OMG! I really wish I could just throw my arms around you right now! Don't apologise at all for this incredible heartwrenching glimpse into what a hell you've been put through. I'm soooo glad that saying it has helped you!
I know EXACTLY what you mean about being stuck with a controling lying freak that breaks you down little by little so badly not only do you not even notice it happening but finally figure out how miserable you are and have somehow become a caracature of your former self and actually make YOU feel like the one who's crazy!!!
I felt EXACTLY like you did watching that #$%&*@# Samuels, that greedy, disgusting SOB, and dispise him for the same reasons you do - this jerk is so much like my own freak I just finally got rid of he totally set my teeth on edge. He even looks kind of a bit like my freak only fatter and a bit older. He truly made me shiver with disgust because of the similarity.
Just last January I finally got rid of the most controlling A$$ that was so good at it that it wasn't until sometime around last fall that I realized he wasn't the ultra-caring "gentleman" I had thought... and Lord knows how in the world I ever thought he was... I was always so good at reading people before this devil. I was stuck with that turd for four years almost to the day. I was so unbelievably controlled I couldn't even go to the grocery store on my own... push my own cart, pick out what I wanted, pick which cashier line I wanted to use, put my groceries on the belt, bag them up or ANYTHING having to do with shopping. He totally controlled the purse strings because I couldn't work at the time because of my anxiety being so bad I had outrageous flaming panic attacks almost constantly.
It was sometime in the fall that it crashed on my head how totally HELPLESS he had made me which was NOTHING like the person I had always been. Suddenly I just couldn't recognize myself anymore and HATED the person he turned me into and all the while wondering if I was the one who was looney! One night around this time last year but a little more into spring I had to go out and get dog food because I had nothing to feed the dog, and for some reason I just could NOT walk into the store. I drove around and around in circles trying to get up the courage to even park the car in the lot much less go in and get a bag of chow for my dog, and I simply could NOT do it. It was then that I realized how totally helpless he'd made me that I couldn't do such a simple thing as that and realized I HAD to get the heck away from him.
He controlled the money so fiercely all those years acting like he was such a saint for "taking care of me" when all I wanted to do was pull myself together and go back to work and get rid of this controlling freak that he carefully only doled out EXACTLY what I needed to pay the bills. Groceries he totally controlled, if I needed a new pair of boots or a raincoat or whatever I had to wait until it was convenient for him to take me shopping for them... he decided what I should get whether I liked it or not or where I wanted to buy it, and just like with the grocery shopping totally controlled the whole shopping experience. I felt like a 10 year old trailing after Mom again unable to make a single decision for myself.
And just to be a completely EVIL jerk, every few months he'd tell me some cockamamie story that he couldn't "help" me anymore and I had a month or less to not only find a job but earn enough to pay the bills myself JUST to make me totally terrified knowing I couldn't possibly do it especially since it was the worst years since the depression for people trying to get decent jobs and KNOWING that doing that to me would totally knock me on my bum with a volcano of anxiety so bad I could barely get out of bed every day. Then just in the 11th hour he'd suddenly tell me another whopper of a lie as to why everything worked out ok with the lie story he'd concocted that time and tell me he could still "help me". It kept me in a perpetual state of high anxiety that made just doing the most basic things like having to leave the house to walk the dog or run to the store for a loaf of bread that the very thought of having to look for a job terrified me so much that I could barely manage to take a shower every day or do laundry or dishes or ANYTHING anymore especially knowing that the two to four weeks he gave me every time he pulled this stunt on me made it clear I couldn't possibly accomplish it even if I wasn't an emotional wreck.
So I started hoarding money I was supposed to be spending on things like a dental appointment or a vet appointment or my phone broke and I needed a new one and either didn't do it and kept the money or lied about how much it cost so I could hoard away a little bit of money for when I could get rid of him. I also went to see a shrink that God BLESS him put me on anti-anxiety meds that have done wonders. Once I was able to hoard away a few thousand dollars I enrolled in a two week bartending school to start a new career, and though I was a basket of nerves I went every day and just last week passed my exam. Everyone at the school is great, and they're helping me with a resume and have a really good job placement program. I finally remembered what it was like to interact with people again that was someone else other than HIM. I used to be such a clown and bubbly fun person, and he turned me into a terrified cave dweller too afraid to walk the dog on my own much less remember what it was like to meet new people and make new friends that I had always just loved to do.
So in February I gave him the heave-ho, have been living on the world's strictest budget and praying I can get a job in the next couple of months and I won't be so scared to go to work every day that I get that horrible anxiety and get fired or just can't do it. But just going to the bartending school those two weeks showed me that I can still leave the house, go to a town I'm not familar with, meet new people, learn as well as everyone else even though it was REALLY fast paced and REALLY hard, and get through the whole day of school every day, and just getting through that has been the best boost I needed.
For the first time in four years I finally feel like I have some bit of hope again that maybe I can get back to being the person I used to be instead of the frightened schlub he turned me into and made me think he was generous and kind and I was a terrible and ungrateful person for his making me lose myself.
What you've said about your own situation has really REALLY inspired me. If you can do it then maybe there really is hope for me, too. And you went through stuff with your husband that I can only see as so much worse than what my freak (who wasn't even someone I was DATING) did to me and for such a longer period of time.
You have nooooo idea how grateful I am that you shared your woes about your own issues because it's helped me sooooo much, and where I had only a glimpse of hope before, now I think maybe I really can do this and get ME back the way I used to be.
You are sooooo awesome! And HUGE congratulations for going two whole decades sober! That is truly something to be so proud of especially with all you have been through because of your husband.
Bless you a thousand times! Your story and your same feelings toward the wretched Samuels that so mirror my own and for much the same reason really made me feel that suddenly a little light came on in my dark tunnel, and maybe if I just stay the course I can really find my way out of it.
:tyou: :grouphug:
Damn me, I think I have some thing in my eye.
