just need a safer place

[Isabel189]

Hello, I am new here and I dared to even look for a website like this because i'm exhausted and feeling lost. I just need a safe place to talk. I have no one and I'm so tired of feeling like I can tolerate things and then wanting to run away and start over. I think it's come down to naïve choices and lack of wisdom that has brought me to this place. Ever since my first relationship in high school, I just feel like I have no business picking men to be with. My ex boyfriend was a cheater and liar several times over and that lasted 4 years when in my heart I knew to leave the first time it happened. When I finally broke it off with him which was like losing my soul because he drained and used me for his own selfish purpose, I felt so free and alive for the first time in so long. I definitely denied that I was rebounding and was casually dating several men one after the other to fill that void I didn't want to face, which really was just pure loneliness I hadn't experienced. I mean even in my relationship I felt so lonely but theyre like a disease you keep going back to cause they give you just enough to hang on...anyways I finally decided after months of casually dating I would truly be alone and sit in that loneliness to grow myself as a person etc etc. That relationship was when I was 17-21 ish years old. Since I really wanted to move on badly and didn't have any remaining feelings for my ex, I figured at the time that meant I was healed. I met my now husband only 8 months out from that breakup and we got married after 8 months of being together. Since then it's been hell. I've taken care of everything in our marriage. Finances, groceries, cleaning, anything that requires an once of responsibility beside his job I have taken care of it. Some background, My husband was/is mentally ill with clinically diagnosed OCD that I knew about did not see the whole picture of until we got married and also worsened after we got married. He's from an abusive home with crazy parents and drug using brother ( he himself once was a drug user/alcoholic too). None of that was super apparent when we were dating though. He became verbally and emotionally abusive to me shortly after we got married. He was finishing school while I started working full time in my career and the fights we would have were just shocking to me because I never experienced a man to call me names, curse at me, tell me he hated me over simple tasks I would ask help with like him doing the dishes for once. One of the worst multiple day fights was when talk down to me in public at a restaurant and I cried at our table while he told me that woman who acts like this are the reason why men cheat when I didn't even know what I did to cause him to be mad....Back to his mental illness, he would stay up almost every night washing hands endlessly for hours, leave work or quit jobs because he couldn't deal with germs, check the doors constantly to see if they are locked. I would be up with him trying to call him down, distract him, beg him to go see a therapist or doctor to help diagnose if there were hormonal issues ( which later found out there was) or something else happening. He finally went and months later he almost died of undiagnosed cancer. After that life changing experience, our marriage seemed to be better, I blamed his behavior before all on the cancer and that's why he treated me that way etc etc, but of course that behavior creeped back into our lives once it calmed down. His ocd is more controlled but is still limiting for him in taking responsibility for things in our life besides his job. He refuses by his actions to not go therapy still and get help for it. He is back to calling me names and cursing at me and I am so tired of this. His family are schemers and liars too especially his mom which is a whole other story that was so messed up to deal with while he was sick and how she treated me in that process. I am so tired of feeling alone and not taken care of too. I'm so tired of wanting to leave him and waiting for him to change. Im tired of hearing apologies that don't follow through with action. I'm so tired of picking men that just use up the good I have to offer to and leave me drained away on my own. I's so tired of my feelings and emotions being so minimized. The worse part of it all is that we call ourselves christians! Believers in Jesus and we're so far from acting like how we should in our marriage....I love God I will always have a relationship with Him, but I feel like I've been so naive in my own thinking about life and how marriage is, especially in how to pick a man. it's not God's fault it's mine cause I chose this but I feel trapped in this marriage and I feel guilty that if I leave I will be condemned because what i experience isnt abusive because it's not physical or he hasn't cheated...I feel so alone. Worse than before, and I make myself live through it still because I minimize my own feelings and emotions so how am I any better. I've let myself be treated poorly and I'm stuck. Is this wrong how I feel?