Divorce Support Forums: I Followed My Heart... Help

I’ve been married for a little over a year. It pains me deeply to have to write the following. Any advice that others can give me would be greatly appreciated but I know that ultimately only I can make this decision.

My husband went through a very hostile divorce and custody battle in which he lost dearly. He is still to this day, 5 years later, wrapped up in battles over CS, court fights over custody and visitation, financial matters with BM, and bankruptcy. His daughter is only 5, she was an infant when he and BM initiated their divorce. Their divorce drove him into bankruptcy. He pays about 40% of his earnings in CS, plus other costs. BM is also seeking additional money she claims she is owed since the divorce, this was in addition to the lions share of marital property she walked away with. She was from an affluent family and they had quite a bit of marital property so what she received was not a pittance by any means. He did not even try to dispute it because all he cared about was custody. In short, he lost and has paid a high financial and emotional price. This was a number of years ago. My husband is a strong man and I believed that by the time we met he had moved on although having been divorced myself I understand you always carry some of it with you. The loss of his daughter, I could not of course comprehend. He does not see her frequently. He was honest and disclosed everything to me in good faith and I accepted everything fully. I figured, the past is the past. What was important to me was our future.

Unfortunately what I have come to learn about my husband is that he is haunted by the specter of his first divorce and has some very deeply rooted trust issues which did not emerge until several months into our marriage. I have realized now that it would have been helpful if he had made some attempt to work on these issues with a professional. Or at least be a big enough person to get past them some other way. I always feel like I am paying the price for what happened in his first marriage. He refuses to get a joint account with me. He is very evasive about the money he has in his own separate accounts such as his 401(k), and worst of all I strongly suspect he is hiding assets from me. Most humiliating of all, he is quick to document and record our arguments as if trying to preserve them in the event of a divorce. He keeps a tape recorder and camera with him at all times and has tried to tape record me and take my picture during times we have argued. It’s crazy and humiliating, but I try to remember that it’s because of what happened to him in his first marriage, forgive him and move past it. He has compared me to his ex-wife. We recently purchased a home together, and this was the most harrowing experience we have had so far in our marriage. I had to secure the mortgage because his credit was ruined in the bankruptcy. He did not have the money for the deposit, but I did. He is paranoid about the fact that I supplied the funds for the house and is badgering me to get his name on the mortgage, which the lender will not allow. He coerced me to put his name on the deed. I did so under emotional duress at the closing, against my complete better judgment, because I am living in fear that BM will place a lien on it once she runs an asset check on him. The only thing I can figure is that he has come to distrust me as equally as he distrusts his ex-wife. It’s like he fears I will do the same thing to him that she did. I have never given him any reasons to distrust me. We have had some arguments, but his fear is irrational.

We have had it out pretty bad at times. It is very hard to please him. He is very critical of me and my daughter who lives with us. My daughter is in those tween years so she can be a challenge. I think he resents that he can not have his own daughter so he takes things out on my daughter and the fact that she is in those tough years makes it all too easy. We are in marriage counseling which I set up for us, and I pay for. When we are in front of the counselor he is very cordial and polite, but as soon as we leave the counselor’s office, he will make a snide remark. He also seems to resent me seeing the counselor for individual sessions which alternate with our marital sessions. I am doing the individual sessions to help myself be a better wife, mother, and person, but I think he feels threatened by the fact that I am discussing the marriage outside of his presence.

I realize now in hindsight that I should have gotten to know him better before we agreed to get married and had a longer courtship. But now I am married and the die is cast so what do I do?