How do you stop needing an abusive ex to understand the harm?

[Chrysanthemumgrandiflorum]

How do you get over the need of your abuser to understand your reality and how much harm they caused?

In his mind, I left because I have mental health issues (which he exacerbated), and because I can't deal with negative emotions or conflict. And I just want to shake him and scream at the top of my lungs. It's because of you, your mean cutting words coming out of nowhere, it's the walking on eggshells, it's raising your voice, it's calling me nasty things - and then ending it all with I'm sorry, we all snap and hurt each other. The flip-flopping between I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with you and thoughtful gifts and sweet affection to treating me like he hated me.

I suddenly developed so much clarity and so much anger/rage - the distance really did its thing because until recently, I thought I was the problem and that I was the crazy one.

What was the journey like for you and what things helped? (apart from time)

I grieved for a good two years after leaving my abusive ex husband. I was right to leave, but losing a relationship is painful even in such circumstances, because you were attached to them. If you want him to understand, then it means you still care about him on some level, so aren't done grieving yet

He knows the harm he did and doesn't care. You can't make him care.

I know it's hard. Counselling can help.

Have a non mumsnetty hug and don't tell anyone.

Its hard, but they really will NEVER get it, so you will be screaming into the void. These are not folks who can take accountability. So, you just have to learn to let it go. Only time will do the trick, I'm afraid. Feel better soon!

Do a freedom program, they're really good. Everyone should do them.

You just have to accept that they will think what they want about you, but you know who you are in the end. I'm sure my ex is spreading about how vile I was to him, but in reality now I have a lovely life and he is probably holding on to bitterness because he's a narc.

The best revenge is living well after all!

They will never understand or feel remorse. So you just get on with your life.

My counsellor asked me what real, material difference it would make to my life if my horrible ex understood the harm he caused. It made me think. It wouldn’t make a tangible difference to my life, it would just feel like a little bit of justice. But was that worth wasting so much time, energy and anger on? Absolutely not. The greatest revenge isn’t making them see how awful they are, it’s removing them from your orbit and making them irrelevant to your life x

write a letter and burn it. get your feelings out. it soumds daft but it really worked for me. only do if you can trust yourself not to post it though.

I agree with throwawayimplantchat it is really hard but making their thoughts and feelings which are their own and difficult to understand irrelevant to your life and happiness going forward is the thing to try and focus on, once you have had time to grieve what could have been, to the realities of what life really was like comes more to the forefront , you are best away from this person and making your own way forward without them , you are right time away , time to reset your nervous system and shake the desire of fixing them and having the nice version of them which they can turn on when needed but is not the consistent version of them

Mine wasn't an abusive ex but my mum.

I can't tell anyone the truth for legal reasons.

It is time but also you have to just find a way of accepting that they will believe what they want, say what they want to others about you and that, most importantly, the only person your anger is harming is yourself.

A friend of mine went into an isolated forest and screamed. She wrote everything down in a letter/statement and burned it. She gave her anger to the universe to 'hold' for her. She treated letting go of the anger as a physical process.

She repeated the process periodically at the same place when it became too much and she's rid of it now.

You find a way of creating your own peace and honour yourself in that way.

They can’t believe they are the problem. You have to be the problem. And in a way, you are- you weren’t prepared to be treated like shit, you couldn’t ignore his nasty words, you needed him to be a decent human. Sometimes these types do find someone as careless and insensitive as themselves. But who would want to be like that?

Maybe you are thinking, if he had been able to understand, he may have behaved differently.

Or maybe you just want him to hurt like you’ve hurt.

But as the PPs all say, the answer is to stop giving this attention and focus on yourself. Don’t waste your energy on him, he’s had enough already!

I actually think this is a part of the grieving process and it is really about you fully integrating the abuse rather than him. At the moment you are so vulnerable you need someone externally to witness and validate the experience but as you process it internally yourself it becomes you yourself that develops the capacity to do that. It almost becomes a lesson to you to learn not to accept something like this again. If you can’t integrate the lesson then often people repeat the pattern.

Its futile
They live in a different reality to you
Highly likely Narc and they build a separate fantasy reality in which they are never flawed or wrong.
Self awareness doesnt exist and it would cause a Narc Collapse so they will literally twist everything to maintain their fake persona.

The most important thing for me was learning why I outsourced my self worth to others.
Once you understand and can change this, its like a protective wall goes up

You couldn't change their behaviour and you certainly can't change their thoughts.

Once you accept that, and understand that what others think of you are irrelevant, you start to become free.

He DOES know.

He just doesn't want you to know he knows.

That's what you need to understand. He doesn't care he hurt you. Infact depending on his level of malignancy, hurting you may have even been the GOAL.

If you stand on a bug, you know you've hurt it. It just doesn't register to you because it's pain means absolutely nothing to you.

To him, you're that bug.

That's what you need to understand. He knows he hurt you. He doesn't care.

Sorry, I know that shit stings but only in achieving this clarity can you stop chasing his non existent empathy.

Perhaps you need to read Lundy Bancroft's - Why does he do that? You can download a free pdf version if you google it.

I was you once. Then I came here and read a lot of threads on the Relationship board and started questioning my relationship more but couldn't quite grasp that final answer. Tthen I read the above book and BAM! Straight between the eyes.

EDIT - oops, I read your op as though you needed the help but you are asking how others have navigated it. Hopefully my post can help others!

Whether he knows the impact of his behaviour or not is irrelevant.
He doesn’t care.
When I realised and accepted that it made it much easier to focus on healing myself and stop worrying about whether he knew what he’d done.
He probably did. He’d do it again. I meant nothing to him.
The more you focus on him, the less energy you have to focus on yourself.

After reading a lot about narcs, I realised the truth of the situation - that he didn’t care, and never would. No amount of my explaining/crying/asking for closure was ever going to work. Ultimately I would never get closure if I didn’t accept that, as he was never going to change. I found it very freeing to just let it go and enjoy living my best life.

Leaving makes you realise that he was causing the anger by not listening, respecting or loving you in the way that you wanted.

You need to start loving and being kind to yourself. Buy yourself flowers, treat yourself to small things. But ulimately, let the horrible memories of him go.