you have told yourself a lie and you keep doubling down on it. The lie is that you are the only victim and I am the abuser. That I don’t care for you, that I knew and intentionally neglected your needs in our relationship and that all I wanted out of our relationship was whatever I could get for myself.
That is simply not true. I have told you and shown you so many times in so many ways that I care for you.
This is almost true- except that it’s he who has told himself the lie and then doubled down on it. He hasn’t shown by any action that he cares for you and he continues to browbeat you rather than step back to give you the space that you have asked for- it is all about him.
At this point, the way you are engaging in conversation about it is disingenuous and not okay.
If you want to believe it, go for it, but don’t involve me.
the only answer to this is “dude, I am trying not to involve you, but you keep on talking.”
I love you very much and I am willing to engage in a good faith conversation about our relationship. I acknowledge my faults and I am open to hearing and understanding your point of view and your feelings.
By “good faith conversation” he means he wants you to tell him that he was right all along. Anything else will be dismissed as “not in good faith”.
You will never convince me that I didn’t care for you or that I wouldn’t have done whatever it took to make you happy if I had known, because it’s not true and I know it’s not true.
“It can’t be true because that would put me in the wrong, and I can’t be wrong. This is your fault because I didn’t want to hear what you had to say, I still don’t want to credit anything you say with being truthful or reasonable, and I can’t face the idea that I could have prevented this discomfort by acting differently in the past. Your job is to pretend I did, so that we can go back to how things were.”
Until you are open to that, I don’t see any point in us talking about it.
“You are making me do all this work and I’m tired, I want some game time while you do the parenting and domestic work like you used to.”
You break my heart every day and the scar tissue is building up. Please stop.
”It hurts that I have a small flat while I remember how nice it was in your house, with you looking after me and my kids. Please stop having boundaries and let us back in.”
I love you. I want us to reconcile. I will wait for you for as long as I can. Please look after yourself. Come home to me if/when you’re ready. I’ll be here, thinking fondly of you.
“If I tell you often enough how unreasonable you’re being and how you’re going to be alone and lonely forever you might relent and let me back in to your house. I won’t wait for you, although you’re still my most likely target for someone to do my wife work for me, and if you do relent I’ll extract some sort of revenge for the difficulties you’ve put me through, having to paren my kids and live in a small flat.”
Hope this helps. Best wishes, Pithy.