Dealing with anger at abuser?

Hello,

I am having a hard time overcoming the abuse I endured from my soon to be ex husband.
It started light- he'd yell because I didn't do dishes right, or I didn't make the bed the way he wanted me to, etc.. He'd do (too many) nice things for me, and my simple thank you wasn't enough. I felt bewildered at first because nothing I did was good enough and the things he was yelling at me for were insignificant. After we were married, it escalated. He started telling me to change my personality, stop sharing my opinions, etc. If I didn't have my "chores" done and greet him at the door when he got home from work, he would start a fight. It all seemed so unreal because no one had ever acted so crazy in a relationship with me before. He didn't want me to work, then he'd yell at me for not contributing. He waited on me hand and foot then turned around and verbally abused me for hours telling me how horrible and lazy I was, name calling, obscenities, threats, etc. Anything you can think of that would be cruel, he'd do it for hours at a time. Up to 12 or more hours. If I locked myself in the bathroom, he'd take the door off and do it some more. Because he was so nice half the time, I started to believe his brainwashing, and I started to think I must be the problem. Never mind that no one had ever told me all these things before. I don't drink, smoke, get into trouble, etc. and have always been a very quiet, non-offensive person. After months of constant degradation and torment, I started believing I was horrible and deserved to die because he kept telling me this. It seemed like the only way to escape his abuse, and I was afraid I'd to it, so I went to the hospital and told them I was feeling suicidal. He followed me there, and sat next to me in the emergency room for hours STILL telling me how horrible I was and that I was worthless. At the hospital, they let me stay for a few days, and talked to me a lot about verbal and emotional abuse. They told me that was he was doing to me counted as domestic violence and that I needed to get out and seek help. They told me nothing was wrong with me other than I was traumatized from severe verbal and emotional abuse, isolation and more. I went home slightly stronger and tried to join the local abuse support group, but my husband found out and started threatening me. He said that he'd kick me out of the house and make false accusations if I sought help. I had moved 2500 miles across the country to marry him and didn't know anyone in the area. Plus, I had no job and he kept me isolated with no car, etc. I was afraid of his threats because I had nowhere to go and no one to help. He convinced me that because I'd felt suicidal, I must have borderline personality disorder. I was so beaten down emotionally, I believed him and sought help. The therapist I saw was a specialist in BPD, and after months and months, she kept telling me that I did not have it, but she suspected something was wrong with my husband. I had a hard time believing her at first, and she became upset with my husband for brainwashing me. I finally became strong enough and went home to tell my husband I was fine and he should be treating me like a fellow human being instead of dirt. That made him mad, and I wasn't allowed to go back to that therapist. He took me to marriage counseling telling the therapist that I was destroying his life with my mental illness. That counselor watched as he bullied me through the session and tried to blame everything on me. She gave him some suggestions about his own behavior and he became angry and refused to go back.

Finally, my husband decided he hated me so much, he left and claimed I destroyed his life. In my head, I know that the way he treated me was vile, and the things he said to me were cruel and unreasonable, but I am having a hard time recovering. He started going to therapy where his therapist has decided he is codependent (because he waited on me hand and foot,) and that he was enabling ME to abuse HIM! I am so angry that he is going around repeating this crap to his friends and family. He is normal around them (typical of abusers) and they have NO idea what I went through. I just want to tell the world. I KNOW that what I went through was NOT right, and I know that I endured serious verbal and emotional abuse. How dare he try to turn it on me? I want to yell at him for all he put me through. I want to send him angry e-mails after all he did to me, telling him off for being so cruel and then blaming me. But, even though I am only reacting to the years of abuse I endured, my showing my anger will only "prove" in his eyes that it is all my fault.

How do I deal with all this anger I am feeling? He was cruel to me and I am having nightmares about all the things he said and did to me. I feel numb and traumatized and angry that he did this to me! I want him to admit what he did and apologize, but all he will do is go to therapy, lie and blame me. Tweet