We were having a rough patch, but I never could’ve imagined in a million years that it would end like this. I remember when I used to look at her and see love looking back. True, unbridled love that kept me comfortable and secure. All I can say is I wish that she would’ve changed sooner. I wish that she didn’t wait until we had spent 20 years of our life together. Because now, I feel hopeless. I’m 52 years old. There’s no turning back the clocks. There’s no hoping she falls back in love with me. She hates what age has done to me. She hates that I’m losing my hair. She hates the way my face is starting to sag. And because she has learned to hate my appearance, it’s made it harder for her to look past my personality flaws. My irritability. My lack of energy. My lack of libido. I’d lost my ability to “woo” her more and more with each passing year. When her shoulder grew cold, all I could blame was myself. When our conversations became dry, all I could do was blame myself. And when she st...
When I was 21 I entered into an abusive relationship. It only lasted about 6 months before I walked away (picture the building exploding behind me as I decided to cut ties). However, he stalked me for about 6 more months- spreading lies and attempting to ruin my life behind the scenes by isolating my friends and family from me. He abused me physically, emotionally, mentally- all the ways. He had Münchausen Syndrome. He lied about multiple diagnoses, including cancer. I cleaned up his bodily fluids of all kinds after he puked, peed, pooped- claiming these were side effects of his treatments. He was faking it. I took him to fake doctor’s appointments where he would just walk to different areas of the building, leaving me in the waiting room. After 6 months of hell, he lured me to his car to talk, then locked the doors and drove off, effectively kidnapping me. He raped me for 24 hours off and on in his apartment, taking my phone away so I couldn’t contact anyone. Yes, I was naive and stu...