Feeling lost, and trapped

It has been a bad day, a bad week, a bad month. Today, I feel like crying. I just want to throw the towel in and give up, I cannot keep living this way. The problem is, how do you move on in a situation like mine?

I have left my husband many times over the years we have been together. The first time I left, I was 8 months pregnant and had only moved into our new home a month earlier. We had a horrible arguement, it just continued on and on. It was well past midnight, but I could not take anymore...so, not knowing where I would go, I went anyway. I remember driving to work, I was supposed to work in the morning and thought maybe I could just stay there. I was restless, yet so tired. I felt like running out of my own body. I ended up leaving work and staying on my dads couch, he was out of town. I went to work the next morning, exhausted, confused and pretty damn sure I didn't want to be with this guy. Yes, he is the father of my child(ren), but does that mean I need to be in a relationship with him?

Things got ugly in the following days. I ended up moving all my things out of the house, putting them in storage and moving in with my sister and her husband. He tortured me, threatened to put my cats outside if I didn't do this or that. I finally had to go and get them and take them to my sisters making 4 cats and me crammed into a small bedroom. It was sad, and I was scared.

After a month or so, I decided to go back to him. The baby was coming soon and he said he would work on changing. My family didn't want me to go, they warned me against it, but I went anyway...I was sure things would be different. He said they would be.

They weren't. I left him again when my oldest daughter was about 6 months old. I went back to my sister's, this time with 5 cats and a baby. I was sure it was over this time, I had learned my lesson and wouldn't be going back to him. He wasn't going to change. He is a compulsive liar, he has a problem with spending way too much money and has major baggage as far as his family is concerned. This time, I went back after a few short weeks. Because, he promised, things were going to get better. We were even going to find a new therapist, because the first two were not the right match for us. (Please read with sarcasm I am writing with!)

My conditions for going back home were a joint bank account and a wedding date. We were already engaged, he proposed while I was in labor, but had no date set. So, I pushed for an end of summer wedding, meaning we had only a few months to plan everything. All the wedding business helped to take the focus off our relationship, I was so busy trying to put everything together. But, deep down inside I knew the problems were still there and that I had no business marrying this man. I wanted the wedding, I wanted the dress, I wanted the spot light, the big day. I didn't want to spend the rest of my life with him. And more than one person warned me of the same many, many times before the wedding day came. Everyone, including myself, knew it was all wrong. Yet, we said "I do" and became husband and wife.

Nine months later, I moved out again. The fighting was non-stop and it was affecting our child. On top of that, I found out he had been talking to his ex fiancee. I heard a message she left him on his cell phone, and when I questioned him, he claimed he knew nothing about it. I called her the next day to ask her what was going on and she claimed she was calling him because she had received some paperwork in the mail from the lawsuit he had against her for not returning his engagement ring. (He took her to court and won, so there is a judgement against her for 4,000 dollars.) She said she hadn't talked to him and didn't know he was married. She didn't want any trouble, just wanted to know why this paper showed up after so much time. Later that evening, when my husband got home from work, I looked at his phone and saw her number in both the incoming and outgoing calls. I had a fit and called her, in front of him, to find out what the hell was going on. Before I could get more than a few sentences out, he was yelling in the background about me being a psycho. He called me, his wife, a psycho while I was on the phone with his ex fiancee. I hung up, packed up my little girl and went back to my sisters.

Things were nasty. He called a thousand times a day to fight with me. He wanted to know when he could see our daughter, and I wanted him to sign temporary custody papers before letting him see her. I should mention that each time I had left, he put retainers down on several of the "top" divorce attorneys in the state. He wanted to make sure I couldn't get to them. But I am psycho. So, he agreed to sign the custody papers, giving me primary custody and him having every other weekend and one day a week. He was to pick our daughter up that Sunday to visit with her, even though it wasn't suposed to be his time.

I remember him driving away with her that morning. He told me they were going to a friend's birthday party and would be back by 6. He called me a little after 5 and told me he was running a little late, but would be back soon. He brought her back, and that was that. A few days later, I just felt that something wasn't right, so after talking to him on the phone (around 10pm) I drove over there to see what he was up to. He was down in the basement, but when I checked the phone, there were numerous calls to and from "Kara" the ex fiancee. We yelled at each other some, he made up excuses and I left. I was angry and sad at the same time. I had never gone behind his back and talked with other men. It just isn't how a marriage is supposed to be.

A few weeks after that, he talked me into going back. I know, I know...at this point, everyone must be thinking "are you kidding me?" He was so convincing, and I hated living at my sister's place. It wasn't my home, I didn't have my privacy or my stuff. I was sleeping on a couch! Home I went.

The day I went back, the phone bill came in the mail. I didn't think to open it, but should have. When he came downstairs from getting changed, he brought the open phone bill with him. I noticed a page was missing, when I questioned him, he claimed they forgot it. I begged and pleaded with him to tell me the truth. I wanted to know how often he was talking to "her." He swore he only talked to her a handful of times, he had nothing to hide. The next morning, I went to my sister's to look up our phone bill online. Our computer was broken, or I would have done it myself at home. I was sickened by what I saw. About 70 calls to her number...I was in shock. I called him and confronted him, he tried to lie at first and say it must have been a mistake the phone company made. I told him not to treat me like an idiot. Finally, he admitted to speaking with her more than he told me, but swore he wasn't talking to her anymore. He had no contact with her at all, it was done.

Two days later, a Saturday morning, he was out at a class. The mail came and his credit card statement was there. I opened it and once again, felt like someone stole my breath. Not only did my husband send her flowers, 200 dollars worth two days after I went to my sister's, but that Sunday that he picked my daughter up to take her to a friends birthday party...he really took her, my little girl, to have lunch with his ex fiancee. My world crumbled. I hurt so much, more than I ever knew I could hurt. More than Paul had ever hurt me back when I was a love struck teenager. I hurt and I cried and I hurt some more. Imaginging my little girl playing and having lunch with another women just days after me leaving was unimaginable to me. How could he do something like that?

When he got home, I confronted him about it. He sweet talked me into believing that he did it because he was afraid I was going to divorce him and ask "Kara" to help me prove he was unfit as a husband and father. I am not really sure what he meant by that, but he pounded into my mind over and over. It was just easier to believe the lies than face the hurt. My family thought I was a joke at this point, I leave and go back only to leave and go back again. I felt lost and didn't know where to turn. I just kept telling myself that whatever happened was done and over with, I was home and somehow we would make things work. I was still seeing a therapist, and would talk to her about it next time I went.

A couple days later, I found out they were still talking. What else? What more could I possibly handle? I was having severe panic attacks, couldn't eat, wasn't able to sleep, had to exercise like a maniac to try to settle my nerves a little. It was awful. I made him call her, in front on me, and tell her he wouldn't be speaking to her anymore. Of course, she didn't answer, he left her a message. Still, I was obsessed with the subject. I was always checking over my shoulder, checking his phone records, his credit card bills, calling him at work and when the receptionsist asked who I was, I said "Kara" to see what he would do. He passed my tests and despite my soul still being a wreck, we moved on. I lost a good deal of weight, and he started to have a small interest in sex again. Sex, one of our biggest issues...he denied me a sexual relationship claiming everything under the sun as an excuse.

Anyway, one of the few times we had sex during that period of time, I got pregnant. And then, I had a nervous breakdown.

To be continued...