Q.

I left my husband of 30 years after rounds of chronic unemployment (his) and almost losing our home.

It wasn’t only about the finances, but about how I was the one managing them: forced to juggle bills, take on extra work, give up taking care of my children go to work full time, and face mortgage default. Over and over. He never did any of this work. Only I did. I have a master’s degree and I took on a stressful part time job for $48,000 for the health insurance.

He was verbally cruel to me. Even our children. As they got older, the boys started to wonder why I would put up with his bizarre behavior and rage. He was mean to them when I wasn’t around. The kids were afraid when he would come home.

Not always, though. It was as though he had two personalities: the fun loving super dad/husband who I loved like crazy and this vindictive, petty and jealous scorekeeper who was verbally cruel. Nothing could predict who would show up. Sometimes years would go by with hardly an incident and then there would be years like the last one of our marriage. The worst one.

I couldn’t do it anymore. I decided the kids were old enough. Our finances were destroyed, but I needed to leave. I no longer trusted him with my love and our family’s well-being. He physically repulsed me.

After I told him I was leaving him, I developed an emotional attachment to another man. No physical relationship, but this man was there for me, supporting me emotionally as a partner in ways I needed so badly. My soon-to-be ex-husband was told (by me) on the recommendation of a therapist, in the therapist’s office, and the script flipped instantly. He was no longer sorry for any pain he had caused.

He was discussing who I might be having sex with (which was nobody) with our CHILDREN. He was asking them who it might be. He was telling them to ask me if I was having sex with him and then, when I said “no,” he was telling them I was lying to them. That nothing I said was true. That my “new boyfriend had bought my car, was my sugar daddy.” Horrifying.

My therapist told me to get a new phone because he was tracking my activity, which my younger son confirmed. My ex was then diagnosed as bipolar, and committed to an outpatient psychiatric care program for eight weeks. He spent most of each day there.

Eight months later, we are almost divorced. He is fully medicated and much more stable. He doesn’t remember a lot of his behavior, but the lawyers and the kids remember it all. I’ve moved into my new home. I am safe. The kids are safe…they are safe even with their dad because he has a psychiatrist, a therapist, medication, and the will to get better.

I am still the villain, though, in his story. I have to keep telling mine or I’ll start to believe the one he is telling everyone we know.

How do I make peace with his side of what happened?

– Villain