What Am I Dealing With? How Can I Heal?

Reader’s Question

What was I dealing with? How can I heal? I’m having a terrible time letting him go, and understanding who exactly he was. He says I am obsessed with the past and he just wants to forget it and move on.

Before I knew my husband he lived in a “boy’s only dormitory” (in college) run by a priest. My husband was sexually involved with the priest (was also physically abusive). I suspect there was abuse earlier in my husband’s life; he won’t talk about it. During this time, he had a fiancé he was in love with. Eventually, he left her and left the country.

I met him through family. We hit it off, but he pressured us to get more involved than I was prepared to. He moved out of state suddenly to live with friends — I would find out later that he got involved with an older man as well as got involved with a woman.

We communicated via email and long distance phone calls. When he suddenly moved in with the older male friend without telling anyone, I questioned it. He said, “he’s like a father to me.” His life out of state was VERY wild, by all accounts.

We married. After three months I found he had been trolling for men on Internet sites. I confronted him, and he said he wasn’t gay, but had considered prostituting himself. Within a few weeks he quit his job, and chatted on the computer and cell phone constantly. Later I found that he’d been desperately giving his phone number out to any man he could find — on the street, at work, on the Internet. He lied about himself, making himself younger, saying he was a student living with family. A friend of his started hanging around with us. My husband tried to fix me up with his friend. He would say, “he’s a brother to me.”

He would get angry when I questioned him about being out all night; he would say it was my problem because I was obsessed with him.

We separated; he moved in with the friend. Soon, the friend was calling me up begging me to help him get rid of him. He was locking himself in the bathroom to talk on the phone, on the computer all the time, etc. My husband told me he wanted his freedom and he wanted a divorce. He admitted that while being married to me he was sleeping with the male friend and having a relationship with a married mother of an 8-year old.

I told him he needed help. He agreed. Later he told me he had never loved me, he didn’t want to speak to me, see me, etc. He said what he needed was to be alone and stay away from the computer and to work two jobs and wear himself out. He dropped out of touch. We met up and he said he didn’t want the divorce but he didn’t want to live with me. Another time he said he had never been happy with me; he wanted to meet a man who would respect him. Then he dropped out for several weeks. Later he said he was all alone, saying he’d lost most of his friends because of his confusion. He said he had gained very little — maybe a little bit control of his life.

He talked about having a monster inside of him, saying, “I’m a disaster to you and my family…” He would say, “It would be better for everyone if I were dead…” He acknowledges that when depressed, he becomes self-destructive. I’ve never seen him take any drugs, but he can drink himself under the table.

Every time I talk to him, it’s a different man answering. The last time I talked to him, he said he wasn’t talking to his “wild friends” anymore, he works all the time and isn’t with anyone. But he’s told me this before and then, a few weeks later he shows up, looking frustrated and depressed with those same “wild friends” calling. The last time I saw him, he acknowledged he had been addicted to sex but that he wasn’t addicted anymore. He acknowledges being bisexual, but he says he isn’t with anyone — that he is just alone. But I know he’s cruising gay bars and he is gone overnight on the weekends. We still remember how much fun we had, how compatible we are and how we want to be friends.

I want so badly to be with him — but I’m scared of the man who was so hurtful to me. It was like a different person appeared and I don’t want him coming back.

Our Consulting Clinical Psychologist’s Reply

You are dealing with a person with a severe personality disorder, most likely a combination of Antisocial and Borderline Personality. While he may blame his behavior on a variety of excuses, he is operating in a totally selfish, manipulative, and other-and-self destructive manner. You can’t fix this. He is most likely using you as a “home base” while he manipulates and uses others at the same time.

Of special note, his manipulative and disrespectful behavior is not related to being gay, bisexual, or heterosexual. He will never accept personal responsibility for his behavior, has a tremendous sense of personal entitlement, shows no respect for you or those around him, and is totally selfish and interested in only meeting his immediate demands.

To maintain a relationship with this individual will be self-destructive for you. I would detach from him and seek counseling/therapy to rebuild you self-esteem as he has spent a lot of effort to keep your self-esteem low. His verbal promises are worthless and he is likely to continue his behavior — no matter who cares about him or how his behavior damages others.