Why can't I let go?

[MoonInMe]

Had a whirlwind romance and wedding. A few months after we were married it became awful. I had numerous threads on MN about it and each thread pointed out his gaslighting, verbal and emotional abuse. My friends and family hate what he did to me. I became so low that I had suicidal ideation and then my friends helped me get him out my house. It's been about 8 months since we split. There are things I just can't get my head around. I can't believe (cognitive disonsence?) the thing's he said and did to me were bad.

I have moved on with my life. I've got amazing friends, fun hobbies and recently started dating again (two first dates). I just can't get over (like I'm obsessed and my friends are tired of me) hypocritical things he did and the utter lack of care he had towards me. I married him believing and trusting that he'd always be there. We're still sorting out the financal consent order, divorce will be finalised in October so we still have to talk sometimes and each time we talk he either tells me what a horrible person I am, I'm disgusting, the biggest hypocrite he's ever known and how hard it was for him to persevere with me etc or he's telling me he loves me so much, I won't find a connection like the one we had and how sad he is that I won't try again. This completely screws me up! I know I need to block him but I can't, I obsess about trying to get him to see how he treated me and apologise. I know I can't be with him but I still want to. I desperately want to be with him and it's only my friends, family and reminding myself how shit it was that stops me giving in. I wish I had never met him, I'm driving myself crazy!

It’s still recent, healing will take time.

The attachment will diminish and then you will see it all with clarity and your emotions will match. So give yourself time to get there.

Are you having therapy? Sounds essential for you right now to help process this and to have somewhere to decant all your thoughts and feelings.

When you have to have contact with him just remember he is a toxic pendulum swinging inevitably from one extreme to the other, it’s a thing he does and has no bearing on you at all.

I had therapy whilst we were together as I believed I was the problem, then had 12 weeks with the same therapist during and after our split. It was helpful, all the books I've read have been helpful, the YouTube videos, new hobbies, the gym, it's all been helpful but it doesn't stick. I am a million times more happier in my day to day life without him - I don't know why I can't let it go.

He's not a good person. There are things on Clares Law about him, he had a secret dc he never saw, his morals are completely different - yet I still miss him and wish we could make it work. It hurts my brain so much because it doesn't make sense to me. I wonder if I should start believing his version of events, but I can't because they're bollocks!

You’re on the right track. It’s a process. Just keep doing all the things that hold you steady and distract you while the reality sinks in.

I guess it’s like an addiction: the intense flood of stress hormones, the need to ‘fix’ things, the sense that only the person who destroyed you can build you up again (which is utter bullshit of course). The magnetic obsessive can’t-look-away intensity of a damaging toxic person who fooled you for a while. See it like an addiction. When you give up smoking all you think about is missing smoking. Until one day you realise you no longer think about it or identify yourself as a smoker and the idea makes you sick.

Keep going - you’ll get there. Just don’t listen to his lies, or the lies your own emotions are sometimes telling you (that there’s still a connection, that you want him etc).

Look up 'trauma bonding'.

It will take you time, but you'll see it more clearly eventually - try and get therapy if you're able, and focus on the reasons why it's over. Write a list of all the negatives and remind yourself of them when you feel yourself minimising them - he's made you not trust yourself or your responses with his back and forth, and now you need to undo that. Imagine a friend talking to you about a partner who did the things he did to you, and then telling you she wanted to stay - you'd tell her she was an idiot. You know rationally that he's awful, but the bit of your brain that was gaslit and traumatised by him is searching for safety and familiarity and overriding your sense of self-preservation. Keep listening to the rational part.

Thank you, I liken it to OCD in the way my brain obsesses over it.

It would be so easy to end my torment and tell him I want to be back with him - but then I'll be hurt again and there will be drama and I'll be the bad one who treats him so terribly.

They are very clever aren't they? You had a whirlwind romance and married. This is so classic for abusers. He would have love bombed you intently. It is those feelings of euphoria of being so in love with someone who intently loves you back. For him it was just a pack of lies and a need to control you until he was ready to abuse and discard. Classic abuse cycle. So, your brain is harking back to the 'love bombing' time and its that which is difficult to over ride when you are exiting these types of relationships. You are suffering from withdrawal, again, its a normal process. Keep going with the therapy. It took me a very, very long time to extract from my ex. It has made me much stronger and can call out an abuser at 10 paces now!

Unfortunately your presentation now is why this man was successful at duping you in the first place.

are you aware you are allowing this person to control and dominate your life still? You are giving him that power.

you are in contact with him and therefore everything you say to him is what I call ‘feeding the dragon’ each time you feed him he likes it so he comes back for more.

whatvis not going to happen is anything amazing, he’s not going to suddenly be a brilliant kind person. He is highly dysfunctional and you can have all the therapy in the world but you must stay away from this man.

you seem to be stuck in the cycle mentally at least

your therapist can only help you so much - now it’s over to you. Stop wasting your time on this man. He is unstable and the longer you linger over what happened the more power you give him.

@litterbird he says that I trapped him into marrying me so quickly and that I'm the abuser and a narcissist. My therapist went through step by step with me how I did not trap him, that he made all the key moves in getting married (he asked me, he booked it, he arranged it) but yet there is still a part in me that wonders if I manipulated him into asking me and making those moves. When he asked me I was enthusiastic and felt so loved, he says because I was so happy about it he felt he had to go through with it otherwise I'd have left him. I had never said that though!

@Quitelikeit I know! How do I stop? Please I really want to know. It's in my head the moment I wake up, usually when I go to sleep and throughout the day if I'm not emmersed in work/hobbies. There are times when it's not, I can go a few weeks at a time now but it always comes back!

Also - he moved to the small town I live in, he joined the gym I was going to join, he's trying to make friends with my friends that he didn't really know. I feel invaded by him!

Stop contacting this man

he is nothing

block him everywhere aside from an email address which you can check once a week if you must!

stop looking back? You are not going that way are you?

it doesn’t matter what he says about you? He talks nonsense so why give him headspace- it’s all a waste of time

the relationship isn’t viable, never was. Don’t bother trying to justify things.

consider allowing yourself ten mins a day at 12 to think about things then stop once your time is up

or drastically wear and elastic band and ping your wrist every time you think about him!!!

Look, eventually you’ll make your peace with it. He is not going to experience any real remorse over your relationship. He doesn’t have the capacity to.

The validation will become less and less important to you as you process what went on and make your own conclusions. He will begin to fade while your life as you are currently living it will come to the fore.

Stop responding to his accusations and declarations of love. He’s more invested than you, not because of love but because he has lost control. That’s what he wants to regain.

Fuck him. It’s a learning curve. You won’t fall for that shit again. Right?

Well they aren’t your friends if they take him on in a friendship sense

like I said you are the only person who can stop this but to stop it you need to change your perception of that whole relationship

its over, gone, abusive, dysfunctional, toxic.

be happy you escaped

That’s worrying.

I hope he’s not about to become a genuine pest.

I'm worried that he will get my friends and people I've known forever to believe the horrible things he says I have done to him.

I was mostly okay until he moved (a few weeks ago).

I can't block him, my car is still in his name and he won't sign the log book (always an excuse). I'm worried that if I block him he'll take my car (that I paid for).

I did do the elastic band when we first split up. I will do it again!

You can get a non-molestation order to keep him away from you.
How much is the car worth? Could you afford to get another one and include the first car in the financial order. It will likely be included anyway so perhaps worth letting go of it.

Send an application for a new log book saying you've lost it

www.gov.uk/vehicle-log-book

I've got the log book, it's in his name. I could forge his signature but don't want to do something that could come back on me.

Re your comment:
"I'm worried that he will get my friends and people I've known forever to believe the horrible things he says I have done to him"

Given your friends and family hate what he did to you (as stated in your first post) this is unlikely to happen. Its your mind again playing tricks.

You remain very much trauma bonded to this predator hence feeling like you are now. He targeted you and deliberately so; were you in a low place yourself when you met this person?. I would also suggest you not go on dates until you have further rebuilt your life because you still are very vulnerable to abusers and other low lifes. Your boundaries, perhaps already skewed by poor relationship and life experiences, have been further messed with by this predator now. Abuse like this takes time, years even in some cases, to recover from. Love your own self for a change.

Just do an application for a new one online.

I was happily single when I met him. I had exciting travel plans, great friends and just finished my degree (went to uni in my late twenties) alongside working full-time so was ready to live my life outside of essays and deadlines.

The only thing that made me vulnerable to this man was wanting to be loved by someone. When he came along I ignored my gut feeling about certain things he said (my exes are crazy and all that nonsense) and gave him a chance. I believed him at first when he told me he had been treated badly by exes and abused. Other red flags appeared but I was swept away with how kind I thought he was.

I will apply for the new log book today! Then I can block him and ask people not to tell me if he's tried to add them on fb/speak to them. I don't need to know any of it. It is my brain playing tricks on me. I've been friends with some of my friends since infant school/secondary. They're solid life time friendships. Even typing this makes me panic and think I'm going to lose them to him though!

I divorced my ex husband without a word said between us. It was all every single communication done through lawyers because he was an abusive narcissist who I couldn't trust to be anywhere near me, my mind or my well being. You need to go no contact. You need to divorce through lawyers. He is abusing the contact through the divorce to get at you and it's working. You know that even if he said sorry it would mean nothing. There is no future here but pain. It took me 8 years to leave mine. I haven't spoken to him in over 5 years it's joyous