Am I a hypocrite?

I have had to take a deep look at myself and my own behavior in my relationship with Jay.

Here’s what troubles me the most. I wanted to help Jay to overcome deep seated issues that I wasn’t qualified to deal with — I thought with enough love, support and understanding, he could become the person that I knew he was deep inside.  Get that?  Do you see all of the I statements above?

I mean, I still have excuses and justifications for this behavior on my part.  He is mentally ill, which I was not aware of when we met and then married.  I was totally naive to ASPD markers and behavior.  He developed late-stage alcoholism, and I accepted his excuses over and over again. I believed his lies – over and over and over again, because this served my belief that I could ‘help’ him. He was funny, and mostly kind, and we had so much in common.

Is the ending of this relationship so traumatic because I knew that I should’ve ended it much, much sooner? That I did this to myself?  Would that have spared me all of this emotional and mental pain?

What I am getting at is this: outwardly I was trying my best to cope with an ever worsening situation, yet inwardly, I was in utter turmoil.  I had a mask for social events.  I had a mask for Jay. I had a mask for customers at our shop; and the people I worked with when I was employed remotely.  I had a mask for friends and family.  I was not ME in any of these situations.  I defended Jay, and his behavior, over and over again.  Does that make me a hypocrite?  Or was it a mind-saving adaptation to the circumstances?

And does this make me more like Jay? I mean, through all of the actual trauma in his life, did he develop a mask that is now so much him that it is undetectable?  Should I have more sympathy for him and his ASPD because of this?

When I left Crete in January to try to find a job to support us, I would not admit to myself that we could be over.  I felt like my back was against the wall, yet again, and that income was the most important contribution that i could make. My leaving would force him to finally get it together and find an income to help to support us. Our plan at the time was for both of us to find paying jobs, work through the summer, and then get back together in Crete on more stable footing.

Subconsciously, did I know he could never do it?  Was my leaving an act of self-preservation?  Just like what he did later?

What I still failed to consciously realize was that he had no intention of living up to his part of the plan. His resolution was to find an old, very sick, lady to take care of his immediate needs. I initially thought that he was caring for her out of human kindness, as she was alone in a foreign country, with no family support.

I begged Jay to get a signed agreement in place — money for care.  He insisted that it was all on the up and up; but then let it slip that he was her ‘financial manager’ and had access to her bank cards and money.  She was going to put him in her will, and sell all her properties.  WTF.  I had a fit, and told him that he should not rely on strangers to support him.

At the same time, Jay was telling me that an old friend was going to come over from Germany to work at our shop, so Jay could take 2 paying jobs so that we could get back together.  More lies.  And I still believed in him. I was a hypocrite!!  As long as someone was taking care of him, I could worry less and focus on finding something to support us.

Clearly, Jay is a manipulator and an opportunist.  And completely unwilling to take care of himself or anyone else.  I thought that I was the one person that he would never, ever, hurt or treat so poorly.  I was special, right?  Yet, his treatment over the years was terrible in the most basic of ways — not working, not trying to even pretend to be a ‘partner’ in any meaningful way, and I kept making excuses.

Do I have the ‘right’ to feel so devastated?  I mean, logically, this relationship hadn’t worked for me in a very long time — but there was a hugely deep bond that developed between us. I was so afraid of speaking my truth, because he wasn’t interested in hearing it.  How can I accuse him of betrayal, when i betrayed myself by not standing up to his manipulation?