New here & Broken

[brokenempath]

Hello

Just discovered this website yesterday. I had the so called epiphany of my H's NPD a few weeks ago and I am having a hard time keeping myself together after being together almost 18 years. Almost all of them I spent dealing with depression, anxiety, adhd never feeling good enough and trying everything I could to fix me. I'm learning a lot about the fact that I'm an empath and how I've always sympathized with his stories of an unfavorable childhood and me wanting to give him better. I'm also aware of my co-dependency issues, which has made me let the constant critiquing, "joking" about me in front of others, superiority seem normal. I have so many emotions about it all coming to surface and not doing well. Hoping to be able to deal with some of that here. Thank you

[xredshoesx]

welcome to the group and for having the courage to start a journey where you are putting an emotionally healthier version of you first.  We have several different areas of the forum that folks who have uPD/ PD spouses and partners posting-

Chosen Relationships

Comitted to Working On It

another area of the forum that may help you as you work towards clarity
Working On Us

i too struggled with codependency, both with my ex and in my professional life.  for me participating here has been literally LIFE CHANGING both at home with my DH (he's a non who is also a child of someone who may have a PD) and at work.

Working On Us

hope to see you on the boards when you are ready to share more

[brokenempath]

Thank you so much for your response 

I feel very alone. I feel like I knew this wasn't a healthy relationship a year or so into it, but I forced it to avoid moving back in with my parents. He got me my job at the time for a company that he worked at and his MIL did too. I guess I was too young and dumb. I've never been known to have the best self esteem. Even though in my heart I know I am worthy, I always put others first. I HATE hurting people. One of my reasons for living I feel is to make others feel good and putting smiles on their faces. Basically making others happy, makes me happy. My husband has so much resentment of his parents. I guess he spent a lot of time as a kid hanging out in bars with them and I think I wanted to take care of him. My parents are still married and I have a pretty big family, which he doesn't, so I was happy he could be a part of it and see what that was like.

My ex before him was the exact opposite. Had very well to do, loving family. Once we broke up, I realized how he had been manipulating me. I did individual and group therapy at the time.

So when I met my husband, I was like he's the exact opposite he won't do the same to me. But now here I am, all these years later realizing I lost myself again bc I never cleaned the right way or every meal I made had some tweak I never did it good enough. I resent doing either of those things now bc I don't want to be judged. Same with grocery shopping. "Can't you just find the deals and not buy this or that" I get anxiety every time I'm in the checkout line! I don't know if he does it on purpose, but every time he looks at me it's with disappointment. I remember being at our friends house maybe a year ago and I was talking and caught him looking at me and I said "why are you looking at me like that" thinking maybe I had said the wrong thing and the friend said something like that's why he married you. And I thought to myself, no maybe that's why you look at your wife, but when my husband giving me that look I know I must've did or said something wrong. It's just slowly bit by bit torn away at my soul and now here I am. I've talked to some of my family about my desire to leave and they want us to just work on it. I've been so good about keeping it together (medication and LOTS of praying) I don't think anyone believes me that I could feel as hurt as I do. I was reading to my parents basically like a journal entry I had in my phone notes from 2019 how I felt he was treating me, crying as I read it and my mom just talking over me oh here's a good couples therapy weekend. I snapped can someone please just listen to me. Needless to say, we are scheduled for this weekend in a couple weeks and it makes my body tense thinking about it.

We have 4 kids 12 & under that I'm making an effort for, but I can't keep giving & giving. My oldest is showing signs of low self esteem & control issues that I would prefer to put my focus on and the other 3 at this point. I said I would rather be single and alone than keep having the life sucked out of me by my partner.

[brokenempath]

user

Exactly how I'm feeling! It was a relief to have an explanation for all of the pain, but now I have to actually deal with it all.

Thank you so much for the response. I'll keep reading