I came here from the Co-D board.
Im struggling with my current Husband.

We met while ceroc dancing, he was sitting alone and he looked sad so I went over and asked him to dance. We spent a fun evening together, I wasn't too sure about him to be honest as he kept asking to kiss me which I felt was really inappropriate….but I felt a connection. He went home without getting my number which I thought was strange after he had pursued me all evening.
Two weeks later he was at the dancing again. ( I missed a week) and came straight up to me and gave me a ticket for a BBQ dance the next week. He told me he had been to every dance for the last 2 weeks trying to see me. ( oh how I was flattered!!!) so we danced the night away. He was attentive , very charming and flattering. We arranged a date for the next night. He was very insistent. He called me when I got home and we chatted for a while.

The first date baffled me a little, he wanted me to go to him ( not something I usually do…) but as we lived in different towns I agreed. He took me to see his work and then out to dinner. I was blown away by his attentiveness and how much we had in common! He didn't really ask me too much about myself, if anything so I found myself doing much of the talking.

So this whirlwind continued for a full ten days, day and night full on, very emotional and extremely intimate.
Then he went away to Spain for a week and I didn't hear from him at all.
I was devastated.
When he came back he again called me over to his place and it went on from there. I was so relieved he had called me, that the last ten days hadn't been a dream….I would have done anything!!!

So then he took me, my children and his son on a holiday to centreparcs. It was an amazing week. He told me that by the end of that week I would be in love with him ( this is 3 weeks since we met!!!)

I think you get the gist of how this is going - I was well and truly swept off my feet and relocated to live with him, he gave my eldest daughter a job too. I moved 30 miles away from all my family. He promised me my dream of opening an art gallery and we looked at property.

He didn't want me to work or continue my education ( i had done 2 out of 3 years of a degree) and proposed shortly after. I was well and truly a kept women. He sold my car one day while I was out….then the alarm bells rang!

So in reality - here I am 2 years later…he wasn't quite what he seemed for sure. He didn't not have the available funds to open an art gallery at all. He had been married three times before and cheated on them all. He often did hugely inappropriate things while we were out, he once asked a bar maid what sex toys she liked, in front of me and my daughter….he often goes up to women and flatters them, telling me he wanted to make her feel good about herself. He comments on other womens clothes and handbags. He even picked up someones crying child in a pub garden.
He baffles me….

and then theres the finances to which I have no access. He gives me an allowance which I have to spend on food. My role here is to have sex with him whenever he wants, cook and clean and be available whenever he wants to socialise. He has no friends and is self-employed. I work for him too. I have to look pretty every day.

The sex is ok, sometimes it feels very disconnected to me. He can act very inappropriately in this area too. A couple of times we have been intimate and making love he has just jumped off me in the middle of things. Just upped and left to go take a shower or do something he had forgotten to do. It hurts and I feel discarded, so disrespectful. He can be very cold or totally all over me. He never remembers to ask about my day or about anything I have going on in my life. He seems to be in his own bubble.

So here I am!
I have spent 2 years wrestling with how I feel about all this. I came to the initial conclusion that It is up to me to make a life for myself within this framework. I feel a bit trapped.
My self-esteem is at an all time low. I am suffering from depression but feeling better than I did. My anxiety and PTSD is off the scale. All these things keep me here.

So I am working on me and my issues which brought me here. I am living off him and saving what I can I am determined to create a future for myself with choices.

On the whole we get on very well, if I comply. Life is ok.

but here I am, trying to make sense of it all! Im losing sight of how things are and how they should be.