My ex came to the house

I just wanted to check in.

My work has mental health counselling available by phone. That’s who I booked the short notice appointment with

HOLEY SMOKES she was good.

I gave my brief history in about 20 minutes then this lady just connected the dots.

“This was scripted and planned, with witnesses present, so that she looked her best and you were caught stumbling and flat footed

She probably hit you with multiple jabs and jumped around topics to unsettle you and acted affronted or victimized when you tried to speak. (She did)

This played two roles. It gave her a means to navigate her image to flying monkeys, daughter, and herself.

And it gave her a means to unload emotions she can’t show her new friends onto you. She’s conditioned you to bend your boundaries all the time and you’ve been conditioned to keep peace and roll with her emotions. She WILL keep bringing strong negative emotions to you.

Your house is a boundary. Don’t feel the need to open the door or receive an unscheduled visit. That’s a common courtesy that the court won’t blink at.

Next, we start working on ways to get you off your heels and thinking. She flurries you with jabs and you flood with emotion. No. We need to break that pattern. She’s smart and better at this than you. You being emotional makes that worse and makes you think slower.

As soon as you can stop mirroring her emotions she will have to find someone else to direct them toward.

We need you cognitively strong before you go to court. We need to shut off the flood response and put up boundaries she can’t cross.”

This therapist sounds like she knows what you need and your wife’s tactics. Your wife knows how to disable you. This falls in line with covert narcissism.

I agree that your wife just showing up expecting to take control has got to be stopped because she will just keep on invading. This gives toxic people a high and they feel empowered. Yet the therapist is right in that they set it up where they have a witness that they have convinced to believe they are the victim. This is what my older sister did and she manipulated my elderly parents like your wife is doing with your daughter.

It’s good to have a therapist that gets this because it can get disabling. I’m sorry ((RD)) unfortunately I know it all too well and had to have help with it myself.

I can’t believe the emotional pain, sickness, and turmoil I’ve felt in the last 48 hours.

And I know what I’m experiencing is less than a lot of people go through.

My heart is with you all.

Thank you for your support. I really needed to talk through this and keep my emotions out of the house.

I know that feeling. This is what narcs do - the surprise attack can come months, a year, or even years later.

I too, am learning how to strengthen my boundaries. It can be really hard, especially when you may secretly want to keep hoping for change in a person or some kind of epiphany. Narcs do not change nor do they have sudden eye-opening epiphanies. Their entire M.O. is to seek and maintain power and control - months later, even years later. Narcs hate being dumped and they will stop at absolutely nothing to regain control and/or to get revenge.

The sickness you describe feeling is a result of this surprise attack. Next time, you will know what you need to do to protect yourself and the kids from another surprise attack.

Please don’t compare in a way that is self shaming with the hurt you are feeling. It’s better to just talk it out as you are doing here. This helps you lay things out so you can analyze and problem solve.

My oldest is becoming a beast of a man.

He’s 5” taller than me and 40lbs heavier. 17” arms and still placing good times in all his running PT in the army.

He’ll hug me and say “Don’t let go. Don’t think I don’t need this just because I got big.”

I talked to him about someone who was just tortured by a narcissist ex and I said it was worse than I experienced.

He said “Don’t think someone else’s experience was worse just because they broke from it. Maybe you’re stronger. I’ve never seen anyone as solid as you ever.”

His validation has meant the world to me.

Thank you all for seeing me and validating me.

I think many times we are actually stronger than we give ourselves credit for because we see the stuff we struggle with. However in reality those struggles are what continues to help us grow stronger & build on the strength we actually have. Outsiders don't see that struggle like we do. They blink & miss it while we are there to feel it.

I think for me, DBT's Mindfulness was my best help to balance emotions with logic. My mom made emotions look bad from thw time I can remember so I turned off all but anger & life was basically neutral till I had to deal with her emotions. Then I would throw out defiant anger. Didn't work well as an adult & I needed to learn what other emotions were but to balance them well with my logic.

You have both logic & emotion.....learning a working balance is what this whole mess is teaching you & you are learning very well even if it doesn't "feel like it" to you. Learning is all about learning to navigate through things we have never experienced before & your son is absolutely correct.

I feel like there is too much immediacy in my emotions.

I have a very very hard time “putting a pin” in something and returning to it later.

I’ve felt utterly overwhelmed in the last few years. It’s only in the last few months that I’ve felt this deep peace

Maybe not surprisingly that’s when she showed up.

But anyway….. Immediacy. It’s almost a panic where I want someone else to see, hear, and validate me.

It’s not fair to the kids that I’ve asked them at times about things, but I’ve been so gaslit for so long I haven’t trusted myself.

I’ve denied reality for so long that it makes me question it to face it.

I’m not strong enough in my mind to quell these immediate emotional needs and responses.

You're not alone. In fact, you're probably pretty normal for someone who's been through the things you have. Disordered people affect us at the core, and the longer we're around them, the longer we've done the dance with them, the more you lose yourself and your confidence.

Codependency work has helped me A LOT in that regard. You learn to emotionally detach from people who have come to cause you distress. Then you start staying in your own body/space, rather than allowing them to repeatedly pull you into theirs, and activate a response from you. You start really taking care of yourself, knowing yourself, and trusting/validating yourself more--- which leads to a calmness in you, and rather natural boundaries with other people. When what the other person/people do no longer matters to you, then it no longer matters at all. It's a little like being set free. Even when there are setbacks, they aren't as bad, and don't last as long.

The counselor you spoke with sounds very knowledgeable - that's awesome that you happened upon such a good resource. It sounds like you'll take advantage of more appointments with her?

Thank you @ArmorPlate108

You’d mentioned the Codependent No More book to me before but I always kinda thought

Well…. She’s gone now.

So I didn’t get the point of it.

I got myself a copy of it.

Sorry. I wrote something then decided not to.

The way codependency was explained to me:

You acquire it from living with an addict/disordered person. It's the dysfunction you develop through the years of navigating an unreal and crazy-making situation. Even if the addict/disordered person goes away, you're probably still codependent.

I hope you get some useful information and/or validation from the book.

Hi

Just letting you all know I’m doing much better.

This may have been a mistake on her part. This last interaction really showed me who she is now. It also took the shock out of my interactions with her significantly. I’ll be less reactive and thinking more the next time.

My friend the lawyer gave me 15 minutes of coaching and reaffirmed a bunch of mistakes she made by coming here. I’m stronger now than I was a week ago.

Thank you all

RDM

I always call these situations "LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES"......that we grow & learn from.

Go figure just this week & 6 years after my divorce & 17 years after I left him, my ex gave me a couple of situations that helped me know myself even better & navigating how to handle it.

It ok....think we never stop learning how to deal with the things life throws at us

Good to hear Mercer

It was very selfish of your wife to just show up unannounced like that. Very disrespectful and narcissistic.

@unaluna

LOL! 😆

I think you're trying too hard to influence DD's relationship with her mother. It might be healthier for you to back away a bit. The coaching session you offered her sounds counter-productive to me. It just amped up the level of drama. Your daughter is seeing a counselor. Let the counselor do the counseling.

Naturally a father is also a counselor to a daughter, but this is an issue you should handle with a very light touch. Your ex is trying to buy your daughter's allegiance. DD may be tempted to take the bait. That's up to her to figure out for herself. Your ex is also out to make you look bad in your daughter's eyes. That's not going to change. You don't need to get defensive. Your daughter lives with you and knows who you are.

DD and her mother have to work out their relationship in their own way. Don't be in the middle of that. Your daughter has been exposed to excess drama related to this divorce. Kids can get addicted to drama and find ways to keep it going. Try not to feed in. DD and her brother will also work out what's between them in their own way. Your daughter will have some inner conflict about how to relate to her mother. Having inner conflict is part of life. It doesn't mean that all is chaos. Resist the temptation to do your daughter's thinking for her. She'll have ups and downs with her mother. Just give her a stable base in a stable home, and she'll figure out what's what.

Your ex bringing a guy with her was not very classy. So . . . she continues to show who she is.

Excellent advice!