Expert: james52144@earthlink.net - 11/14/2009

Question
Hello,

My bf returned home from iraq early september, he and I dated a 2  years ago and split up because he cheated, after the split we found out i was pregnant, he was absent throughout my pregnancy because I had told him that after he and I had broken up I was with someone else and he took that as cause for concern that our son possibly wasnt his. Knowing his feelings on the situation I just kept on with my life preparing to be a single mother. Once I had our son he started to realize that he was in fact the father and showed an interest on being in both our lives, so we decided to try and work things out and get back together.

Our son was born in january and he deployed for iraq early february, he had never come to see our son and in turn never met our son till he was 8 months old. We talked every day and started planning our life when he returned home, everything seemed too good to be true, i felt so loved.

He returned in september, I took my son and myself out to be there when his plane landed so he could finally meet his son and we could be together, we have been all over the country visiting family and amidst all the travel and hectic days I realized he was drifting emotionally. When we were visiting his parents there were nights he would just leave right after he inhaled his dinner, leaving all of us at the table a bit confused, and wouldnt return home till 3 or 4 am.

finally when we got a chance to have a stable home and get settled down he started sneaking out of the house or making excuses to go to the bar to "play pool" but he always came home angry and wreaking of beer, he always made it a point to always have at least a 6 pack in the fridge at all times, he started accusing me of cheating and picking fights with me in the middle of the night.
We would go to bed and every morning I would wake up and he would be somewhere diff, the couch the floor the floor of our sons room.
On more then one occasion I awoke to the refrigerator open and emptied of anything edible without needing to be cooked, when I would ask him about it he would say he knows he ate the food but doesnt remember eating it or how he got to wake up on the floor.

Some nights I would wake up to the sound of water and when i went looking for it I would find him peeing in the middle of the room or off the balcony or into the closet, I have always heard it was dangerous to wake a sleep walker so I would just wait till he went back to bed and leave out cleaning supplies out on the spot he pee'd and he would get it in the morning.

Recently I returned home to my parents house out of state because the verbal abuse at night when he got home from the bar turned physical, he would come into the bedroom and pull me out of bed by my sleepwear and tell me to "get out you f****** Sl**" he would leave me to go to the bar and come home to accuse me of cheating while he was gone. He has grown so controlling and he critiques EVERYTHING I do, from how I give our son baths to why I had burned a certain candle in the living room while he was at work, I would tell him "because its a candle and it smells good and i felt like lighting it" and he would come back with "yea right im sure thats why, I bet its your new boyfriends favorite scent" little things that really are nothing he would turn some how into me cheating on him.

I love him and know he has problems and needs help, my question is how do i get him to get that help and keep myself and our son safe? I want to go back but I know I shouldnt, I really dont know what to do, I dont want do anything legally about it because the military is his life and that would ruin him, but i dont know how to get him to get help, short of him losing his family.

Thank you
-L  

Answer
Dear L

Unfortunately you can't get help for him until he wants it. You need to keep you and your child safe for the moment. If he loves you he will realize he has a problem when you don't come back. You need to prove to him that if he doesn't change he has lost you. Then he may change. If not, then you have avoided the pain of years of abuse.