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Open Eyes
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Default Apr 01, 2023 at 02:05 AM
  #21
Thinking more about what you shared I think your mother and your husband have similar character traits. They expect others to go with their flow and fail to see and respect the individual needs of others. In other words, if it’s not important to them, it’s not important. Neither one knows how to be present for you or others for that matter. It is just assumed that when others fail to conform there is something wrong with them.
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Default Apr 01, 2023 at 03:49 AM
  #22
All I can add to what others have said is to trust your feelings and your reason. It sounds like deep down you know what you need to do, but you are being swayed by people who really don't understand. Your mother may think it's better to have physical support even without emotional support, but she's wrong. Both are important but to be with someone with no empathy is soul destroying. My mother is a narcissist and sometimes after I listen to her on the phone for an hour, I feel like I don't really exist, like I have no personality or I'm not real. It's hard to explain but she has such a strong personality and just talks over me, and people think she's charming because she has an English accent and is socially capable. She was abusive when I was growing up (especially in my teens after my Dad left) and she also abused my brother mentally and physically which scarred me because I was older and protective.

You sound like a rational person and thus you must trust your reason. I've been reading about the philosophy of Stoicism (not what you'd think - the meaning of the word in modern times is different). Stoics believe in doing the difficult thing if you know it's the right path for you. Sometimes the most difficult thing is also the best. Many years ago I left a toxic (but not abusive) relationship and it was absolutely the best thing I ever did. I met my husband later - but even being single was far preferable than being with my ex.

You've got this.
p.s. check out Ryan Holiday stoic videos on YouTube. It's actually a comforting philosophy (has helped my mental health). And because it's philosophy not religion, you can basically cherry pick what you like!
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Default Apr 01, 2023 at 06:59 AM
  #23
After that last toxic conversation yesterday with my mother, she called me again the next day. She gave me intermittent reinforcement. I’ve learned the terminology and understand it now. She said she supports whatever I need to do.

I told her I’ve been crying hysterically the whole time because of him, he triggers it. I said no one should ever have to live like that, and that I never had that happen to me in any other relationship (other than her). I said it really wasn’t even her that triggered me like that except for a handful of times once I was grown when she went off on me, got in my face, raged relentlessly until I was crying hysterically. She had reduced me to hysterica with verbal abuse yelling at me as a young child, but I didn’t bring that up to her this time, but those are my earliest memories of hysterical crying. I outright said this to her, said we always had a volatile relationship. She didn’t really acknowledge or comment, seemed somewhat pleased that I minimized her abusive role as not really the culprit to my emotional dysregulation as after all it was only a handful of times.

It sickens me that these relationships are completely intertwined, triangulated. It is a two headed monster my husband/mother. I am seeing this clearly now.

I got triggered yesterday from this thread and got upset, had a cry. But it wasn’t a hysterical, meltdown, emotionally dysregulated cry. It just felt like a needed cry to come to terms with my situation, with myself. I apologize for kind of going off.

I’m embarrassed for putting everything out there as I have here. I feel so lonely I have no where else to go. I appreciate having reached out to caring others and all the thoughtful comments have given me so much clarity. But maybe I am so easily influenced by the last thing I hear that I don’t even know myself. This has always been my problem. I don’t like who I have become in my adulthood. I am ashamed. I am obsessed with trying to understand and recover from my suffering mental health from being in bad family relationships. I haven’t done enough things in my life I can feel proud of, feel shallow, self absorbed. I wouldn’t like to present myself as someone who obsessively listens to videos on narcissism. I need to find something more to let myself grow, something I can say I am and do to feel proud of.

I’ll talk with him when we see each other again and see what he wants to do with the separation. He is out of my house and not upsetting me now. I am alright and moving forward, bittersweet as that is. I still wish he would give me breadcrumbs, enough to make me feel comfortable. I still want to beg him, plead with him to care and make that effort. If he had only cared and made effort, if he only would have improved 20%, I would have been satisfied, felt loved, seen, respected, honored enough. I wouldn’t have quit. But he just kept telling me to go first.

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Default Apr 03, 2023 at 08:27 AM
  #24
You will get there in time. Be patient with yourself through this process. It's a most difficult process, leaving an abuser and it's complex, filled with conflicting emotions that pull you in a thousand directions at once. Have compassion for yourself too. You were abused, and there were repercussions. And I suspect that even with the few volatile moments with your mother, that it impacted you deeply as a child and likely traumatized you at that age. Please be kind to yourself, be proud of how far you've already come and be proud of yourself for standing your ground on refusing to be abused any longer.

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Default Apr 09, 2023 at 07:23 AM
  #25
I’ve learned via the science that from my FOO love is also attached to hate, dislike, fear, uncertainty, insecurity, intermittent reinforcement. The relationship with my husband brought this to light, caused me the worse, dysfunctional reaction to that disappointment.

He and I spent several hours together yesterday, having a family holiday meal. I am processing what happened and how I feel about it.

1. It’s only me who brings up anything.
2. He maintains he wants to be together with me but has no acknowledgement or clarity of our problems, takes no ownership, responsibility. It’s just one big gaslight from him as though there is no problem. He just wants to come back. He said, “I love you, but you don’t want to be with me.”
3. I said we can call it irreconcilable differences and divorce, move on, or we can live apart while really, truly, understanding and working on the issue. He chose the latter, but has no conception of him having any issue to improve upon. He said he is talking to a therapist but has no idea what to discuss.

So that’s how it is atm which is fine with me. I am not emotionally dysregulated anymore. This is all that is really important to me. I am happy to still have him somewhat in my life and not completely letting go. I was very honest telling him what I want to keep is our family/friendship relationship. I would love for the romantic, intimate relationship to be able to resume in a healthy way again one day, if a lot of work was done to understand and improve. But, honestly, I don’t see him ever growing in that way because he has absolutely no understanding about giving me the tiniest breadcrumbs I beg for. I don’t understand why this is, and I wish a therapist can get to the bottom of this, but I am fine with us being in this holding pattern for now.

I also observed him with our kids. He doesn’t connect with them emotionally either. He doesn’t offer up much in conversation and what he does say is very shallow, not even topics of interest to them.

It was very nice to have the whole family together for this holiday though, and I am glad I did it and included him.

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Default Apr 13, 2023 at 03:23 AM
  #26
It sounds like your husband doesn’t have the ability to emotionally connect with others in a normal way.

Does your husband show emotion?
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Default Apr 13, 2023 at 07:44 AM
  #27
Quote:
Originally Posted by Open Eyes View Post
It sounds like your husband doesn’t have the ability to emotionally connect with others in a normal way.

Does your husband show emotion?
He does in his own way, laughs at what he finds funny, angers at what angers him.

He’ll maintain relationships with our kids. I hope he cares for them like a good father.

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Default Apr 21, 2023 at 06:54 AM
  #28
Mom and Dad (who parrots what Mom tells him to say) said they love my husband too and have no comment about our separation.

I had a nightmare about Mom turning against me and supporting my husband in the divorce. I thought it was irrational at the time, but I think it was intuitive and realistic now. How’s that for emotional support from one’s own parents?

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Default Apr 28, 2023 at 04:17 AM
  #29
@TishaBuv,

I wrote this in my own thread regarding my abusive ex... .I am hoping by sharing it with you, here, that some, if not all of it, will ring true for you in your own state of loving but not loving him - your ex may not be an abusive narc, but he is abusive:

This morning at 4 AM, I'm reading through my narc abuse support groups on Facebook, and on my feed, I found this written by one narc abuse survivor:

"So now, he is gone and I live in peace in my messy house with my happy children..... There will NEVER be a chance for peace or a polite "amicable" relationship between us.... The fact is...in reality...any contact I have with him is DANGEROUS and harmful and I will never be where he is...not ever again."

Through my trauma bonded state, I was trying to end things more amicably with my ex. And you just can't with a narc. It ends badly, with you having to block them, kick them out for good, and exchange harsh words. It is not a pretty ending and rarely, if ever, is with an abusive narc.

All stories I read and hear talk about this kind of ending... either that. or the victim is so trauma bonded that they cannot let go and it has a non-linear ending with reunions, more break ups, and phases of getting back together again, with the ultimate ending of the narc coldly discarding the victim for new supply, and the victim utterly destroyed.

My mom told me yesterday when I visited that my ex was trying to "destroy" me. And this is the harsh truth. During this last round, his threats to take me to court to take away the 17K he had already given me? He was kicking me when I'm already down... frightening me and scaring me that I would next, have to deal with a lawsuit and court, while I'm already down and unemployed, struggling. He very well knows of my struggles.

There is a song, called "Poison and Wine" and it reminds me of the abusive relationship dynamic and the duality of the trauma bond:

Ooh, I don't love you, but I always will
Ooh, I don't love you, but I always will
I don't love you, but I always will
I always will
I wish you'd hold me when I turn my back
The less I give the more I get back
Ooh, your hands can heal, your hands can bruise
I don't have a choice, but I still choose you

"Your hands can heal, your hands can bruise" precisely describes the dichotomy of the abuser's character, as they alternate between being loving and being cruel, at their whim.

The times I weakened and reached out to my ex for comfort and support? I wanted the healing hands he offered, and not the cruelty. But with the abuser, you get both, and that's what so confusing and conflicting for the victim to experience.

Another song, "Either Way" also describes the abusive personality:

You were almost kind, you were almost true
Don't let me see that other side of you
You have learned in time that you must be cruel
I'll have to wait to get the best of you
Poison in everything you said
Don't you, don't you
Wonder what difference does it make
Either way?
You were almost kind, you were almost true
Why give away that other side of you?
Happens every time, so it must be true
Step on a kid, he'll grow up hating you

I told my mother that I felt like my emotions were at the end of a yo-yo, with him pulling the string. He would yank me in one direction, and my emotions would follow. He would yank me in another direction, and my emotions would follow. He was the puppeteer, and I, sadly, was the puppet, just as he wants it to be.

There is no nice ending with an abuser or an abusive narcissist. There just isn't. Because at the end of the day, when you've truly had ENOUGH of their abusive crap, and when you finally stand your ground and stand up for your rights to human decency and respect, you realize and know that there IS none with the abusive personality.

And that's the reality. I am in tears as I wrote this, as I think through ALL the abuse I've endured, while being under his thumb and while being his puppet.

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