Is it normal that i am so confused about what i want?
I met my husband 4 years ago whilst travelling around New Zealand. I was completely infatuated by him for the first few months of our relationship. I'd found someone who completely understood me and saw things the same way I did, my soulmate.
We fell pregnant only 5 months into our relationship and nine months later after no warning from scans I gave birth to our beautiful daughter who has Down Syndrome and had a heart defect.
During my pregnancy I learned that my partner had anger issues and he would smash up the house and be verbally abusive. Soon after my daughter was born things started to get worse and he smashed a window.
Anyway my daughter was in heart failure pretty much from the day she was born. We were in and out of hospital and finally at the age of 3 months old she had open heart surgery which was successful.
We were still living in New Zealand at the time and I decided I wanted us to move back to my home country (UK) where we would get better support for our daughter. We decided to get married to help with immigration. Only 10 days after our marriage my husband hit me.
I left him in fear that he was losing control of himself. I flew back to England a week later and started setting up a home. He entered England 5 months later and only a few weeks later he threw a hot cup of coffee at me and as I ducked and the mug shattered it cut open my leg. He moved out and over time we tried to make it work again. We then fell pregnant with our second child who is now 20 months old. The abuse continued and I had to call the police on one occasion as my husband threatened to kill me. We later went to the States, which is where he is from and in front of his whole family he exploded at me and created an awful scene. Since then he quit drinking and started to going to AA each week, I also got him signed up with a centre for people mental health issues and he was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. He attended psychotherapy 2 times a week. He went 1 ½ years giving no physical and only occasional verbal abuse until just recently he headbutted me.
I decided to leave him and he now lives elsewhere but he refuses to believe its over and keeps wanting me to take responsibility for our failed marriage.
I started hanging out with my ex boyfriend as friends. He was always sweet, compasionate, considerate. I feel like I have experienced two extremes in relationships- one where I am treated like rubbish (as with my husband) and another where I am idolised (past boyfriend). I should be jumping at a guy with all the qualities of my ex. The only reason I broke up with him in the first place was because he was too nice. Have I learned my lesson and am I ready for nice now? I just want someone I can grow old and enjoy life with and I know I could have this with him. Part of me still can't let go of my marriage. Do people actually change? Has anyone ever known of anyone who all of a sudden stoped abusing their wife? I'm so confused. Help!