I married a man 12 years older, I was in the military and in my 40s now I see I married the "safer choice" of all the evils! I had men 12-30 years my senior showing up in my dorm and other places all making advances at me in one way or another using their power and knowledge to be just discreet enough that an 18yr old girl far from home would be confused/scared on what to do, who to trust, etc! So I married the one that played "friend/defender/protector, at around 35 I feel I was able to look back and reflect on how vulgar it really was! I looked back and saw how my now husband preyed on me as well then after I married him the mental abuse continued manipulating me mentally in several ways including his own sexual fantasies for example he would pick a big fight with me, make accusations saying things like I was cheating on him to get me to be hypersensitive to his fears and over account for every move I made during the day, taking pics of time I left house, time I clock into work etc and in the heat of an argument he would say forget it he didn't know what made him say those things and act like it was all over no big deal then force me to have sex with him! I literally would feel like I'd been raped but how can u be raped by your own husband, maybe I'm going crazy I would think to myself! He would follow up some of these extreme incidents I think when he would notice maybe I was realizing in want crazy with out of nowhere extreme type confessions such as saying he was abused by a cousin when he was a kid (I'm guessing now it was his way of distracting my thoughts of his harm to me with pitty  for him) For years I went through examples like the above falling more and more into submissiveness to keep the peace and falling further into self doubt and lower self confidence complicated by our kids getting older and not wanting to fight in front of them, he would yell at me and say whatever he wanted knowing I would bite my tongue cuz kids were around! I woke up one day around 40years old and slowly began defending myself, started working more against his wishes (by then I had dropped back to working about 1 day every 2 weeks) everything had to be accounted for down to what style of undergarments I wore under my clothes to work! I also put a stop to that! I began to regain my own opinions, independence, refusing to account for what I wore, what time I went to work etc i started looking into what he does, who he talks to, shocker... all these years he has made accusations against me etc I never second guessed him, when I finally did I found messages between him and a couple other females and honestly I didn't care, I Wished he would become obsessed with someone else and just let me go! I told him 3 years ago I wanted a divorce, he knows our kids are my #1 priority! He said if I divorced him he would move over a thousand miles away but agreed to live in same house but separate rooms! We would still attend all kids things together and of course can't date because still married snd that's why no divorce he says he can't stand thought of seeing me with anyone else! So here I am! Married almost 25 years living in same house but different rooms, still being controlled because I didn't follow through with divorce cuz I hated thought of kids not having dad around (aside from faults with me he is a great father probably because he is as much a child as they are, immature, doesn't clean up after himself etc) but I do have "me back! I work when I want, wear what I want which is a huge liberty compared to years passed! But I am lonely, 2 of my 3 kids are off to college but one still home for about 6 more years! I don't think there's any answers for me, for now, the loneliness isn't as bad as the fear of moving out on my own and putting kids through the pain of the divorce and him moving far away from our son who still lives at home! My mom is the only person that knew atleast half of what I've been living through and she just passed away this year so I thought maybe sharing this with people that don't know me or maybe can relate with me may help some so here I am!