Clarity on if this is a personality disorder

[jillsmith]

 I have been married for 32 years. Have three grown kids.
These are some of the things I’m concerned about and would like more clarity so my brain can get Out of the FOG ‍♀️
Husband has many times accused me of cheating. I have never and typically am home or work so don’t give him any reason to doubt either .  The last two times he accused me of this his body was literally shaking he was extremely distraught. Convinced that I found someone else. Then after I thought that incident was over he saw me with my phone and accused me  of talking to someone and doing it where he could see it so I was purposely pushing his buttons ...

He has blamed me numerous times for coming between his relationship with the kids. Even whenever I tell him I didn’t do the perfect job I was just trying to do the best I could in the moment with him being so hard on them....But didn’t matter, he still blamed it on me
( His relationship with our son isn’t that great at all. He was pretty hard on  son and did scream a lot.  The screaming was mostly based on our son got pretty upset if his baseball games didn’t go correctly and our son definitely didn’t handle his emotions well  and also our son not doing chores like he needed to ......  So I would come between them tell him to stop try to protect  ( I did end up hiding info  when our son didn’t do his chores correctly -)

I am an introvert so sometimes feel off in groups of people. But anytime I felt off according to him at Sunday school apparently that was proof that I did not support his godly relationships and I was trying to come between them. And I did not support him and the fact that he was teaching the Sunday school

Anytime I’ve spoken up and asked to do something different than what he had chosen for years like every year vacationing with his parents, which church to go to, out to eat with his parents, etc. etc. then I was called obstinant and I was creating problems

When I voiced I didn’t want to go to deacons wives meetings anymore/didn’t like them at all then again I was non-supportive

I very much placated and enabled and kept my mouth shut most of the time. But sometimes my head what explode and we would get into fight that would end up being screaming. He would then label me as passive aggressive and   A couple times that I was verbally abusive ( has since said maybe wrong on this)

Any times that he blames me for trying to come between his godly relationships, not supporting him, being obstinate, trying to come between him and his kids relationships… I would tell him that’s definitely not my heart at all. And then he would just say it must be self-conscious that I’m doing it then

After fights I would say I’m sorry… He would just say thank you

He gets very easily frustrated with me even having the most simple conversation. Rolls his eyes often. Huffs/puffs often.  He does this even if we’re just having a regular conversation without any hard subjects being talked about .  When I voice that that bothers me he says I need to get thicker skin and maybe oversensitive

Also-  if I try to voice stuff many times apparently I picked the wrong time whenever he’s tired or whatever and therefore causing problems

He’s convinced I try to ruin happy days which I don’t even see how he sees this

When getting ordained as a deacon he was acting out again And so again I kept my mouth shut but probably felt off… So now he’s convinced I was trying to ruin that happy day


At church people love him -  he’s very helpful and friendly -

Confusing because there’s great qualities like he’s a hard worker, outgoing, very loyal, seems very honest,  faithful-

Since I left a few months ago he’s now stating that throughout our whole marriage he did think I was the problem but now he seeing things different. He doesn’t think he has a personality disorder he thinks it’s an abandonment issue from some pretty extreme childhood trauma.



Thoughts?
Ps. Also very much “he’s the authoritive figure”...

[xredshoesx]

welcome to the group-

i'm sorry you had to go through so much in your marriage but it sounds like you are trying to make sense of it all and start a new chapter in your life.

we can't say if your husband has a PD or not- only a doctor can say for sure, but from what you described he is certainly a difficult person (to put it mildy).  many of the things themes you talked about in your marriage revolve around him having all the power and control, and being seen as the authority/ leader figure.  untreated childhood trauma often has dramatic results on us as adults, so that's most likely a factor in his behaviors/ choices as well. 

an important thing as you sort through all this is that you didn't cause this, you can't control him, and you can't cure him.  the separation may help you both to find some clarity as to what the next steps are for you, him and your relationship if you all continue to want to try to remain married.

some good resources here that may help you involve setting boundaries ( it doesn't sound like he wants you to have any), the top traits and both the separating/ divorcing forum as well as the working on it forums-

[xredshoesx]

sorry hit send to soon-

Toolbox     - look for the boundaries articles

Top 100 Traits     

Comitted to Working On It

Separating and Divorcing

you can post in any/ all of the sections,  just please don't duplicate your posts.

as a side note, i was sent to live in a household that was both very religious and very abusive when i was 7.  the dichotomy between how the community saw my grandparents vs how they treated me was very hard for me to grapple with, even to this day i struggle with trying to reconcile how 'good' people could do such terrible things yet consider themselves 'godly'.  i wonder if what you are feeling/ experiencing with him is similar as it seems like he is able to play the role in public of the good deacon but outside of church activities, you get the brunt of his true personality.