[quote newstart2022]@HelenHywater
I was better a few weeks ago and felt strong
Her being added to the mix again has made me feel weird , like I am not good enough and she is better and I worry that he will be nice to her and it’s all such a mess, in my head anyway.
I am exhausted x[/quote]
He's got his claws into your insecure, soft underside. Look to yourself to get those claws out. Stop focusing on him and his behaviour. He will have spotted that you were feeling better and chosen, consciously or otherwise, to mess you up again by bringing her onto the scene. Simply by acknowledging this, you can see that he's using her as a tool to manipulate your feelings. And by acknowledging that, you can see that he's hardly Mr Perfect for her, is he? However sweet and lovely he might be to her, he's the undercover git that you know to her, too - she just doesn't know yet.
That gives you the upper hand. You can stop worrying about her.
Worry about yourself. Worry about your insecure, soft underside. It wants something from him that it's not getting. Work out what it wants, and find a way to give that to yourself.
Narcissists need us to feel vulnerable and insecure. If we're not, we simply tell them to go and screw themselves. It's the part of us that worries if he's right, if maybe there is something wrong with us, if somehow we are faulty, that's the bit that makes us feel sick when he pokes it, and then we need him to be the one to say that actually, he doesn't think that anymore, and we really are worthy of his love.
He will treat everybody the same. He will have been lovely to you and reeled you in at the beginning, and now he's horrible to you and reeling her in, and it won't be long, after you've chucked him, that he'll be being horrible to her. She'll feel like you do now, and he'll be reeling a new woman onto the scene. Don't take it personally. Just stop giving him the opportunity to hurt you. You weren't put here to gain his approval. Your best path is to let him think whatever he wants of you, stop questioning him, inside your head or outside, and just accept that you will not agree, because he thinks you deserve to be abused, and you do not.
Once you've got that sorted in your head, you only have to make physical steps to put distance between the two of you.
This is what he's doing. It's not even a trick he made up on his own. It's pathetic. It's called triangulation. Try to imagine what a low life you'd feel if you stooped to doing this. And then recognise that that's exactly how much of a low life he is:
www.healthline.com/health/narcissistic-triangulation#examples