Hello everyone, I would love to have some advice, please. I have been in an on and off relationship with a woman for 12 years.
We have a daughter together and I have always done my best to be the best partner and father.
I have had to put up with a lot over the last 12 years, she spends every single Christmas and New Year with her mother, who refuses to invite me over because she has been told lies about me by my partner, she too is a narcissist which probably explains why her daughter (my partner) is one. She spends my birthday with her mother too, so for 12 years, I have ended up spending my birthday alone or with my daughter. She has lied to her mother and says we are not in a relationship, we can't go out or do anything public like as a normal couple would, she gets my daughter to lie to her grandmother and say she never stays at my home, but in reality, even though she has her own place, she has stayed with me basically fulltime. She lays in bed until 11 am on the days she is not working, I do all the housework, cook the dinners, do the school run, all the food shopping all of which I have to fit in around my own work.
She gets treated like a queen, I make coffee every morning and take it up to her, on the weekend I make breakfast and take it to her in bed.
I have also helped her financially over the last 12 years and also getting her out of trouble with debt collection agencies. I have purchased a car for her, paid for car repairs, MOT, car tax and insurance. I have probably spent close to £40 000 sorting her life out for her.
I am not perfect but I am a good man and father and do everything for her, I am always on the end of a phone when she needs money or needs me to help her, but her phone is constantly on silent and she is very secretive. She never answers the phone the first time when you call her she is the most difficult person to get hold of when she is out.
She has left me twice before, just coldheartedly one day said she is moving out but could give me no reason why. She has the ability to just flick a switch and treat me as if I never existed, she breaks my heart and when I try and talk to her calmly about it, she just stares blankly at the wall and says she can't give me a reason why. If she eventually does talk, she usually will turn it all around on me and make me feel worthless and as if it is all my fault.
The first time she left me and moved out, she ended up being evicted and I allowed her to come back and stay with me, yes I know that is stupid, but I loved her and she is the mother of my daughter. She then moved out again with no explanation. However, every time she moves out, within a few months, she is contacting me again and we end up back in this weird "relationship" where it is a secret and I am back to doing everything for her again.
Over the last two years, I have been asking her to sort this out, we can't keep living like this, where our relationship is a secret and we can't be a normal family. She recently got evicted again from where she moved the last time she left me, and I have allowed her back to live with me and my daughter. Yes, my daughter prefers to live with me than her mother, her mother doesn't treat her very well.
So she lives with me again, she has accepted all the love and help I give her, she has one of the easiest lives a woman could have. I told her that after 12 years of this I am tired of living like this and it is time to sort this out, I just want a normal life with a woman, not a secret relationship, it causes anxiety every single day, she does what suits her and never what is good for her daughter or relationship. Over the last three months of her living with me, I have asked her to please tell me what I can do to help her sort out all these lies she has told about me to her mother, so we can just live a normal life and start moving forward instead of being stuck in this rut. She just stared blankly again and said she is going to move out for the THIRD time. She said she can't give me a reason why and that she knows I do everything for her but that is not her problem, and she can't undo all the lies she has told her mother and others because I am not worth the trouble it would cause her.
So she has gone from being evicted and me helping her once again, to now leaving. She has suspiciously gone from not being able to pay an £850 a month rent, to now moving into a £1400 a month house on her own. She is moving out on Sunday and she just lays in bed, watching TV, not doing anything as usual and acting as if she is doing nothing wrong. My daughter does not want to live with her so she is staying with me, and she is disgusted in her mother's behaviour towards me.
So after typing all this out, I can see myself I am with a toxic narcissistic person, but they have a way of making you feel lost without them, they can just break your heart over and over again, but you still try and hold onto them. It is almost as if she is enjoying watching me be in pain for this to happen again, it is like she enjoys destroying me.
I need to go no contact with her this time because every other time she has left me she comes back in a couple of months and I stupidly allow her to.
I feel like a complete mug, I have once again been used and now I am being discarded again and if you could see how coldhearted she is about it you would be astounded.
It has driven me to the point of mental exhaustion and I feel as if it is all my fault, but I know logically it isn't.
Is this how a relationship is? She tries to convince me that this is the norm and not everyone has the "perfect" relationship I am asking for. I am not asking for a "perfect" relationship, I just want a normal one, one where you feel appreciated and loved, and the person you are with is not going to leave you every few years and use you. Over the last 12 years, there has not been one week where I have not done something for her, even when she left me I have given all of my time, money and love to her no matter what she did to me.
I have to be strong this time and cut her off completely. I need to wake up and realise that I have a lot to offer and I can be in a normal relationship. If anyone has any ideas on how I can do this, I would really appreciate a woman's point of view on this would be very valuable to me, thank you for reading my post.