So...I’m gonna be brutally honest with y’all for a moment. My wife and I are separated. We are almost certainly getting a divorce. It took a long time for me to see the signs for what they were and realize that what I thought were quirks were actually abusive 1/

Behaviors. When we would fight and I felt like I was being ignored and started pulling away only for her to flip a 180 and become loving again, I took that as her “trying”. It took a long time to see it as manipulative behaviors designed to keep me in her circle. 2/

She never intended to change. Even now, I can listen to her ideas to “fix” our marriage and then regurgitate this back to her the next day as my own, and they are wrong. Why? Because they are mine and if she listens to me then she is no longer in control.

What I took for simply being massively forgetful I have now realized is a form of gaslighting designed to make sure she is *always* right, no matter what. It does not matter what the subject matter, she will always know *something* and it will always be more than me.

Obviously there are other issues but I really started opening my eyes when I realized that when I got off work I was no longer excited to go home. I was scared. Scared of what we were going to argue about now. Scared of what I was going to do wrong now.

I just came out to y’all as non binary. I came out to my wife a year ago. She acted so happy for me and so glad I trusted her. Until I began attempting to change myself to better fit my own persona. Then suddenly I was wrong yet again. I was not allowed to be myself because

“Ladies” don’t act that way. To say this was a blow is an understatement. I tell you all this not for sympathy, but to hope that maybe someone will read this and recognize some of the same signs. The arguments? They’re not all your fault. I promise.

Your memory? Probably not as faulty as you think. The little signs that make you pause for a second? They’re warnings. Listen to them. And something that I was told over and over that I did myself but never listened to.

If you find yourself looking up “signs of an abusive relationship” or “am I being abused” baby I’m telling you. The answer is almost certainly yes. I have absolutely zero physical marks from this. But I will carry the psychological scars for a very very long time.