Carol,I want to add my condolences. How are you doing? I know you feel like your heart has been ripped right out of you.Kay calls it a greedy cancer, it sure is. My husband died of pancreatic cancer at 62, 6 1/2 months ago, I had him for 18 months after his diagnosis but he suffered much.We are here if need to talk to us, it helps when someone else knows what you are going through. Kay, How are you doing? I pray for everyone on this forum for healing of our broken hearts and for the pain to ease. God Bless, Mavis (ganna@optonline.net)

I would suggest that the relatives immediatly contact a lawyer/law enforcment people now. You might contact an elder abuse expert, if there are no relatives or if he appears to have done this before, again ask about elder abuse. If the state she lives in honors common law marriages, she could ask her attorney general to look into this, but it sounds like it was set up. As a friend, sorry, there is not much you can do about it except spend money to investigate how many times he has done this, and then talk to a invesigative reporter.

Don't know if I can be much help but I lost my very special husband in 1985. Kissed me goodbye & went to work, I found myself at a hospital that afternoon, waiting only to finally have someone come in & say, I'm sorry, do you have a mortician(at least that is all I heard)So my trip has been long,24 years. He had a coronary & died instantly. We had 15 yr old DD & 17 yr DS.It was like being put on a stage & handed a script & told you had to play the part. Nothing was real until after everyone left. I had visited a lot of elderly people from church & knew what happened to some of them. They very nearly "crawled in a hole"(under the cover in bed) 1 lady had newspapers all over the yard, shades or curtains drawn, didn't look like anyone home, we had turned to leave when she opened the door. She told me that was the 1st connection to the world she had found since her hubby had died, our visit gave her courage to get out. I remembered that & told myself, what if he were sitting here, would he want to see me crying, would he be torn apart to see me like this, so I just put him in the picture when the going got rough. He was always supportive & loving, we didn't fight in the 22 years we were together because we didn't want to hurt each other. We did have I think 6 times we were silent when each of us thought we were right. Those few times ended with us talking it over & deciding together what to do. I did lot of locking myself out of house(carried extra car & house keys in my purse) ran washer without any clothes in it, couldn't spell 4-5 letter words, couldn't look them up as "when" didn't seem to compute in my brain. I'd write woo, woen,just couldn't write small words. Eventually that stopped but it will start up again for short periods when someone close dies. I carry extra $20 in case I forget gas in my car. I learned to do a lot of compensating. I learned that I could stay in bed 1 day if it was rainy or very cold but then I must get up & fix myself some hot choc., read a book, listen to favorite music, couldn't let it continue into the night. I had to have very good reason for that day off. Rest of time when I wanted to "disappear" I forced myself out to a strip mall to watch people leaving the grocery store, did small errand to get it done & not feel useless, maybe just dropping letters off at post office. If things got bad I called my bro. & he listened & that was a great help. I had people wanting me to pay for headstones when I hadn't ordered 1. I got cheated by ins. company as they didn't leave me amount on their letterhead so I wrote it down & had him sign it but they told me I was wrong,lost about $500 on that. Got so I only cried when something good happened. So have a trusted friend or relative as a witness to anything legal you have to do. Time passed & I kept busy. People think widows have all kinds of time!! Right, I had to do all things I always had & what he did also. Putting gas in car was very upsetting, I had never done it. I had handled the bills & such so didn't have to learn that. My kids left home & after a few years, with some wandering & number of jobs, they are great kids(they felt pretty lost, too)Am I over it after 24 yrs??? No, most days I just think of him several times, lovely memories, but seeing a couple holding hands, leaning on each other, I feel cheated out of that. I'm very grateful we had 24 wonderful years together & hope someday to see him waiting for me.Good Luck folks, the pain & rawness does get better & the memories are sweet & worth holding on to & will get you through.

Since I don't know the full story ie your husbands side and also only what you wrote here it sounds to me like your husband is abusive. Sounds like my ex. (note we had an amicable divorce and we still talk on occasion like friends). At some point when I'd tried to be whatever it was he said he wanted and nothing changed I moved to the never let his things about looser etc. get me down instead I continued to build my self-confidence and it just got worse. It wasn't me, it was him. He had to put me down to make him feel better about himself. He would have preferred me being completely dependent on him and not the self-sufficent person I am by nature. Which in the beginning I was more dependent on him. You are not doing anything wrong - keep repeating that to yourself. I see nothing you're doing wrong. You are caring for your daughter, you love your husband, you are working and supporting yourself. I don't see you doing anything wrong. What I think is that your husband has other issues and he is just taking them out on you and making himself feel better in the process. Social sites and being on sex sites is not normal for a married man, however I doubt that is your fault either. My ex cheated on me so it made my decision really easy. My 2nd husband and I dated for three years and was married for two years without living together during the week. Long distance can work, both people have to be comitted to it. Did your moving make things worse? I'm guessing it was pretty bad before you moved and if he said something like I'd kill you then you definetly did the right thing for you and your daughter to move. Why not try reading up some on verbally abusive spouses and see if this fits what you've been dealing with and go from there. I wouldn't want my daughter (or son) to be around that as then they grow up thinking that is how men treat women, which trust me they don't. My second husband is wonderful and there is nothing like it in our relationship. One thing with an abusive relationship is that us women often become very attached and think we are doing something wrong and think we are very much in love. Once you realize and sort of wake up to what the relationship is it makes it much easier to decide what to do. As I said I don't know if yours is a verbally abusive relationship or not, but I encourage you to read up on it and see if your husband fits the patterns. I never thought my ex was until I read a true crime book and saw all the signs in it on my ex. and after that is when I got my self-confidence back and started working on myself and let those things roll off my back. I wish I'd decided to leave then too instead of sticking it out (we didn't have children), which was dumb as I thought I still loved him. I care for him, but I don't love him.