Need outside perspective, please

This will be long. I’m sorry, I need to get this off my chest even if no one reads it. If you make it through to the end, thank you. (TLDR at the end.)

I don’t know how it’s possible to feel both in love with and terrified of your spouse at the same time. I don’t know how to tell if I’m in a bad situation or overreacting.

I should preface this by sharing that I have been abused in the past. There were various kinds of childhood abuses, and in adulthood there have been many unhealthy relationships and sexual trauma. I use the word unhealthy, because even still today I remain unsure exactly how to categorize them. Therapists have said my past partner was abusive, and he even ended up with a confirming diagnosis. Still it is hard to believe. Friendships have had a pattern of dysfunction, mostly in the form of being used.

To my present situation. He was pushy and intimidated me since we first met. Pushed me to give my number quickly, meet quickly, and get physical. I took note but also dismissed it as my own insecure shy nature. I first saw it as assertive, and of course he was handsome and charming, but then I quickly began to see it as possibly controlling. It’s not overt controlling, like limiting contact with people or where I can go. It’s more micro-managing, critical, and passive aggressive of how I do things.

Sometimes it is how I take care of the house (wants chores/cooking done a certain way), and he’ll stand over me and ask why I’m not doing it the way he said. Sometimes it’s comments about what I’m doing on my phone. Sometimes it’s these little rules of expected affection, like he’ll start interrogating me if I don’t come give him a kiss as soon as I walk in the door or before I leave the room. It feels less lovey and more like checking a box. He’s always making a comment about something, whether it’s my driving (though I’ve never had an accident or ticket), how I’ve raised my children, or what I buy. These are things other people have complimented me on. He doesn’t like if I get dressed in the bathroom instead of in front of him, even if we’ve just been fighting and I don’t feel comfortable being naked and watched. He will comment on how many days it’s been since we’ve been intimate. He’s told me how he’s warned women before that he would cheat if things got too bad, though he has not said this to me. I told him he better leave me before he ever cheats on me. I feel pressured to not let the time go too long, whether I’m in the mood or not. I feel part of that is being a good partner and thinking of their needs, but part of it doesn’t feel natural. I used to want to do it often naturally, but I can’t remember the last time it felt comfortable. I think I’m a good woman and want to do these things anyway. I don’t like it feeling like an expectation.

We’ve had arguments about his authority in the home. He’ll want to make big purchases or give other people money without my permission. Or he’ll tell me out of courtesy, but it’s not open for discussion. He expects my compliance and for him to have the decision as the man. He will make comments about how I spend money even though I’m highly frugal, more so than him. We both work full-time, and technically I make more money. I lived independently for a long time before him, so I am only submissive to a point. Generally I agree with whatever we spend our money on, but I have been pushed into helping him buy property to help out his family and give them money when some of them are irresponsible, things that make me feel I’m going against my own values and what I want to do with my life. But I’m trying to compromise. I can’t tell if it’s generosity for him or a power/praise thing. He doesn’t usually help anyone when they ask, only when he offers under certain terms. But sometimes he’ll say yes if (I suspect) it’s for something that looks good.

He is a very strict parent. His family has commented on it. He says it’s mostly his military background, but I think it has more to do with his own dysfunctional childhood. He’s very forceful and can get physical, but considers it normal discipline. It’s usually getting loud in their face, poking their chest, lifting them up, grabbing their arm, even pushing them down. I feel like it’s very aggressive, intimidating, bullish. He’s spanked and popped his own kids. My kids seem scared sometimes and cry. He doesn’t like when they cry. He expects them to have complete self-control of their behavior and emotions, even though he himself and most adults don’t. They’re pretty good kids. Every once in a while they might get sassy, but usually it’s that they don’t respond to him quick enough because they’re watching tv. Sometimes it’s that they embarrassed him in front of a neighbor. They must respond with “yes sir” or “yes”. He says often that if he were their dad he would beat their butts much worse. He’s told my 10 year old that he would punch him, as he pushed his fist in his face. He’s also said that to another of his minor family members. Sometimes my son has tried to fight back, and that makes him more mad of course. I feel like a horrible mother like I’m not protecting my children, but he says it’s normal and they’ve been allowed to get away with too much. I don’t have good role models for this, nor do I have friends or other examples to compare to. I find myself trying to get my kids to not cause problems to keep things calm.

We met with our church pastor a couple times last year, and he seemed to think the incidents I brought up weren’t that big of a deal, which confuses me more. It keeps replaying in my head, him telling my husband “You’re fine, man. But you need to treat her with kid gloves because of her background.” It felt wrong to me. I saw my husband smile and look justified. He gave him some ideas to do things better, but it was very surface level. The pastor recommended we attend couples counseling, but he doesn’t want to do that. He doesn’t want to do any reading.

(Since then, the pastor has seen his aggression elsewhere in the church, and I’ve noticed he treats my husband differently now.)

It seems like we fight every couple days. Sometimes we’ll go a couple weeks. The arguments will usually be about something small, like a simple miscommunication, but it always seems to turn bigger. I try to use “I” statements. I try to own my part. I try to be gentle, patient, and understanding. But if the topic is anything he wants that I don’t agree with or something I have to ask him to stop, he doesn’t want to hear it. Sometimes I’ve tried to communicate things like to please not be on his phone in a restaurant or to start texting someone while we’re talking and stop responding to me. Sometimes it’s bigger like the kids discipline or overriding what I tell them to do. Sometimes it’s telling him that something he said hurt me, like “Woman, shut your mouth. I’m warning you.”

He’s never put a hand on me. But I’m afraid it might go there someday. I don’t think he’s ever hit anyone, even when they’ve hit him. It alarms me that the “shut the f up” type comments have increased in frequency. He’s also started breaking things in the house. Some things have improved, like the kids discipline, I think because I did almost leave once, and they still live with their real dad 50% and he knows there’s some accountability. I miss my kids constantly but am also guiltily glad they’re not here full time with him.

Our talks aren’t very productive. I usually don’t get through a few sentences before he’s interrupting to justify why whatever I don’t like is ok. He will flip out if I interrupt him to explain something though, so I try not to do this. I don’t raise my voice to him, but I have on a couple occasions when he kept purposely cutting me off so I couldn’t talk. He’ll get aggressive asking me to prove this or that with examples, but before I can give them he cuts me off and changes the topic. He’ll deny things that have happened or twist the way it happened. Sometimes he’ll answer my question as if he’s answering a different question, like a politician. When I try to get back to my point, he’ll complain that we’re still talking about this, that I “go on and on”, that it’s been 15 minutes and he can’t go more than 10. He doesn’t seem to realize that he does half the talking during that 10 minutes. If I continue, that’s when he’ll do the “***” or he’ll just walk away and stop talking to me. It’ll be awkward for a few hours, then he’ll come back and give me a kiss like nothing happened. Sometimes he’ll say he just forgot that we need to revisit and close things out. I usually end up spiraling into depression and internalize it.

He says other words that feel disrespectful to me, like I’m “b**ching about” things. He’s told me I need to grow up, that I should find someone else to talk to, that I’m overly sensitive, that I’m hard to deal with. He says it’s my own fault I’m depressed. I have a couple memories on vacations where we ended up in another small thing that got big, and he would try to leave me stranded. I’d have to run after him and make up in order to not be lost somewhere. He tells me it’s my fault he goes this far.

Sometimes he’ll let it out that other women have had the same problems with him. But other times he claims he’s such a good guy and doesn’t understand what my problem is. I feel like it’s a big secret I have to hide, but I should probably disclose that I’m his 5th wife. Technically he’s been married 6 times. One wife he went back and forth with for years. He leaves when things get too hard. I probably should have mentioned that almost every time we fight he asks if we need to break up. But when I’ve finally started saying yeah maybe we do, he suddenly calms down and gets sweet and finds a way to smooth things over.

Part of me wonders if someone will read all this and tell me how stupid I am for being with this guy. Then another part wonders if someone will confirm that I’m overreacting. Is this just to be expected from a man?

There are so many things about him that are wonderful and I’ve had a hard time finding in other people. He is the most hardworking man I’ve ever met. He’s always helping people. He has strong faith. He’s funny, attentive, passionate, talented, thoughtful, kind. He is involved playing with the kids, building a tree house. We laugh and have a good time together sometimes. The kids love him and are always all over him. We both work from home and snuggle a lot.

Only a couple times, I’ve seen him get into a depressive type state after we finally got to the root of an issue. I was afraid he was going to hurt himself.

He’s like Jekyll and Hyde. He’s gone off on people in public like a woman working at the tax office. She looked at me like why are you with him. Another time at a restaurant he went off on me and left, and the waitress thought I was being abused and paid for my meal. His grandmother tells him he’s abusive, a womanizer, and sadistic. In fairness, she’s not a very nice person, so consider the source. Yet most people who met him become almost obsessed with him because he’s so engaging and charismatic. Everyone wants to be his friend. Women fawn over him. Again, makes me think the problem must be me. I used to be afraid he’d leave me. Lately I wonder if it wouldn’t be easier if he lost interest. I’m not afraid to be alone.

I don’t want to minimize my accountability in all this. I’m not someone who believes that anybody deserves anything. However I do think I contribute to revving him up. I have an analytical mind, and I tend to focus too much on understanding details, where he’s content with a basic big picture. I need to understand things to process them, so I ask a lot of questions and want to understand a lot of things. I think I hit too close to home on vulnerabilities. My ex had problems with that as well. I am comfortable talking about my flaws and getting to the root of problems. He denies most of my observations, but he doesn’t like getting that deep about himself. I am a sensitive person and have some insecurities. Not in a jealous way, but I can be needy and chase acceptance and love. We both like being together all the time, though I do less so now. He’s an extrovert and wants us to be heavily involved in church activities. I’m an introvert and like to do more quiet volunteer work where I’m not center of attention. I know that my depression is hard for people to deal with. I have always been high functioning, but I am also very serious and get tired. I like philosophical conversation. He doesn’t really want to talk or think about anything, he just wants to have fun.

Some of his family members gave me warnings when we were first together. Based on the stories I knew about them, I made note but took what they said with a grain of salt. Obviously his marriage history was a concern. He was brutally honest about his part in them, which I confirmed through other people and found understandable, and we connected in having similar pasts. I thought that we would be able to heal and grow together. I have an odd past myself, so I try not to judge where others might.

There were times I thought maybe we weren’t right for each other, but there were also these incredible things that happened that felt to me like nothing else but the hand of God in it. Things aligned in an unlikely way that brought us together. We prayed and did a devotional together. He helped me strengthen my own faith. We had wonderful deep talks about such things. I thought whatever issues we had could be tackled with love.

Every once in a while, after a bad fight, we’ll come back and have what seems like a great productive talk. He’ll finally apologize, seems genuinely remorseful, and shares insights that make him seem very serious about having a change of heart. He’ll make real changes. Situations will happen and he’ll handle them in a way that makes me love him deeper. Unfortunately we’ll fight again, and some of those behaviors come right back. I can’t tell if things are slowly improving or if they’re actually escalating. Today he told me for the first time that if I didn’t stop talking he was going to start destroying things in the house, and he kicked in the air vent and dented/broke it.

I think this may be a trauma bond.

He tells me all the time how much he loves me, how wonderful I am. I don’t know if it’s real because he’ll say things that directly conflict with the nice things when he’s mad. Sometimes I wonder if the only reason he keeps me around is because I am a little submissive and don’t like confrontation. I am easy to push around, and my depression makes me blame myself instead of holding others accountable. My anxiety makes me try to appease people. When I do want to stand up for myself, that’s when we have problems.

I’m tired of thinking about this every day, trying to figure out if these are red flags or normal. I’m exhausted from trying to feel ok around him, trying to resolve things on my own. I wake from nightmares constantly now. My heart races all day long. I have to catch my breath. I avoid leaving the kids alone with him. I dissociate often. I used to cry a lot, but now I’m more numb. I drink almost every night. I’m losing hope that I’ll ever be happy. I’ve noticed changes in my body, how old and worn out it feels. I’m starting to have fears of a heart attack or stroke (they also run in my family). I can’t see how my body can continue to run on high constantly like this. My depression is less lately, more anxious and on alert trying to anticipate things.

I don’t know what questions I want to ask. I would appreciate any feedback anyone has. I know nobody can know the situation fully.

TLDR: I love and fear my husband. He has hurt me a great deal, but none of the typical big bad dealbreakers. My mind is so damaged from past abuse that I can’t tell if I’m in a bad situation or overreacting.