My husband and I started our marriage so promisingly. Anthony was a little older than I and felt so mature and worldly. I may have been a little naive to think that we would spend the rest of our life together considering how most marriages end in divorce but I honestly thought we made a great team. It was a fast courtship but I felt that it was worth the risk and was set to enjoy the rest of my days with him.
Unfortunately that outward security masked something much darker within.
He was very generous - not only financially but with his time. He was genuinely attentive and seemed when to say or do the right thing at the right time. He was always great in a crowded room. So funny, entertaining and sexy. So charismatic. He wasn’t very good looking but he certainly had something about him.
We had met just after he came out of hospital for a very serious operation. I admired his strength to soldier on and to not take no for an answer - even to death. He told of a very traumatic childhood. How he found it difficult to trust anyone but he told me that he trusted me - and I believed him. He made it seem as though I was his protector in some way.
I knew he had a terrible temper that I tried to ignore because I saw it though the lens of his childhood. I felt for him. I loved him - or I loved what he was showing me.
But the longer we were together every day seemed to bring a new slight that he felt someone had played on him. I would listen for hours about how some he worked with hated him and was plotting against him. Friends of his who he had known for years suddenly were cut out our social circle and he insisted that I would never contact them - even though they were my friends too.
My sympathy for him was waning but the final straw was coming sooner than I expected.
I became sick about 3 years into our marriage and was not able to have sex with my husband for about 4 or 5 weeks. I was deeply shocked when he said that if he was not able to find satisfaction at home he would find it out of the house. I was so shocked to find that he really had no empath for me whatsoever. I was too weak to even argue with him but from that moment no matter how much I loved him there was a faint taste of disgust in my mouth every time he kissed me.
In some bizarre way he saw my illness as a threat to him.
I recovered but our sex life was never the same again. I knew he did not have my back. We carried on for a few years but everything deteriorated. Ironically he accused me of being unfaithful again and again. Always asking questions and checking up on my whereabouts even when I was doing something as innocent as looking after my sister’s kids.
I later found out he had an account on AshleyMadison.com and was often answering ads on Craigslist. It wasn’t the infidelity that hurt. I’m a modern woman and realize that people sometimes slip up. It was the fact that he genuinely had no love in heart for himself and would never be able to love me or anyone ever.
I had been conned.
The final breakdown came when I became pregnant with his child. I knew that if I kept it he would become even more tormented and hateful. I could not stand the thought of him becoming more angry. I had a massive and terrible decision to make.
I didn’t even tell him I had the abortion.
I still stayed for another year or two. I was terrified of his wrath if I told him I wanted to leave. He was a very possessive man and I knew if I left he would try to make my life hell - which he eventually did.
He is a very powerful man and he did everything he could to make my life unpleasant when we split up.
I felt as though a massive confidence trick had been played on me.
By chance, many years later, I ran into his brother, who he had not spoken to in years. He said Anthony had worked a pattern into his life that worked on many levels, especially in business, but would always end badly in personal relationships.
1. He would make a massive act of generosity 2. He would then expose a massive vunerablity that he would ask you to protect. 3. He would then make a series of requests that would pit you against his “enemies”. 4. If you did as he requested he would make more acts of generosity 5. If you ever refused, or he felt you were not protecting him, you would become one of those “enemies” and he would do everything he could to hurt you.
His brother called him “The Storm Tossed Sea Of Hideous Self Loathing” . I thought that was cruel but it did fit Anthony perfectly.
Even though he hurt me massively and literally wasted several years of my life I find it very hard to really hate him. He hates himself so much the underlying emotion I have for him is pity.
I on the other hand feel like such a loser for falling for someone who is so loveless. He was/is a master manipulator but now I just feel used and stupid. Looking back now there were signs of his narcissism. I just thought he was a “Big Character”.
In some stupid way I just blame myself for not seeing it.
I guess that's what women do - eh girls 
