My husband completed using an exit bag. His reasons seemed to be the following according to his note:
- He couldn’t go on living in fear of false prosecution or being attacked by my friends/ family
- I’d taken our children from him but I was the abusive one
I have to admit he had zero reason to fear being attacked, nobody had ever threatened him, and the person he was afraid of had never met him.
I had threatened to have him sent to prison for domestic abuse, but he was abusive albeit not for years. In his mind, I was going to pretend he was STILL abusive, though this was only in his mind as I never said it.
I had kicked him out of the house for smacking our child too hard, I had threatened repeatedly he wouldn’t have unsupervised visits, but he completed within 2 days. (On previous splits I had threatened no unsupervised visits, but never went through with it, he always saw them and we never split for longer than 2 weeks anyway).
My hubby did have paranoia – he thought I was poisoning his food when I obviously wasn’t, but no other signs of mental illness.
Are his reasons his true thoughts, or was he just trying to make excuses?
Are there other reasons besides mental illness?
He showed no signs of depression, never missed a day of work, appeared normal to his friend, then took his life anyway.
He also left a long long list of apparent abuse I’d done to HIM, some of which was ridiculous (like saying I’d tried to kill him), some of it was true (saying I wouldn’t let him cook or clean which is true cos I’m OCD) some of which he had deliberately twisted to sound worse than it was (saying he couldn’t look at women in underwear on tv, that’s a lie, it’s porn I had a problem with, but I guess he didn’t want to risk anyone siding with me), some of which was petty. It was almost like he sat there trying to think of reasons why I was bad!
I wasn’t the best wife, I did have OCD and give him hell, but I also gave him many good years, ran our home, raised our children, did my best… I love him.
I’ve driven myself insane wondering how he could leave me, and our two young children…
Thoughts?
4 comments
Your story has resonated with me. I take it that you two had a legal separation. He seems to have had dikephobia. Dikephobia is the irrational fear of justice. Me too, and when my own dikephobia was at it’s height some years ago during a divorce I feared drastic, life threatening, legal consequences. So much so I bought a gun so that I could escape the brutal legal judgments that I was so sure would come pouring down on me. That drastic legal judgement never came. The legal judgement was not trivial, but it was not utterly devastating either.
You also mention paranoia. Me too. He certainly had this as well.
My own own years in therapy indicate both of these things come from harsh, deficient care takers during our formative years. It sounds like this gentleman, from what you are consistently and comprehensively indicating, had issues consistent with a need to recover from his own family of origin issues before starting a family of his own. He was in over his head when attempting fatherhood.
My guess is he also possessed some wonderful qualities as well. This would not surprise me. I hope this brings even a small measure of relief and order to such a tragedy.
Reasons? Excuses?
How can anyone answer these questions but you? Maybe these are not the right questions, you know? Dikephobia? I am smiling but will make no other comment.
Maybe he just needed to escape himself and felt the need to justify doing that. Maybe he felt he couldn’t be the man he was expected to be. Perhaps he feared himself. You can go round and round. But it is you who remain, you and your two children.
How are you preserving his memory? How are you moving on?
Dude , I know. That is some strangely constructed word. I t came up in my therapy. I made sure to follow it immediately with a definition because it sure sounds like a fear of something else entirely.
Depression isn’t always apparent. I have had depression and suicidal ideation since I was a kid, and not a single person (besides maybe my sister) knows about it. I’ve tried my darned hardest to keep it that way too. I get good grades, I’m involved in my university’s associations, I volunteer in the community, and I have an internship. Even though it’s not expressed, I struggle daily to feel like there is a point to my life, and question why I continue to exist.
My point is, not everyone who is depressed or losing hope will show it. Personally, I don’t believe that anyone can cause someone else to kill themselves (excepting incredibly extreme circumstances). I guess it’s a natural part of grief to feel guilt (if only I had/hadn’t…). I don’t know you or your husband so this may not mean anything to you, but please know that even if you had been the “perfect” wife/friend/caregiver…your spouse would still most likely have killed himself anyways. Based on your post, it sounds like you did the best you could with the information/capacity that you had and protected your kids.
I wish you and your children well.