First off I want to let you all know I have been watching the boards here for a little over a week trying to figure out if what has been said on here really does resemble what I'm going through and for the most part it does. A little background on me. I have 2 children from a previous marriage, 11 year old girl and 10 year old boy. I have been in a toxic relationship with someone I considered my one and only for 8 years now. He has 3 children 13, 11 and 8 from a previous relationship. I will say we met in 1997 at a HS dance, him being from a different town. We hit it off immediately and then I was moved from my moms in one state to my dad's in another. Even tho we were only 4 hours apart we grew our different ways and the relationship only lasted bout 7 months. I ended up meeting someone and married after a few years but always thought of him. The main reason behind this break up besides the distance was the fact of the drugs that he ended up getting into. It got so bad that we couldn't even have decent conversations and I felt as though he really wasn't there in them. No matter how much I pleaded he didn't stop and I decided it was best to let it go (I was a junior in HS). Then with my now ex husband I had 2 beautiful children. We of course didn't have much and it seemed as though I was putting forth all the effort between working jobs to pay bills to taking care of the house. He worked hard when he had a job, played his computer games and drank away his time. Eventually he convinced me to move from OK to NC where he was pursing his college courses in IT training. We moved and lived with his parents for 9 months. During this time I had transferred my job, working as many hours as I could because he didn't have a job. His schooling surprise surprise fell through and he didn't get a job of any kind for 4 months. After the 9 months I took our children and moved back to OK, after not being able to reach him, neither could his parents. I filed for a divorce 6 months later when I realized no matter how much I kept talking and trying to work things out he wasn't. I got in touch with my old love and we started to talk again. He had been clean for a long time and was fighting for custody of his kids. I eventually moved to MO to live with him and things were great for the first few years. He did win custody of his kids (first the 2) and then later found out he had a 3rd. Within my first year there his ex burnt our house down (never convicted) and we had continuing battles with her in regards to false claims through DFS. We moved from rental to rental and finally got our own house cause he got custody of the 3rd child. Right about that time things started to seem a little off. He'd play his video games on the computer a little too much, neglecting the house work and the kids. He'd started to drink a little more. He worked 1st and a I worked second to save on childcare. He had his job for 12 years. He started to tell others how lazy I was, how I didn't do anything round the house and how he felt like he was a single parent. I worked til 12, 2 or even 4 in the mornings sometimes. Get the kids off to school in the mornings and clean what I could before I had to do it all over again. I never once tried to talk bad bout him or his issues. But that't when everything started to come back to me. How I never did anything right, how he was always right and that I was making something out of nothing. The games and the drinking got worse and worse. He's got a temper, he's never raised a hand to me but he's thrown things hard enough to break them. Me trying to talk to him usually ended up in him rolling his eyes at me, giving me the what now deal even asking what I had to "bitch" about now. He's never been one to offer information, during a conversation he's very one sided, no personal opinions. I did stand up and move out a year ago now back to OK where I've been in limbo pretty much in trying to figure out ways to make things work. He won't respond to emails and barely talks on phone. Of course everything is my fault, all the problems we've had, all my actions have been wrong and he can't take accountability for anything.
As I said before I have been looking at this board for information on what problems I may have. The gaslight article was great and very informative. He's great at manipulating things. A week ago he decided to tell me in his own words that I've been "fucking" with the kids heads and it's an unstable environment because I drive back and forth one weekend a month to continue our relationships, trying to keep connections alive between everyone. I got really upset and fired back (I know doesn't really help) but I am not going to deal with someone telling me that I am pretty much unstable let alone referring to my children. I called a counselor we had seen over the summer and she recommended the book by Robin Norwood. My mother has a copy of it actually and I am hoping to receive it soon. But as of yesterday he tells me either I move back or it's over. He being the one who can't make decisions and would rather leave this up to me. I am not searching for an answer more like similar stories and any input from people like you here on this board that may have words of wisdom. I have been doing more research and getting lost with information. Between mental, verbal and psychological abuse and trying to find ways to either accept him as he is and move back or to let it go and maybe someday we can find each other again. Thank you for taking the time to read this long story and any input you can give, it would be greatly appreciated.