Recovery and moving on as the fog continues to lift.....

[pinemartina]

If I had found MN three years ago,I would have run from xp within a few months of meeting him.
But then I wouldn't have my beautiful baby dd who my dc and I dote on and adore.

The dc had a fantastic fortnight in the sun.Xh2 really enjoyed spending time with them all and became very fond of baby.We really appreciated having his company - and the extra help to carry etc.I got the opportunity to swim with the older dc.

People assumed we were a "conventional" family unit..It was easier not to correct anyone who assumed xh2 was baby's Dad - and unnecessary.I enjoyed the anonymity of appearing to be like most other holiday makers in the resort..

I had lots of time to sit in the shade,b'feeding or minding sleeping baby while xh2 and dc had fun .
Lots of thinking and processing.

We were in the same place where,a year ago,baby was conceived.Where xp was with us on what then seemed the perfect family holiday..
Lots of memories were referred to by dc ,both happy one's and stuff like - "imagine if xp heard/saw that..."......xh2 was not in the least offended at xp being discussed, in sad recollection or relief....we all took a while to get used to that....
I tried explaining to xh2 what things have been like ,but showing him threads here gave a clearer picture..(so he knows me here,now..)
Thank goodness for the internet cafe on site.I couldn't post,but reading helped when I slipped into self pity...
...which I did all too frequently...

I am in no doubt whatsoever that I am fortunate to have got off so lightly.I know xp was a very controlling narcissist and that over the past three years,I came to experience as normal,his extreme and vicious verbal attacks and emotional abuse.
I read almost identical descriptions on here every day.He is "textbook".

But despite my shame, embarrassment and anger at having been so taken in,and my certain knowledge that I would now spot another loser a mile off,I am ashamed to say that I still HURT like crazy and actually MISS the fake,fantasy man that I "loved".....
Despite determined distraction and thought -blocking,I wasted many hours on holiday,longing for the man I thought I used to know
I really identified with Elmtree's thread.I sincerely believed I had found "the one". I find it hard to imagine finding any man who I could feel so strongly about.Even though I've just had a baby,I miss the great sex...

I am interested when posters are advised to get real with regards to "romance".
Is it all fantasy,the soul mate stuff? Was I immature and unrealistic to fall for that?...to miss it and long for it?....

I realise,now,that I was on a pedestal.But at the time,that felt good.What is the healthy,real life version of such attention?My self esteem is pretty high,why do I miss the fake "grooming" of a controlling liar?

Because it is grooming,isn't it?
And it is very powerful and effective.
That's the head-fuck.

Whenever another woman,by posting here, begins to discover the reality and starts to come out of the fog,I am fascinated at how some of the most understanding and heartfelt advice is given by those who have had a similar experience.
And how sometimes ,it seems impossible for someone who has not been involved with one of these men,to understand and appreciate how the brainwashing really gets you.

Now,I am staying very deliberately and consciously in the present as much as I can.Enjoying the school holidays with my dc.Trying to re connect with the woman I used to be.Defining myself as a confident,strong proud single mum of 5.
I guess I have to grieve for the loss of what I thought I had and that this will take time.

Thank you to all the women who continue to support and share on here.
I am trying to build RL networks too, and would be glad to email/chat with anyone who would find it helpful.Please skype me if you want to.

Oh PUTP, I'm so sorry you had to go through all that. I felt sad and angry reading it.

What cruelty. You deserved and deserve so much more.

putp The only person you are really responsible for is you. Yes of course your children, but you are doing mothering naturally and beautifully.

You really are NOT responsible for the way other people feel. A lifetime of taking on board everyone elses crap is a hard habit to break, but I believe that you are well on the way.

You know, this place is amazing, you can almost see the changes and healing happening as you read people posts.

Stately homes is a good place to lurk and post too.

It seems to be a pivotal day.

My "mother" is in surgery. My main concern is that people who don't know the facts will think badly of me for not wanting anything to do with her/the rest of them in weird world.

I told h that in order for him to play any kind of meaningful role in this family at all, he absolutely MUST take all of this stuff on board and do the work required on himself. Nothing to do with me....him and him alone. That not only go to his therapy, but read and learn and learn and read and talk and think. Much as we do here. He SAYS that stuff from his childhood has started to come back to him. He could never remember his childhood. I know that this is a bad sign , but it never bothered him before.

I suppose one must believe tales of abuse. That must always be the default setting.

I know that it is not my respnsibility to DO anything, and nor will I. But it is very hard not to feel utter heartbreaking compassion. I would not wish the reality and the subsequent realisation of abuse on anyone, but I know it must be gone through. I know that it has almost certainly been in his life. I know it's not my responsibility.

How "there" for him I am is a fine line. Do I even believe him, or is it a really mega double sick way of hoovering me back in. There is no way to know.

Your thought?

Or even more than one....thoughts!

Sorry ,havn't read any of todays posts.Just got back from visit to parents and feel terrible and want to record this now so I can check myself later,like tomorrow,so I can try to get a handle on this, and also because I am so not myself when this stuff gets me.please call me on this anyhow it takes you.

I know I should try to drop all contact with them ,but I just can't do it.Dad v ill.Not sure of why really.Don't in all honesty think either of them have a shred of insight or self awareness.
They would totally refute my perception.That is the problem.They define me.For them ,I don't exist beyond or outside of their version of me.
Don't know what that is even.

Mother waits til dc in garden and says have you heard fron xp? No I said.Well we - they both talk in the royal we - think she should see her father.Dad says,yes,if you hadn't dragged police into it he wouldnt have gone,you forced his hand - my father is ex police - mother sits making tutting noises saying poor dd.

As I write ,I know they are nasty and bonkers .I have stopped from detailing all other bonkers rubbish I was about to write - re my brothers who have not acknowledged baby yet my M says I shd be apolgising to DB and SIL for upsetting them (by having 5 children and being divorced x 2 and now THIS shame)...

Blah BLAh THEY are mad.

I know this is disjointed,stream of conciousness.

Why does it mess me up so much?
Why do I care at all.
How am I engaging even though I think I'm not??
When I'm tjhere,I BELIEVE tHEM..

oNLY XP ever understood any of this .He was the only one who ever saw it and helped at all.#
Yet- -All the things I said upthread....true true.

Will drink 3 beers.
Sorry.
It is crazy from a woman of 42 who is perfectly sane.

Keep writing PM. Let it flow out of you and pick it apart later.

Holding your hand, and pouring a glass of wine to have with you!

I think it is entirely possible thisis, sadly as we see on so many threads on here, warnings that men who are subjected to or witness abuse are highly likely to learn it as a pattern of behaviour.

My Dad parented appallingly sometimes but I grew up in a very isolated world where I thought that was normal. I truly didn't really recognise how 'un' normal it was until I joined MN 2 yrs ago.

Very sadly it takes something extraordinary for someone to question their own behaviour.

I don't know how you will know if it is genuine or not. In my quest to try and find some inner stability, I would be very wary of gambling with someone else's emotions, but that is me, and he might not feel the same even if it is true.

You are right to draw a line though.

Cooled down a bit now!!

The worst of it it makes me miss xp so much.

Bastards.Them and him.

Will feel better tomorrow.

thisis, please draw your line around yourself and your children! IT DOES NOT MATTER if he suffered abuse. Yes, he most likely did but IT DOESN'T MATTER whether he remembers or gains self-awareness. His journey is for him alone, whether or not he chooses to make it.

FWIW, my guess is he'll take a look down that road, maybe buy a map, but will never walk it. Pretty much like PM's XP. It is of no interest to you whether he does. IT'S NOT YOUR PROBLEM.

Sorry for shouting but you probably understand why.

He's broken.
His wiring is wrong.
You are not a brain electrician.
If he was a kettle, you'd take him back to the shop and exchange him for a new one that works.
He's not a kettle, so there's no Argos to take him back to ... Bear in mind, they would chuck that faulty kettle in the skip.
Throw him in your emotional wheelie bin, my love, and shut the lid.

If he ever notices he's faulty, he can go & get himself fixed. That's all there is to it.

Now you're a healthier thisis, you know it's not brilliant to choose a partner according to their broken-ness. You did NOT know better then; but you do now. Choose health, security, safety, respect and approval. Bin the crap.

pm, your parents are madder than the King & Queen of Crazytown, Madland! It's sad that your Dad's ill, but he's getting on. People get old & ill. It probably never occurred to them that they are, in fact, people to whom this might happen. Tough.

I sympathise - I'm being nice to my mum now (with frequent reminders to self that she's just an old lady), confident in the knowledge she'll die some time in the next 10 years (I hope!!) I'm keeping a safe distance though. I have done my last big favour for her; if she needs care in the coming years she can get a fucking nurse.

Thisis cheers! and Grace is totally right. Too LATE ... Not enough time ,even if true,even if possible.
Wasted compassion imo.Xp had been 16 years in therapy on and off ,all the while openly exploring the drivers behind what he himself acknowledged was borderline pd behaviour.That is why he was so brilliant at seeing through my family script.

I was totally safe from them with him.We would spend hours exploring the emotional fallout from our past experiences.What a way to bond....(eewww)

He was a family therapist.

Ex pupils came up to us to tell me how fab he had been.

But it didn't stop him from being an aggressive mind bending bully who abandoned his baby and so called soul mate.

PM - so that your parents have made you miss your XP more. Perhaps it might help you to recognise that your parents are utterly toxic and that you therefore "bonded" with a toxic man because of them - your corrupted wiring equates toxicity with love. This is THEIR FAULT (your parents) - parental love should be a great example of how to make you feel loved, cared for and above all safe. This didn't happen for you in the way it should have, but like many emotionally abused people, you took what you got as being that prime example of love. What a low bar your parents set, no wonder your expectations for yourself are not any higher.

Sod em all, I say. See your Dad if you are concerned that you will feel guilt later on if you don't - but free yourself of accepting their poison.

Think of them as emotional vampires - they need your emotional energy to thrive upon, so they shoot their poisoned darts into you as soon as you arrive, to open wounds that let your emotional energy flow out for them to lap it up. YOu will feel utterly drained when you leave, I'm sure - because they've had it all. Stop them from doing this - wear a virtual suit of armour so that their poisoned darts can't reach you.

Above all, try this - PITY them for being such low-calibre humans. Anger is no use - gives them apparent power - PITY is one way to reduce them to the pathetic beings they are and for you to then be able to ignore their pathetic ramblings as they should be ignored.

ThisIs - Feel compassion for your ex as much as you like - but in the same way you would for any child you read about in the papers. DIstance yourself from it - just because he was abused in the past, is NOT an excuse to beat up on people you supposedly love now. People have choices. PM has obviously been beaten up emotionally - she doesn't go around copying the behaviour, she does the opposite. He had the choice to do the opposite and he chose to copy - so sod him too. HE makes wrong choices. And until he accepts that, contact must be kept to a minimum. He should save all his discussions about his crap past for the professionals - you are not equipped to deal with it, tell him so. (Even if you were a fully qualified therapist yourself, you still aren't equipped to deal with the problems of a family member - too much interference of other kinds to allow proper therapeutic distance).

So - if starts to blether on about "poor him, look this is the reason why he's so shit" - tell him to save it for the therapist. And remind him he had a choice how to deal with his past - and he made the wrong one.

Thank you all.
I kind of already have done these things.

I told him that I cannot help him, I am too close and not remotely qualified. I have also been too hurt and I cannot help but feel very defensive around him and always on high alert for when the gaslighting starts.

I am a little afraid of what he may do when he realises that I am really not available. I think he has assumed, wrongly, that I care more than I do. It IS too late. Wedding ring is still off, and it feels good that way. The thought of him and the sicko cronies he surround himself with makes me feel sick.

I have lain awake half the night waiting for a call to tell me that my "mother" is dead, and pondering what I would say if I went to her funeral.

The phone didn't ring, so I gues that unfortunately she is still alive. Still, there's always mrsa or something I suppose. Thank God for here, can you imagine what the well adjusted, loved by their parents, brigade would make of that sentence? I decided I would not go to the funeral.

Can't say I blame you. But don't make any hard and fast decisions yet - you might change your mind when it comes to it. I had a friend whose Dad left her Mum when she was 12 and she had limited contact afterwards - she didn't know whether or not to go to the funeral. In the end she went - because it was a 'closure' for her (God I hate that word but there really isn't a better one) and she buried a lot of her anger and bitterness with him.

Sometimes it's good to go, just to make sure the person is really dead. But not to make a scene - just to quietly say goodbye and good riddance (or whatever takes you at the time).

Glad you've already done the things suggested - that's brilliant, shows you are so much better and stronger, so self aware and so aware of how he is trying to suck you back in. Fantastically well done!

Just to add.....I did say to him that if he did do the right thing wrt to all of this, that he would be very much the exception and not the rule, that men like him generally are unable to take it all on and do something about it. I nearly told him that his pathology was the same as that of Raoul Moat, but decided that would be inlammatory and not helpful, however true it actually is.

Oh good thing you didn't say that last bit - it might have glamourised it for him, iykwim. I like your style though - you're really giving it to him straight, now he just has to hear you.

No, he would be completely horrified. He likes to see himself as a right on trendy lefty, champion of the underdog and fan of Arthur Scargill and union rights. So long as that doesn't include women eh?

I find it really hard that xp just disappeared after the solicitors letter.

He used to bombard me with texts,letters ,presents in the past when we broke up.

His controlling behaviour was more extreme in the week after dd was born.He told the HV and my parents that I am mentally ill and an unfit mother.

He made such a fuss about how I parented my dc.He used to strop about, complaining about our standards of hygiene when staying at my house.

So how is he so unconcerned about how his baby dd is? Why hasn't he checked that she is safe /clean if he was so worried about my capabilities?

He used to show off about me being pg.

He was possessive of my dc in respect of their own fathers!

I anticipated a lot of trouble.

I am unnerved.I don't want him back .(honestly,now I know the lovely side of him is fake)But I have supported my older dc in having a relationship with their fathers.And that was very difficult in the early days.

Is there anything I should be doing for dd's sake?

I have thought about how I will talk to her about Daddy.It comes up a lot with the dc.We will recall our happy memories of him as they arise,in a normal way,and answer any questions she has as easily as we can,according to her age.

I have a Daddy box for her,like I did when other dc's were too small to save things.Th only things in her box are photos from before she was born.He hasn't given her ANYTHING.no cards or letters.He never ought a single thing for her,not even a teddy.

Should I be sending photos of her to his address? Not to get a response,just so she can be told when she is older that Daddy was sent them?

What about her sister and brother,his dd and ds? Should I send them photos?

Should I approach CSA? I checked online,he would only be liable for five pounds a month anyway...

Or do I just wait and feel relief that he isn't bothering us? (which is true)

DD1 just read what I typed.She said maybe he's gone somewhere to heal himself and finish building his house,and he'll turn up one day,and be lovely all the time, and take us all to live there.
She said she's sure that is what he's trying to do...

She needs to be taught the truth about fairies

yes it is unnerving when they go quiet...

but yes: wait and feel relief that he isn't bothering you.

resist teh temptation!

baby is small - dont worry right now. keep photos to send at some point. get a USB stick, label it "photos of xxxbaby for her dad" wait til he contacts you - you can later tell baby when she older that you saved all the photos ona USB stick to give to him.

Oh that's a good idea,thanks.

I will resist!

Bit stuck in happy memories rut today,but will not engage!

PM I agree....do nothing but continue to grieve and heal.

He has been here this afternoon. It is starting to become like a sitcom sketch. Everything that is said is immediately turned round to be me, my fault, my problem.

Does anyone remember the Tory MP on thr fast shoe who only ever said..."no it's not" "no I wasn't" , "no I didn't" That's my h that is.

Fucking nutter.

I asked for a hug on FB.

Two dozen replies later, it has turned into me and my muso mates, performing "lady Marmalade" in basques etc, tomorrow evening at a venue, live in Manchester!!!!!! ( boys too)

I can't fucking wait!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am reborn!!!!!!!

Oh but wait....I have no friends, I am a terrible parent, a crap singer, old, ugly, have a persecution complex, a personality disorder, I am a bully, a pathological liar, blah, blah fuck off, fuck off, fuck off!!!!!!!!!

Wow !!! Lucky you,what an amazing way to spend Saturday night!!!!!!!!!

So pleased for you

The only way is up!!!

Whoo-hoo! Brilliant! Go you, thisis

Definitely brilliant, ThisIs - sounds like my kind of evening! He'll probably ramp it up more and more now he knows it's not affecting you - be ready for him. And remember - NONE OF IT IS TRUE.

xp drove past me in his van .I was walking along a quiet road with dd in baby sling.He saw us ,but looked straight through me,as if he hadn't.

First I've seen him since she was a week old.

I have been so strong and focussed.Now feeling very,very sad.Actually had automatic compulsion to ring him and tell him how I miss him (I wouldn't,of course)..

Working really hard on distracting myself,but it's not going well and I am SO SAD.I want a cuddle.I miss his smell and his energy.I wish we were together with our baby (if he were real,not a violent tosser)

It's not fair.Dc are exhausting me.They don't mean to.I can't find space to think.

I wish someone would ask me if I'm ok - or tell me that I am! Or make me a cup of tea and ask the dc to be nice to mummy for an hour.or two.

it's 24 hour giving of everything I've got and I just want a tiny bit of something for me.

Because xh2 used up all his leave to come on holiday with us,he is not having his dc for more than one overnight a fortnight,none of which coincide with xh1 having girls,who are refusing to go to his anyhow.
Baby lovely,but of course hands on round the clock.
I've disappeared somewhere.
I'm not depressed,it's life.
If I cry,I don't think I'll stop.