We were together 15 years. I've been uncomfortable for a lot of them. Pushed a lot of myself aside and sold another big chunk of myself down the river to stay as long as i did. It feels a little sick to say it's probably been that way since before we married.

I didn't get my first kiss till I was 21. Very late to the game. Stayed away from women most of my life. Enjoyed being kind to them in a brotherly or avuncular fashion for the most part. It's never felt like I was on safe ground.

Lost some weight in college and dated a few women and enjoyed sharing passion and intimacy. When it came to practical life choices, though I might as well have been pounding sand. I know how to serve another, but I don't really think I know how to live life with another person. Not good at knowing where the boundaries should be or setting them.

Respectfully broke up with most of my girlfriends when things became serious. 4 to 6 months… Sometimes a year in.

I'm met my wife in the fall of 08. I had just lost some weight… a fanatical year in the gym combined with food poisoning. I looked good for maybe the first time in my life. She said hello to me and we began dating immediately. She shared good weed with me and made love to me in a way that allowed me to feel powerful and worthy. These were new feelings for me… I guess I didn't realize how little I liked life until I felt them.

Six months of hedonistic pleasure and laughter and sharing time later I told her I loved her . In the first six months, in the first six months, she had already let me see just how intense and cold her anger could be. She'd already driven to my apartment drunk, and upon entering it had fallen on the couch and vomited all over my apartment and bathroom. She had already shared her outrageous, political opinions. she had already told me of the chaos of her youth and the chaos of her relationships. she already told me of the violence and abandonment and suicides and murders surrounding her upbringing... and quite frankly, it sounded a lot like home.

I stayed even though I was miserable. I stayed even though I desperately wanted more experiences before I got married. I stayed even though I was yelling at myself in the car and I felt miserable inside. I stayed even though I knew I was doing something wrong. Knew it in my gut. Knew it in my heart.

Breaking up with women had never been hard before. This felt impossible. It felt more important than me... on impulse I asked her to marry me and she said yes. Something I count as perhaps the lowest moment of my life until recently. made it six weeks before calling it off. Devastated both of us. She began to hit me and throw things at me. I sat there frozen everything. And my mental health has not been the same since that day. And I have not liked myself as much or thought myself were they since that day.... and somehow we stay together.... what the hell!

I've always tried to be a good and kind person and here I am wrecking the life of another person and it feels worse than death. And my gut was on fire and steering the ship. And I could not get back into my rational mind for the life of me. I was in therapy for a year or more. My wife kept looking at me like when am I gonna marry her. What am I gonna make this right? She started drinking even more and asking me questions like why was I such a pathetic piece of shit. What was wrong with me. Why had I broken her heart and why was I such a cowardly child? and we just stayed together.

Two years later, she asked me to marry her and I said yes...

At this point, I was used to feeling numb and avoidant. And we had good days. She worked hard and I worked hard and we saved money and we took trips and we were nice to each other for the most part. Every now and then she would get drunk and mad at me to a degree that I never understood and would say things to me that I still can't believe she said. Every now and then she would lay hands on me. Push me or scream at me. And then the next day it was like it never happened. It was during this time that I began watching what I would consider an unhealthy amount of pornography. 2 to 3 times a week at least. I also ballooned in weight making my way from 240 pounds up to above 300.

As we entered Covid, my wife's job was affected and she ended up spending a lot of time on the computer. Something she really does not like. And her drinking increased and she started to yell at me about things around the house. Me not being clean or tidy enough. Sometimes she would yell at me for hours. I would freeze up and stare at the corner or try to placate her. I was as avoidant as I could be. And we had good days…But the potential for what a bad day might bring, began to truly frighten me. The dispersion of possible things that might happen… What was on the table after that fourth glass of wine… legitimately frightened me and I began to walk in that fear. I did not talk about this with anyone. No Therapist. No friend. No family member. The night she screamed at me for five hours and called me every name in the book and then tried to hit me five times and then successfully sucker punching me while I was crying, looking out the window... I thought about just driving away and I still can't tell you why I didn't. I know I felt obligated. I know I felt dedicated. Also know I was miserable for a very long time.

Then I was watching porn once a day at least. I was well about 300 pounds now. Being as nice to everyone as I could.

My wife's job continually rewarded her. She was excellent in her profession and she was wonderful to her friends. I don't think any of them had the slightest idea of what she was like at home. My friends certainly didn't.

And I just kept dedicating myself to this relationship. She asked me to help raise one of her relatives. A 12-year-old child. I said yes.

When I agreed to, she said that I had better be glad that was my answer because we were going to have some serious problems if I had said no. This was another time when I felt insane for being there, and I just added it to the pile of other horrific moments that I seem to be experiencing with ever greater frequency.

By now, I had felt like a victim, and I was acting like a victim for a very long time. I had long since stop standing up for myself as it only seemed to make things worse. I had stopped valuing myself. I hung my head when I came home at night. I was hoping for quiet and maybe sex if I was lucky. And I thought of myself as a completely inadequate and pathetic person.

I used my money to put a large down payment on a very nice middle-class house. I hoped coparenting one of her relatives children would be a good thing for us to do together. We had a lot of good moments. That's the only time I've ever been responsible for a young person and it's the only time that I knew for a fact there was someone way more important than me on the planet. I've got pictures of us as a family that captured good moments that I will never forget. I will never forget what it was like to have a young person looking up to me.

Most of the time things were OK. Sometimes my wife would drink, and there would be tremendous insanity behind closed doors. It got much worse after the second year in the house. I started going to stay in hotels late at night when she could not calm down. She would grab me about the wrist and squeeze her thumbnails so hard and into my forearms that they would bleed. She would grit her teeth. She would sit in the corner and grind her teeth and flex her neck muscles and rub her temples and rock back-and-forth and look at me, like a feral creature in a cave would. She would grab my belly and call me a fat, pathetic, nothing and shake it. Sometimes she would wake me up so she could chastise me for forgetting something or not being a part of the team. Or not being dedicated to excellence.

I had long since given up hope for anything different. My dad died regretting having a family. He used to say if I had known what Your Mom's genetics were like we never would've had kids. So I had a low bar... but I began to feel like I was perfectly re-creating my father's story. Obesity. Porn addiction. Self-destruction. Solemn acquiescence to the madness and chaos an unbalanced and alcoholic woman.

And my wife got a promotion at Work. and her friend group grew. And her professional and personal life outside of me seemed to thrive. And then she would come home to me… And sometimes she was nice…

And sometimes there was the sort of chaos that seems to change the color of the paint in the room, the sort of thing you might imagine would call spirits out of the ground... the sort of thing that might make someone develop mutant powers or make someone's hair turn white overnight. Richard Jeni used to joke about his partners, menopausal insanity and late night thirst for red wine, combining into a witches brew of madness and chaos.... I know what he was talking about..... he killed himself.

I left the country for two weeks to see Family. I was deeply afraid to go. I felt like I was walking a high wire. I had become obsessed with escape. Not temporary escape… But permanent. I was thinking about suicide. I was thinking about drugs. I was thinking about sex with someone who had never thrown anything at me, hit me, or told me that I was a pathetic excuse for a man. I have been sort of hoping to die. Maybe I'll get brain cancer and then I won't have to face this impossible decision or life... real deal, self-pity and learned helplessness, bullshit for sure.

I didn't sleep for two days and got drunk for the first time in many years, went to a massage parlor with some guys I just met… and for the first time put myself in a situation where I knew I was a really bad person. I ran out of there feeling like the worst of all possible people.

I came home and told my wife… I told her that I'd had a sexual experience with another person. That I had not had penetrative sex, but I had crossed the line.

She told me to go to a doctor the next day and put everything in the medical record. Which I did like a good little boy... I took a bunch of tests and took a bunch of medicine and I was fine... but I had entered a new level of mental illness that I have never experienced before... I was obsessed with the idea that I had some sort of skin lesion. I felt contagious and acted contagious. Thinking back on it now I'm starting to cry. How insane I was. I started to destroy myself. Began to say odd things in public. I began to gain even more weight. I began to lose short term memory of what it happened earlier in the day. Couldn't remember breakfast. Couldn't remember lunch. My wife told me to attend sexual addict meetings. So I did.

Then she yelled, and she cussed… But it really wasn't that different than it was before.

Iost my mind . I could not fake it anymore. I could not cook and clean and smile and pass for normal anymore.

I quit my job. I felt like I was walking around in molasses. A living apology. Self immolation all the way through. Martydom is such bullshit. I walked around, knowing I was a terrible person. Knowing it… I thought about driving into trees. I thought about taking my very sharp knife collection I was proud of and putting it to work. I thought about disappearing.

And then I looked my wife in the face after a good day and said that I needed to go live in the woods and I'll just send money home.

She pushed me. She spit on my face. She called me every name in the book. She threw some clothes outside and told me I was no longer allowed in the home. She threatened to get a shotgun and chase me off the property. She took my car keys and threw them in the woods and then told me to leave. I slept in the car for an hour or two, and then she opened the door and screamed at me. eventually, she brought me the extra key. And then she woke up our child and told her that I was a terrible person who had cheated on her and was the cause of all of their problems. I asked her if we could talk to her together the next day and she said no.

I slept outside under a tree for a while. I slept at a campsite. I slept on friends couches. I slept in friends guest beds. My wife had told me I was not allowed to go to my mom's house… And I respected that… Because at this point, I guess I pretty much acted like my wife's bitch For something like 13 years. Probably since I called off our engagement the first time.

I've been out of the house for seven months now. And while it has been a brutal and scary process… I can genuinely say that aside from the occasional wave of nausea and guilt that rolls over me I am at peace.

I've got a lot of work to do on myself. No one has told me that I am pathetic ,to my face anyway, for seven months. My mom fell and tore her rotator cuff and suddenly needed heart surgery as well and I moved in with her to help. She has come through her surgeries well and is doing OK and, being here has broken the spell to a large degree.

My mom brings me coffee. I do the grocery shopping and I cook dinner. She holds my hand and we look at pictures of better times.

I sent home enough money to cover the mortgage and the electric electricity. I thought we might do irreconcilable differences, but that does not appear to be the case.

On paper, I think I look like a serious piece of shit. But I don't really care anymore. I'll let a lawyer do my fighting for me I suppose. I don't think I'll ever have enough clarity and sanity to hold boundaries with my wife. And I don't want another relationship for the foreseeable future.

I've left out so much crazy and I've left out some good. And I know this is just my perspective. Not being in that house is the best thing for me. I hope it's the best thing for my wife and the child we were raising. I hope there's less yelling there. And if they both think of me as the asshole that caused all of their problems… Well, then I hope they have that in common they build a solid foundation for their relationship.

I will give myself permission to walk away from this family. I will give myself permission to fight for myself in court. I will give myself permission to live a solemn and peaceful future Away from the endless expectations of the miserable, controlling, the abandoned, and the narcissistic.

Thanks for reading.

I'm walking towards sanity for myself.

I've got work to do.

In two or three years, if I feel up to it, I might get a cat .