Hello everyone.  As a last resort I decided along with attending Nar-Anon meetings that I would reach out to people that may be experiencing or might be just as confused as I am about the disease. 

I've been married for almost 3 years, (8/8) would have been our third anniversary.  My husband has been clean for the past 25 years but often times I can't see how.  What I mean by that is he is in recovery but still I see manipulation, dishonesty, self-absorption, etc. especially towards me.  He accepts no blame.  The words compromsing or apology are not in his dictionary. I'll try to give you an example without boring you too death.  The other day we were watching Dr. Oz.  He along with other docs. spoke on women and men's self esteem mainly in the bedroom.  One of the drs. mentioned that for every 10 lbs a man drops his male part can grow up to an inch.  The guest on the show of course was game.  Not a problem for them.  Well, my husband turns to me and asks me what I thought about it.  I said, "Sounds good to me."  They he took offense and said maybe I need to go find a younger man (he's 62) or get my ex-husband to satisfy me.  I reminded him that he never heard me complain about our sex life but he continued to rave on and on.  He held his attitude all night and wouldn't speak to me until 3:30 the next day.  Tired of the fights and me feeling that he turns things around and sets me up to have a reason to argue I called myself taking the high road and apologized for anything that I said the night before that hurt his feelings (often times I feel he asks very juvenile).  Mountains are often made from molehills.  He made an arguement out of my apology. I asked if we could discuss what was really going on and he told me he didn't feel like talking about it. Finally, we get home and he tells me he is calling a meeting at 5:00.  I turned myself around and told him I am not going to discuss the matter at 5:00.  I felt we needed to discuss it now because it will fester and he won't talk to me for a week or until he wants sex  (he tells me we don't have intimacy but we have sex--you can imagine how that made me feel).  Anyway, we eventually spoke about it.  I asked him what he wanted from me and, of course, he tried flipping the question over to me.  If I had been foolish enough to answer he would have told me I call the shots and I am the only controlling things (which I know is the opposite).  From the very beginning of our marriage he has always told me that believing that I was clueless to how I was being manipulated and mentally tormented.  He left our home on Tuesday night.  I couldn't bare the mental abuse anymore.  I know that my husband is a user (in the way of using people such as myself).  He maynot be active with the drug but he certainly is a user of emotions.  When I cleaned out his night stand I found a binder.  I know that writing is a tool that is often used by the addict during recovery.  I opened up the binder and found he had written stuff about his most important relations.  Yes, I was one of them.  He started out by writing that he was with me for economic reasons.  He tried to love me but his desires of what he expected from "HIS" wife was lacking to say the least.  For the past three years he kept telling me he loved me and then I read this in his writings.  I also read what he said about his previous marriages and girlfriends.  It all seemed to boil down to the fact that he lusted after them but once he conquered them he wanted control of their lives.  If he couldn't get that he manipulated, lied, became physical (which he has never done with me), embarassed them and used them until he decided he no longer needed them for his purpose.  What kind of man did I marry?  Why couldn't he just leave me alone three years ago?  Why did he take marriage vows just to satisfy his financial situation and sex addiction?  There are plenty of women that would do those things for him without being married.  My son made it clear to me just today.  He said, "Mom you don't love him, you love his representative that you met years ago. Now you are seeing the "real" him."

Can someone, please tell me why a recovering addict, alcholic, food and sex addict after being clean for so many years can be manipulative to the core, non responsive, non caring, etc.?  I just don't get it. Please forgive my spelling..I just had eye surgery and I'm trying to write this post.