gvstate,
Thanks for taking the time to respond. Everything you mention has been clear to me for a long time and I recognise my own compliance in this problem. I think it is difficult for most people to understand the situation, as it difficult for me to understand why anyone would stay in any relationship that has brought such unhappiness, when there is no barrier to leaving? It makes no sense at all and I know I have a problem that needs to be resolved in some way. As you rightly pointed out, “there is something deep down and emotional keeping him tethered to this marriage”.

Kitt,
Thanks for the input. I sense the frustration in your message and suspect you understand my problems only too well but it sounds like you have endured worse. I have done a lot of research on personality disorders as I have tried to understand more about what has happened to me and why. Much of it seems to fit reasonably well. I wish you the best of luck in your recovery.

It seems that recent additions to this thread have been removed.  Thanks to whoever arranged that.

Still stuck after all these years.  The lady I love has moved on.  Me less so as she is never far from my thoughts.  I can hardly imagine the amount of pain I must have caused her.  My behaviour was atrocious but I wasn’t in control of myself when things finally fell apart for the last time.  I live in hope that one day I will see her again but I don’t think that will happen.  We still talk but needless to say it isn’t like before.  I finally lost the love of my life and deservedly so.  If only I had been able to do what needed to be done, I could have been so happy building a life with her.  We both wanted a life together for a very long time.  Decades in fact, so what we had must have been something very special for it to have endured for so long and with such a lot of stress on the relationship.  To anyone who might read this, do not let the same thing happen to you.  You will waste your life on a controlling abuser.  Don’t think it can’t happen to you as it happens all the time.  Let my story and countless others be a lesson.

Tee,

Thanks for your thoughts and taking the time to read my story.  My latest thinking is that I am suffering from what is known as the Fawn response.  It is basically a people-pleasing response to aggression but for me, it relates only to my wife and not to others.  Some people have the Fight, Flight or Freeze responses but the Fawn response is another possible outcome that is now widely recognised.  Many believe that it is something that develops as a childhood protection mechanism that can also be manifested in later life.  It’s appeasement behaviour to try to reduce the aggression.  As well as developing in childhood, it can develop later in life as a result of Complex Trauma from on-going abuse.  Emotional abuse in my case.  I think it is this second, later in life, scenario that is more like my experience.  For me, everything points to the issue developing in my early twenties when I met my wife and it developed almost instantaneously.  Perhaps back then I still had enough of the child left in me to be susceptible.  I do not think it relates specifically to trauma in my childhood years as I don’t recall any childhood trauma that would fit with my experience.  Everything in my experience relates to something that developed later in life and has been with me for nearly 40 years.  It’s a very big price to pay.  So much lost time and the loss of the person most precious to me for 30 years.  We had hopes and dreams that came to nothing because of my issues.  I still have those hopes and dreams but I know it is no longer possible.  Time and again she would try to help me get away.  It has ruined my life and done a lot of damage to much of hers.  She finally got out and moved on and I am trying to be happy for her as I love her dearly.  Total and utter madness!

Tee,

What you conclude might well be true but I can’t say that I recognize the situation you describe.  Perhaps a little.  Assuming it is true, any idea what I need to do to fix the problem and what would it actually involve.  Therapy of some sort presumably.

I’m not convinced this is the problem and the solution for me but thanks for your input as it is good to hear all possibilities.  Like in good detective work, possible suspects need to be eliminated from enquiries and whoever is left is the one who committed the crime.  Some sort of phobia is what fits well with my thinking, but only partially.  Some people are terrified of spiders, which we all know is irrational but close proximity to spiders promotes a very real reaction in these people.  Similarly, I know that my problem is irrational and also know that it is very real as well, hence the idea it might be phobia related.  Also, the idea of complex PTSD seems to fit quite well with my self-analysis, but not fully.  I suspect the two are somehow linked to my situation but, the idea that they are linked, also doesn’t quite work for me.  If it is a phobia then the solution to that is usually considered to be exposure to the stimulus with the gradual realisation that nothing bad is happening, so the fear dissipates.  I have had plenty of input stimulus but it has hardly reduced the anxiety levels.  Repeated aggression/abuse is one of the causes of complex PTSD and it took me a long time to realise that abuse is what I endured, so I conclude that complex PTSD is likely to have developed within me and I think that is something that can be developed in adults without connection to childhood.  I also recognise that the adult personality is linked to childhood development and that a different upbringing could have developed me as a different adult.  Perhaps with more resilience such that I would not be in the position I am today.  I guess that all these things can overlap to a certain extent, such that one terminology doesn’t necessarily fit perfectly.