A Paranoid Husband - Stay or Go?

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Do you have some advice for this person?

Visitor's Question:
ok, here goes. THe first thing I want to say is that I know everything that I am doing right now is wrong. I just don't know how to fix it.

The story starts in March of 2002, when my husband became diagnosed with drug induced paranoia. I never noticed anything wrong with him before. He just lost it. We had been living with his parents since we got married because we were planning on building a house, it never happened. I got pregnant the same week he became sick. I knew that i couldn't take care of both him and a baby so I made a decision to have an abortion. I think that made his illness worse but I had to make that decision. I spent a year of being yelled at, therapy and trying to deal with everything on my own with no help from his parents and they lived in the same house.

Well, I don't know what happened. He started to get better around Thanksgiving 2002 and then when snowmobile season came around he was finally stepping back into the world. Although he was coming back he was never quite the same to me. Well after 2 years of living with his parents and never getting a home of our own, almost a year of horrific illness, and countless other issues he has I did the most horrible thing, I cheated on him.

I tried to go back but he couldn't handle it, he forced me to have sex with him, verbally abused me and it just wasn't good. So I left and I went with the guy I cheated on him with.

Now it is 4 months later. He says he will never hold anything against me and that he wants me back. The other guy stays with me most nights. I miss my husband very much but I don't think it will ever be the same and I guess I need confirmation of that because I would love to go back if I thought it could work. I just think it would hurt him to look at me everyday and with his illness I don't know how he could deal. Well, anyway, thanks for the help.

Our Suggestion:
I agree that cheating is bad, but it's done now and you have to deal with the situation you have now. You have a husband who has shown - regardless of the situation - that he can be abusive and in essence rape you. Guys will ALWAYS claim that they "had to" do these things. But it doesn't matter WHAT the girl does. She does NOT deserve abuse and rape. Period. End of the story. If he was upset, he should have thrown you out. To do anything else is illegal and immoral.

Yes, he is upset now that he's alone. And yes, he had an illness that he was dealing with. But there is a limit to what a person should have to put up with in life in the cause of "making other people happy". His parents should have supported you, and didn't. He should have supported you as best he could, and he didn't. A relationship is a two-way street. It can't work one-way.

If your husband is really serious and you want to give it a shot, go into therapy together and really talk about these things. I would bet he just wants you back and 'things can be like before', not realizing that things before were pretty awful. The chance of him spontaneously changing is slim. You may, though, find that while you can be friends with your husband, you can never fully trust him 100% going forward, and give and receive total honesty. If that's the case, he's just not a good partner for you.

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