I'm in a muddle and feeling really sad and confused. I was due to get married in a couple of weeks (no big ceremony, just a small thing) and I have called off the wedding. I just need a bit of a coach from women tougher than me to feel okay that I have done the right thing.
It's a muddle because there is so much good along with the bad. I love DP very deeply and believe he loves me too just as much. There is so much good in our relationship. We are best friends, he is kind, we argue with compassion, we enjoy the same things, we want the same thing out of life, he is always really loving, the sex is great, we are always honest, we communicate very well, we laugh all the time, there's equality, support and we are definitely better together than apart.
However, I think real loyalty, respect and trust are lacking between us and those are things I feel I can't live without.
This all focusses around his ex, who is a pretty horrible person. I am not just saying that out of some misplaced jealousy or some sense of bias. She is factually a pretty horrible person and he had PTSD from their relationship.
She's narcissistic, highly manipulative and has even been violent. He had to file domestics abuse reports and so on. All pretty horrible and it took a lot of therapy for him to get on solid ground after he left her. They have a kid (older), so "no contact" is not possible and on several occasions she has used contact regarding their child to try hoovering him. It's been a persistent problem that he lacks boundaries and tramples over what I tell him makes me feel hurt or threatened.
To give you an example of what I mean, she found that we were engaged and started emailing and calling, requesting to meet up with him for "closure" and saying she needed him because she was unable to cope. I told him it was classic hoovering and not to go, but she pushed and pushed for weeks on end with waterworks, suicide threats and so on until he caved and met her on account of him worries about his child if she was in such a state.
Any contact with her at all always results in the same thing. She makes him forget the abuse, she reminds him of "good times", she makes him feel he was to blame for all her abuse (he really believes this) and then he comes away almost with abuse amnesia where he sees her as a victim and so on.
So as a result of that meeting, he ended up relaxing boundaries, thinking they could be "friendly" again and entering into an email exchange where he said things about fond memories with her, which she then screenshotted and emailed to me to try and end our engagement. Which is what she does (as I said, a terrible person).
It is like he gets literally brainwashed with any contact with her. He established in therapy that this is part of the hoovering and he read books on it and cognitively understands she is manipulating him and is trying to get rid of me, but he always ends up getting suckered back into a conversation with her. She has bombarded us with attempts to break us up over a very long period, and even stalked me at one point.
I have dealt with her, and I will be honest, she even had me believing she was my best friend because she is very good at playing the victim and she's very charming (she fits the bill of a female psychopath actually) and she has such a way with words that you come away very confused so I do understand how she makes him feel obligated and guilty, but the problem is I set boundaries and he doesn't follow them.
I am not threatened that he will leave me for her or that he still loves her, I believe that's not the case. I am threatened by the fact she is going out of her way to destroy our lives and has done some truly teeth chattering things that scare me. I want him to keep me and us safe and I want him to also put me and us first.
The problem with lack of trust, loyalty and respect is that he repeatedly allows contact with her beyond what is absolutely necessary and this then leads to the abuse amnesia and I feel like we are not on a team together. I feel if he agrees not to speak to her, then he does, that I can't trust him. I feel that he has been disloyal in lots of ways by saying things to her and to others in the family which undermine me. I think he shows a lack of respect by not seeing how much it affects me.
I'm not a jealous woman, but this particular ex has genuinely been so awful to us and on so many occasions she has phoned or emailed me to try and get rid of me and the fact she can get him to do things (even if stopping for a cup of tea) which make me feel betrayed just makes me feel I can't marry this person.
He says he loves me and wants to marry me and really only has anything to do with her because of their kid. Which I understand, but which I also think is being used to manipulate me into tolerating things no one should have to tolerate. I am fine with my husband being friendly with his ex, but not if that person is terrorizing me!
He is a good man who loves me, I know this. But I think he's also a weak man who is a bit of a people pleaser so because she is demanding and a bully and I am gentle and calm he tends to let her win and it's just too much to live like this.
I did the right thing didn't I?