It is hard to write this, but I need to get it out into the world. I was the victim of an emotionally abusive spouse for 15 years. This will likely be a long post, and ill try to summarize as much as possible. I could really use the support of an understanding community.

My ex and I met when we were young, I was 20 and B was 21. I was in the Navy, stationed in Hawaii and having the time of my life. We met at a party of a mutual friend, and to say we had a whirlwind romance would be an understatement. I had never fallen so hard, or so quickly for someone in my entire life. It was new and exciting, fun and above all it was passionate. We were an absolute match in everything. Partying together, lounging on the beach together, sex...I felt like I had it all.

After only a few months we moved in together. We were working opposite shifts, I was nights and B was days, so we still only really saw each other on the weekends, at least, thats how we rationalized it. It would be just like we were not living together, but we were. Then, I got deployed to Iraq.

When I was deployed, thats when the abuse started. B had a school to attend that was on the east coast. I had only one hour per week that I was able to use the phone to talk to B and I was so excited to just hear Bs voice. But each time I called, B would be out at a bar, or out with a friend, and most of the time, out with guys. I tried asking, for just that one hour per week, to please just be somewhere quiet and private so we could talk. B told me it was unreasonable to expect that, because it was 8pm on the east coast, and that was prime time to be going out and having fun. B made me feel guilty for wanting to talk. I'm not going to lie...I got jealous. I started thinking that the only reason B would not want to spend time with me is because B is spending time with someone else. I knew I shouldn't have done it, but I had the password, so I checked B's email.

That was the first time that I found out B was cheating. It felt like I'd been punched in the stomach and I nearly threw up. I remember walking back to my tent in a daze. I was so in love with this person. How could they do that to me? I couldn't eat or sleep. Finally a few days later I was able to speak to B on the phone. I told her what I'd found in her email. She vigorously denied it, and then, the gaslighting started. She convinced me that the dirty emails that I'd seen were meant to go to me, and that somehow it had been a mistake and yahoo had sent it to this other guy. How I was such a bastard for looking at her email and violating her trust. That I was the one that should be sorry...eventually, I bought into the lies. I started to internalize that I was the one in the wrong, because after all, I'd looked at her email. If I hadn't, then none of this would have ever happened. I'd have never known about it, so I was wrong.

Fast forward several months, and I've returned home from my deployment. Several of my friends and I were suffering the effects of PTSD, so we did what we always did...we drank. I drank and drank and drank some more, trying to hide the pain. I quickly found that if I drank enough at night, I wouldn't remember the nightmares when I woke. It was the lowest point of my life. I woke up one night screaming and choking her...I was terrified of what I'd become. I decided to go to AA.

Funny thing about having a drinking problem and PTSD, it can be pretty easy to convince someone suffering those problems that they are worthless, that they are unlovable, that they are a burden. Thats exactly what she did. By simultaneously being my shoulder to cry on, and my only outlet, she was able to convince me that she was my savior. That no one else could ever care for me the way she did, that she was the only one that could love someone as broken as me. She got me to stop going to AA, and spend more of my time with her. By now, my friends were leaving the navy, or being transfered around the country, and she used this opportunity to start isolating me.

I've always been a very social and outgoing person. I've always made friends easily. But this was starting to be the cause of fights. I would tell her that I was going to go out with the guys, and she'd say it was fine and to have fun, but when I got home, or the next day, she'd be screaming at me and picking fights over the littlest of things. Pretty soon I learned that if I didn't go out, I didn't have ti worry about having fights at home...as long as I went along with everything she wanted me to do.

Eventually, we married and moved back to the east coast. She was pregnant with our first child. We'd been fighting all the time, but I was looking forward to a fresh start. Maybe we'd find a way to be happy again. Maybe we could rekindle that passion.

Being in a new place, not knowing anyone, not even family, is isolating enough on its own, but being with an abuser magnifies it 100 fold. Every person I tried to establish a relationship with outside of her, she would drive away. She would would completely fly off the handle at the drop of a pin and berate me for hours on end. I made excuses to myself "its just the pregnancy hormones" or, "she just had a really long day at work." Now I learned that if I stopped standing up for myself. Then I could avoid most fights. I could live in relative peace, if I just went along and did as I was told. As long as I didn't do anything to upset her, I would be in a happy home.

I remember at one point. After one of her many affairs, we went to couples counseling. I couldn't see that I was being abused, and the counselor embolden and enabled her. I remember very distinctly at one point telling the therapist that when we fought, she would say things that happened that were completely different than how I remembered. I didn't know what gaslighting was at that time. The therapist told us that "we were just subjectively experiencing life from two different perspectives, which is why we rememebr it differently." I bought it, after all, this person is a couples counselor, they know what they are talking about. That one simple sentence fueled years of the worst gaslighting imaginable, and me rationalizing it as "different perspectives"

The abuse went on for 15 years, 2 children, a cross country move, and buying a home together and her having at least half a dozen affairs. Finally 2 and a half years ago I realized that not only does B not love me, I dont even think she is capable of loving someone. I finally escaped from the cycle of abuse.

The hardest part of my split and subsequent recovery, is that NO ONE believes me. I'm a man (and a big guy at that) and she is a petite pretty girl, how could she possibly have been the abuser in the relationship. My parents don't believe me. My friends don't believe me. I found a good therapist and went, on the verge of suicide, and finally had someone to talk to that took my abuse seriously. My current girlfriend has been amazing at helping me move through my recovery. It's hard to look at myself in the mirror and see myself as a victim, but every day, I get just a little bit better.

Thanks for reading.