status: Senior User	2010-10-24 18:58:48
	It's interesting that people do this, project themselves onto others. I think that perhaps it's almost a cry that some have to see themselves without acknowledging that this is what they're doing. This comes (I think) from not spending enough, if any time, with yourself on an honest, down to earth level. Then, when we do project, if we don't like what we see we get angry because it's not what or who we want to be. I notice sometimes that just walking past a total stranger in the street, how (on occasion) s/he changes their facial expression immediately once they've looked at me. This is such an amazing mirror...although I'm also aware that they may well be also reacting to their own predisposition, whatever that may be.In other words, I become "their' mirror. Works both ways of course. I'm an only child and grew up having had a wonderful relationship with myself, so I know who I am because I've had years of being with just "Me". This is both good and bad: I have less drive to achieve things than I did 15 years ago. I'm so content with myself and my own skin that it's almost a negative in some respects. Thanks for the article info. I will definitely look it up. Sounds really interesting. :)
deblwk Joined: Sep 7, '10 Status: Senior User	2010-10-25 00:43:39
	"sounds like you don't have a stable sense of self and you are projecting your power onto him and then identifying with it in him; therefore you can't leave because you would feel like you were losing all stability in your life. it is an illusion. leave" and the rest of that conversation good stuff, PschoanAlice & Mel. Stockholm syndrome and battered wife syndrome much better explained.
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