Time to be honest

With myself really. Based on the fact that I presume no-one else is ever actually going to read any of this!
What happened to me six years or so ago?
In the old days I suppose it would have been called a nervous breakdown. Apparently that's a term no longer used, but that's what it was.
During my relationship with Jackie I can now see that I was in a gradual spiral. Downwards. Yes it was abusive. But that's not all because I certainly played my part in it. I became almost obsessed with her, or at least obsessed with making my relationship with her work. I suppose this is a roundabout way of saying that I was terrified of being abandoned, yet again. As a result of this almost primal fear I tried to be everything I thought she wanted. A lot of my theories of what she wanted was based on her anecdotal version of "what she didn't like about Dave" (Husband No 1.) I therefore tried to be what he wasn't which was a big mistake. I lost myself along the way somewhere. Lost who I was, my humour, my good nature, my sympathetic nature, my looking at the bigger picture, all those little qualities that good or bad had made me into the person I had always been. Instead I was now this strange person I barely recognised. And guess what? It didn't work anyway! I can look back now and remember my increasing desperation, exasperation, helplessness and anxiety that it was all going wrong. My feelings of never quite being good enough, or to be more accurate, perfect enough. I never could be of course, and nor should I have tried to be. I lost me in there somewhere and the irony of the whole thing was that all her stories of what she disliked about Dave were untrue anyway. They were simply her justification for wanting out from him and in honesty none of them really stood up to examination. Real reasons unknown. The harder I tried to be the opposite of him the more she seemed to dislike me as well, the more she wanted to humiliate me, put me down, exclude me. The insanity of it all is in the fact that I never found her that appealing to start with. Not my type in looks. Not my type in personality. Not my type in just about any way at all. Yet I decided at some stage to try and "make it work." Big mistake of course with huge consequences down the line not just for me but for everyone involved including her children, my children, everyone really. I won't at this stage go into the nature of a relationship with her beyond saying IT WILL NOT WORK. But still I tried, I accepted, I acquiesced, I tolerated, I turned the other cheek, I ended up feeling I was nothing more than a doormat, constantly and overtly seeking her approval and acceptance. I don't mean this i a trivial way, by the end I was almost begging her to tell me how to behave, how to dress, how to dance. Whenever we went out I asked her if I'd been OK. It was actually pathetic. I can't really blame her for having no respect for me as by the end I had none for myself. It had to end in tears and when the truth gradually began to filter from my unconsious mind to the conscious it was obviously doomed. Still I tried to keep the truth at bay, if only I tried harder if only I explained how I felt if only she would understand. All futile as she is simply not equipped for the job. Six months before the inevitable my anxiety levels peeked and my depression deepened. Those six months were the worst of my life And my breakdown was under way. probably irreversible at this stage. I had so much at stake in the realtionship. Admittedly only in my own mind and admittedly alone in the importance I attached to it. And it was going to end. What the fuck could I do? I veered from anger at her to intense self-reproach to anger at me. She on the other hand was obviously simply on a mission.