Stuck

youre right. nothing much good has come from speaking to him and seeing him. my child wanted to see him again, or rather got roped in by his bribes, so ive seen him that way. im thinking its best they dont see each other, but my child is old enough that im not sure how much i should dictate to her.

i talked to him yesterday to give him a health update about our child (upon childs request), otherwise i wouldnt have talked to him. i don't want to talk to him.

i was very vulnerable last night because of our childs health issue, and when i gave him the update, he cried and i felt that connection.

the problem is, he is one of the leading causes of our child's health issue (mental health issues from neglect, exposure to parents mental illness, scars of abandonment). trying to cure the abandonment by reengaging with the disordered person who did the abandoning. a therapist really needed to be involved but the timing wasnt right.

its a mess im trying to navigate. i realized in talking to him last night, that although it felt good to say how i feel, how he hurt me, without him telling me to shut up, without him telling me i'm wrong, was a bit healing. but still, there is the gross feeling of being vulnerable to him. worrying about feeding his ego, degrading myself.

trying to heal "trauma"

A good person feels very uncomfortable dealing with a person who is selfish in the ways you have shared. In the past your feelings were met with dismissal and negativity. Good people do not behave this way and say they love you, that is warped delusional thinking.

The damage you have experienced is bad enough, add to that the damage and hurt your child has experienced is horrific and totally heartless and selfish on his part.

I find that words cannot describe the depth of disappointment when someone we love behaved in such hurtful selfish ways.

It’s understandable that you vented some deep hurts his actions caused you to feel. Don’t beat yourself up for venting. Just know that your venting was for yourself and part of your path towards gaining your power back.

When someone is narcissistic THEY need to be the baby/child that needs attention and coddling. They do not genuinely feel for you/others. That is why your husband was not only selfish and dismissive with you but also his own child who now suffers because she did not get to be the child but instead had to deal with her father demanding that role.

Narcissistic individuals are me, me, wa wa, I I, feed me, feed me (ego). And if you don’t feed them the way THEY want they have a tantrum. That’s how it goes. Always the hero or the victim, never the villain

The best thing to do is get strong take care of you and be independent and ignore them. Know they are not capable of being an actual adult they need the coddling and their fantasy world.

Yes.
He is trying so hard to come across differently. he thinks its amazing of him. like it is a feat to allow me to tell him something, rather than shutting me down, lashing out in anger or gaslighting. low expectations of himself. he pats himself on the back for basic behaving. he said he is happy he could be of assistance to me. haha. i said these are your kids too.

he was just living with one woman as i mentioned previously, driving her car, staying at her house. they broke up recently. he tried to tell me one reason for the breakup is because he wants our child to be able to visit him at his home (he wanted our child to meet his last girlfriend/go to girlfriends house and i said NO because they had only known each other like a month and had moved in together after two weeks of meeting or something like that). Not surprisingly, they broke up after like two months.

he rented a room somewhere, stayed maybe three weeks? i just found out from him that he has now moved into an apartment with ANOTHER woman! they again barely know each other. madness! they signed a year lease together. what idiots.

its "interesting" how little he is able to connect with his kids on any meaningful level. i guess his romantic relationships are not deep either considering this is at least the third woman he has shacked up with since we separated. it really helps me to see things for what they are. it helps me make sense of how we got together, what i had to trade away of myself to stay together.

he finally has a place to call his own (with this new lady) so he got a lot of stuff from the house recently and today. it feels very nice to have more of his stuff gone.

Did he get a job?

yes, he's kept it for how ever long he's been here. he almost left it for something else, but decided it was best to stay with it. low pressure low stress, easy, at worst boring.

he said it was out of necessity to share rent, because housing is so expensive here. he has been paying me support though i noticed not the last two weeks. probably because he moved.

Well, he is pretty much a deserter and a coward and a user. He is only pretending to care and listen to you but it is just a way to get his own needs met. He basically told you that the main reason he is living with this new woman is to use her to cover the cost of rent. Same with the last one and he even used her car.

When someone is like this you never get genuine concern no matter how caring and good hearted you are as a person. He will never be the kind of man you had loved and wanted him to be.

I am new. I am back in therapy. I have similar issues with my father. I have a long history of expecting from him what I will never get. This is part of trauma codependcy narcissism. I cannot diagnose him but narcissism traits exist on a spectrum. I am no longer expecting or wanting anything from him.

Often a parent fails a child because they don’t know anything about child development and what it means to nurture a child as they slowly discover themselves and begin learning to navigate and learn.

Instead the parent often unknowingly treats the child like their normal needs are a burden. Like the old school thought of children are to be seen and not heard.

It’s important to understand that a narcissistic individual only sees their OWN needs and doesn’t really empathize or genuinely care about the feelings and needs of others. They prefer to live in the fantasy they create in their own minds not reality. This becomes even more pronounced when they develop addiction problems.