I've been reading about emotional abuse and controlling men. Not all men fit every characteristic listed under the descriptions of the different disorders. There was one thing I always knew and that was the he was controlling.  He found ways to control me, as fast as I figured out what he was doing, he would find something else to use to manipulate me. 

When I read the numerous blogs and websites dedicated to emotional and abusive behavior, it seems that there are SO MANY people who are in or have been in an abusive relationship.  Is it more common these days or are people more attune to recognizing it?  Why are so many men controlling and abusive? I know my husband believed he owned me, different things he said told me so. I brushed his comments off as being a joke sometimes, but he wasn't joking. That is what he truly believed. He never looked at me as his equal, he was superior to me.  Was that part of the narcissism or society as a whole?  Why do so many men abuse and control their wives and girlfriends?  Why do they need to do it?   Why do they lie?

I went to visit my ex-husband two weeks or so before he died. My oldest son told me his family would not be visiting him that day. It was on a Sunday, and my son told me they were all going to be at a family reunion. He told me it was good time to see his father, he still knew what was going on around him.  So, I went to the hospital and asked the nurses if anyone else was in his room, and they said, no in fact, no one has been here all day to see him. 

He was asleep when I went in, so I sat down and waited for him to wake up. He was on oxygen at that point, he had a lung infection on top of the other problems.  He had to remove the mask to talk, the first thing he said to me was that he was sorry.  I believe maybe he meant it that time, I'm sure he knew he was very sick at that point.  In any case, I didn't go see him so he could tell me he was sorry.  I needed to go for myself, just as much as for him.  He had no effect on me anymore, as far as being able to control me. We had been divorced for six years. Of course, I still had compassion and empathy for him, and it made me sad that he didn't have to end up they way he was.