Letter from Marianne

I Am on An Emotional Roller Coaster With No Way Out.

I am presently living in a nightmare of a relationship with my husband who I have recently realized is a sociopath. I feel trapped and at times suicidal, even though I used to think of myself as a talented, intelligent, funny and spiritual person.

My life of the past 7 years has been an emotional roller coaster ride. My relationships with family, including three sons, and past friends have been severed.

Because we are full-time RVers and have been moving about for over 3 years, I have not had any sort of community to relate to. I’ve spent years inside this RV with infrequent outings by myself -to the grocery store or Laundromat. I feel so insecure, even though I have done many brave things in my life. Now, going out on my own gives me a panic attack.

I was a professional portrait painter when I hired him to design my website, which he never did finish and which he holds over me like a carrot on a stick. He moved into my house, taking advantage of the fact that I was sick and losing a lot of weight. He soon took over every aspect of my life and I have been living as his captive. I have taken to writing as a way to keep my sanity, however, he refuses to read my writing -I have a 10 episode sitcom with set and costume designs; have invented a board game, written a memoir from when I owned an art gallery; written articles; done production work for our documentary company which has been very unproductive.

Any attempts to take the initiative or assert myself as an independent adult are met with horrible arguments which can last for 10 hours, until I am begging for him to stop. He is a foot taller than me, weighs more than twice my weight and can be very intimidating and threatening. He assaulted me 2 months after we married, pinning me down and threatening to kill me -over nothing (I was cooking dinner for his 80 year old mother who was coming over and who he turned away because he said we were having problems. To make matters worse, he was in law enforcement for over 18 years and turns on the charm for the cops when I have called them. He is now a fire chief and buddies with the County Sheriff.

I feel hopeless. Yesterday he printed out divorce papers, again. This happens every other month. This time I agreed, calmly, even though my nest egg is gone and I have no employment. He then started locking me out, playing control games, and mind games. Same old sh*t. I am very tired and don’t know if I can go on. I struggle with wanting to kill myself to end this madness, but I don’t want to do that to my family. His two sons are dead, one by suicide. Any time I mention how much I miss my kids; he diminishes my pain because of his loss.

I was being supportive and helping to organize and clean the fire station for the last month, in public he praises my effort, but he just told me I am of no service and that I am just doing it for fun. He has banned me from the station (we are parked right behind it and a lot of lonely farmland). I have cleaned the trailer we pull so that I might start painting again. We only get a small stipend each month so I have to be careful with spending. He does buy himself liquor, which we can’t very well afford. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to relieve my loneliness by sharing this. I pray continually that I may see a safe way out of this and will study up on how to stop being a victim. I have started telling him I am onto him and that I will not allow him to control me. We’ll see.

Response by Marion Trent