I don’t want Him to move on before I do ...

[Lora88]

You’ll have seen my threads about leaving my partner of 11 years very recently due to addictive behaviour including drugs , prostittues and narcissist behaviour. I definitely do not want him back but I’ve held onto him for so long for the sake of the family unit and because I think I’ve been scared to be alone especially with the isolation of covid. We have 3 kids together and our daughter was only 2 weeks old when I discovered he’d been contacting prostittues and left him. I’ve officially cut all ties with him and we’ve gone our seperate ways I’ve told him I’ll never take him back and to move on but deep down it really bothers me if he falls back inlove with someone before I do ? I don’t know why I feel like this ? Has anyone felt the same ?

thats understandable you don't want him to be happy why should he.but I would not think to much about him concentrate on yourself you need to be happy alone first good luck.

I think I can answer this rather well as I had the same feelings with an ex. You are bothered about him meeting someone else because in your eyes he will be giving her everything you ever wanted from him, faithfulness, affection, honesty - whatever you craved from him and he didn’t give. Also to add to that you’ll be wanting him to suffer, why should he be happy when you’re not after everything he has done!

The reality is that you will be thinking this however it’ll be very different for the poor soul he ends up with, people like him don’t change ever, for anyone - and that’s what you need to always remind yourself of.

I have a similar feeling about my ex. He was abusive. All I can think to make myself feel better is he will behave exactly the same with his next girlfriend. He will ruin his next relationship like he ruined ours.
I hate that part of me still wants him but I can't go back there.

If he is a narcissist then he wont fall in love with someone. At least not as you or I would. He might find new supply. But that isn't the same thing.

The worrying about them 'liking' someone else...feels like it might be left over from the conditioning he worked on you before he left.

You need to sever the tie. By realising your self worth is not tied to him and what or whom he wants anymore. Perhaps some sort of symbolic act like imagining a string that connects your heart to his, and cutting it. Or burning anything that belongs to him that you have left.

That and making sure you read up on npd. The more you learn about how empty his kind are...the less you'll care about him and what he gets up to.

I posted in 2014 and finally left my abusive husband. It was on and off until 2017 when it was finally ended for good. 2 weeks later he was head over heels with some poor low self esteemed woman. They had a child together about a year ago. Today our son has come back from contact and said daddy's girlfriend has moved into a different house because there is too much fighting. I wasted a lot of time being annoyed that he got to move on before me but the reality most likely is he's done the same thing and now has another son he can't live with. I on the other hand have been working on my self esteem and am very happy. Moving on first doesn't equal happiness. Focus on what you can control (yourself and your happiness/any improvements you can make to be your best self)

I relate so deeply to this , but good on us both for being so strong and not tolerating toxic relationships x

That does make a great deal of sense , thank you x

Thank you so much for all these comments they are so helpful xx

I have similar feelings about my ex. He cheated on me with my now very ex best mate but I would be upset if he moved on and was happy before me after everything he did