A Love Reunited, a Life Shattered: The Price of My Biggest Mistake

We lived a two hour drive away from each other which made it difficult to be together so we didn’t let our feelings interfere in our lives and carried on with our separate futures but sort of kept in touch through mutual friends. I would occasionally hear about her and she about me. She got married and had two kids and I my done my own thing.

A couple of decades later when I was just out of a messy marriage and divorce, without kids, I was told by an interested party that she had separated from her controlling and abusive husband. I initiated contact and we got together when we could and literally created our own heaven on earth. We became very close in all aspects and wanted to be together forever, so it came around that one day I had a choice:

Enter into a serious and permanent relationship with the ultimate love of my life, accept her situation, her two kids, her emotional baggage and the problems her ex-husband was causing her and live happily ever after OR DON’T, meaning our relationship was over.

She was upset about her ex-husbands threats and demands and I did actually give it serious thought for a minute, but the power of our chemistry was too strong and I decided I could handle him, her two kids and her emotional baggage AND I wasn’t going to stand by and let this moron make the woman I love miserable. So I said I would.

A couple of years later we had our own son together and in the years after that she became a controlling, manipulative, deceitful bitch who played upon my weaknesses. She would remember everything and bring it up when it suited her, weeks, months and even years later. She used emotional abuse to rip me of any self-confidence and self-esteem I had. I couldn’t have any friends over for fear of her taking every opportunity to criticize and humiliate me. I couldn’t do anything without some sort of punishment and ended up sincerely believing I was a worthless piece of shit who had no rights. I didn’t even have the right to say no to someone at the front door trying to sell me something. There was something wrong with the way I said it.

She was the nicest person to everyone else and her friends thought she was just the best loving and caring human they’d ever met. I told her once that her friends need to know the true her and I was going to tell them. She said they’d never believe me and I knew that would be right. I knew I was paying for her previous abusive marriage but she would never admit it.

Now, twenty five years later I’m free from the clutches of her psycho insanity. I live on my own and suffer from severe depression, no confidence or self-esteem, don’t socialize for fear of rejection and not being acceptable to others and will NEVER have another relationship with anyone ever again!

What’s MY biggest regret in life? Accepting her miserable existence and allowing her to make it mine!