Asked him to go,he did;how do I stay strong now?

[pinemartina]

Posted my story on NPD thread.
On off 3 yr relationship with controlling emotionally and verbally abusive xp ,who came back on white charger in time for baby's birth and has been lovely until yesterday,when he resumed nastiness.Culminating in a visit by midwife during which he told her wild,untrue and mad stuff about me,suggesting I am mentally ill and unfit to care for dc's - eg that I run naked into the road at night and scream at cars to hit me,while he looks after the kids and rescues me.Told her I am lucky to have him and that no one else would ever put up with what he does - said I invite men back to sleep with me every time he is away! Lots more similar stuff.She was horrified and really concerned - for ME..said she had noticed how controlling he is.
When she left,I told him I could not believe the things he had said about me (and to me,this am)and that it had killed our relationship.
He got up and told dc's(in next room) that Mummy had asked him to go and that this time he wd only be back to see baby when they are away at their dads,so wd not see them again.
He asked me to make sure I got a "third party" organised for contact visits to protect him from allegations.
Then he went.
No stuff of his left.
My house.
At home now with 4dc's and 10 day old baby.
Sore after ECS and can't walk much or drive for 5 wks more.Breastfeeding constantly.Weepy.DC'S upset.Feel devastated and needy.now I've done right thing.Scared I'll let him back.Scared of doing this alone.
Really lonely.Have spoken to womens aid.They said I shd contact my local branch in the morning.I will.

Everything is someone elses fault. Apart from you and his childhood, who else does he have to blame for his life? What will he do without his "dumping ground", ie you. Why is it ok for you to be a dumping ground? I already know the answer to that!

The article that Grace linked to before says it all really....that swinging from one persona to another in the blink of an eye.

Sit on your hands and do the bare minimum. I will put money on the house not being anywhere near complete, this time next year....ten pence says it isn't!

And now you are pouring your emotional energy into him....not you. Put Dynasty (or whatever) on, feed your baby and eat some choccy instead?

Well fuck me sideways.....is it a full moon AGAIN!!!!!?????

He's only asked if I can record some vocals for a job he's got in!!!!!!!

I am speechless!

It's a half-moon. Perhaps he's half-forgotten you're not his thing anymore

His reality is drifting further and further away!!!!!!

Unfortunately in an attempt to stop me working (probably) the software he gave me to do this task is corrupted. I am in the process of sourcing a legitimate version.

I wonder when it will occur to him that he doesn't live here on the dc's birthday's , or christmas?

I did not make it to Freedom P this am as had bad night with baby.
Xp turned up to collect his tools from shed. I had said I wd be out today.

I stayed in the house and he loaded the van.
I watched from top window and thought what a worn out old man he looked.I started to get the first experience of "not feeling" for him......iykwim

I think he has gone, so go down into kitchen.
He appears at french window and asks to see baby.
I open door a bit and say that I would like a third party around when we have contact and will be seeing a solicitor next tuesday.
I say that he can hold baby very briefly ,outside but I will close door as best we dont speak.
He holds her and cries.I watch as he dotes on her and I work hard at not feeling moved and sad.
He gives her back and hands me £100 and a bank statement which he says to give my solicitor and he will be setting up a regular payment to me.
I thank him and say we will get regular contact sorted out soon and then he can see baby for longer.
He says yes she can come and stay in my caravan (!!! 14ft tourer,no water or electric,portapotti,on building site!!!)
I say I think a family centre would be better.He says any social worker would assess his caravan as better than my house!!
I foolishly remind him that his dd will not bring her dc's there.
I also stupidly say I wish things could be different between us.
He says he just wants to have reasonable access,so I say at least he knows that I am reasonable with my xh's over access to my other dc's so has no need to worry.I also say that at least neither of us has to go through a divorce again.
I said all this in a calm way meaning to show how mature I am and not getting emotional.
He said how dare I bring his wife into my mess (?) and left angrily.

I have just received a very long text accusing me of being mentally unstable,saying I attacked him and tried to scratch him whilst holding baby,that he didn't want to see me,just came to get his stuff and I ran at him,shrieking .Said I have bullied and abused him for years and that he is afraid of my aggression and that his family fear for baby's safety if she is left with me.Quoted me as swearing apallingly at him and that he was afraid at my hostility !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
he begs me to seek help and admit to the truth as he can't take any more!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry for lengthy detail....I need to type this to witness my own reality.

I know he is projecting.But seeing that stuff written really upset me.I was being kind to him.I was really calm and un emotional.
It really upsets me that his dd has been told ,and believes all that crap,or any one else.

I still can't believe he was with me when I gave birth 4 weeks ago today, and was so loving and I still had hope for us
How can he choose such an angry,hostile life of lies when our dd is so new,tiny and sweet and he could be tucked up with us being happy and loved.
How can he be so nasty to me when I have just had his baby,and have offered him love and understanding.
How can he trash all the lovely times and lovely words that he was still connected to only a few weeks back.
I know the answers but I still cant get my head round it.
It doesn't have to be like this.But he WANTS it to be.WHY? How haven't we been enough to make a difference.

I ate 2 packets chocolate digestives just now
I really want a bottle of wine- not a glass- a bottle - or whisky,but I'm breastfeeding.
I'm really irritable with the dc's now,too and it's not their fault
I need a hug,but I can't have what I need.Seemingly ever.Which is selfish because my dc's and baby are lovely

Oh PM, he is not projecting, he is gaslighting.
And in desperation as he sense you leaving he is doing a veyr bizarre job of it too.
What a nobber.

Have a (((((((((hug))))))))))
x

PM It took very little time before he slipped into abuse mode.

He wants it to be like this because he is out of control. He is wired backwards. He knows he is feeling things, but doesn't know what those feelings relate to, because he is disconnected.

He IS projecting. HE IS PROJECTING!!!! Disengage. IT IS SO, SO, SO HARD.
You must though.

Ring WA? they are so beautifully kind when they know you have made the break. I have sobbed at them, and they have made it ok. Ring them now. ((((((PM)))))))

Cross post....gaslighting/ projecting....sucking pm into the vortex of his own insanity.

Ooh, yy, ring WA and talk it out with them.

And as meant to say he is not just projecting.

"It doesn't have to be like this."

• No, it doesn't. Not for you

"But he WANTS it to be. WHY?"

• Because is mentally ill. Miswired. Faulty.

"How haven't we been enough to make a difference"

• Nobody has yet come up with a cure for BPD/NPD. If you think you can love him out of it, you're making the mistake that gets women killed every day.

You do know better, PM. You're suffering abuse. Forgive yourself for getting triggered! Yes, do call for help - as you know, now, you are NOT alone, not by a long chalk, and help IS available.

Love'n'stuff

A small ,bitter "victory",as if that mattered....

I txd xp thanking him for his tx,said it was suprising and that the tape I had made of our conversation at the window today was very different to his version in the tx.I said my solicitor had been sent a copy of each....

He has just left a voice mail apologising unreservedly for his
"false,abusive accusations which were sent whilst in a state of distress and grief at leaving his dd,it was irresponsible of him to say I had pushed his buttons as he took full responsibility for his own behaviour"

so that worked

oh and also,

" it must be difficult and stressful for me to be caring for baby full-time,but just to reassure me that ,god forbid,should anything terrible happen to me,he would be more than capable of providing all that I can,and would be delighted at the opportunity"

-not a threat..Just sheer ego arrogance and probably unconscious desire.....

nice

PM, this:
"false,abusive accusations which were sent whilst in a state of distress and grief"
is not actually an unreserved apology. It might say 'unreserved' but he apologised with reservations, didn't he?
"distress and grief" = Excuse (reservation). And your fault, no less.

Not to mention the hopeless attempt at empathy: failing to disguise his emotional blackmail, devaluation of you as a mother AND A DEATH WISH!

Ffs. Can I come down & push him under a bus?

yes, please do

you are so right
he is such an arrogant fuck up

I found the second part really disgusting.I bet he's got his fingers crossed

bastard

all yr support is so appreciated , Grace , Pretty and Jack

I know a local busdriver....

Does it help that he backed down so quickly so that he knows he is being a twat, iyswim.
It just shows you that he does know what he is doing, but he is so lacking in empathy he doesn't care. Nobber.
Do you have a tape recorder? because in all honesty I think that would be a good idea along with savinbg all his texts for future blackmail custody/visitn rights.

He is a cock and you are a star. Well done for texting sucha calm and composed message. Good for you.

It does help actually.
It shows that he is so selfish and arrogant that he considers his behaviour justifiable on twatfuckerknob self centred arrogant terms ASWELL as being a faulty,backwards-wired ,mentally ill,hopeless case.

twatfuckerknob is my word of the day!

Stick with it PM

Prettylegs

Imagine - he is such a TFK (!),that he is happily declaring :

"no, no you've got me wrong,I didn't let you and your dc's and my newborn dd down because I am an abusive bastard,although I agree,it may have appeared that way. No, it's actually that I really am very selfish,thoughtless,inconsiderate and couldn't really give a toss about how you all might feel,or how you will cope - or even,in fact,about whether you exist at all when I am not actually choosing to speak to you.
But look, I'm fine and I imagine that ,having explained all this,you will be ok with it ,and we can be friends...."

He has actually txd this am to say he's pleased we now have reached a resolution and no hard feelings and if at any time I want to go out - maybe this weekend - just to let him know and he'll be happy to babysit ......

TFK, as I said.

What does it say about me,that I can grasp the reality of this stuff and immediately feel repelled and think "there is no way I am having a tosser like that in my life"...
When abusive scary and mad behaviour has kept me " in love" with him for years...

I'd love any view on that!!!

Umm, because that's precisely what the abuse is intended to achieve?

From Roger Melton:
"they are geniuses at generating emotional and psychological chaos in people who get too close to them. The frenzied emotional-madness that characteristically runs riot inside of these individuals has an uncanny way of getting inside of those nearest to them.

Over a century ago, psychiatrists discovered this phenomenon and labeled it a folie deux, or "folly of two." It was observed that spouses often took on the symptoms of their psychotic partners. When the psychotic partner was removed from the home and hospitalized, his spouse's symptoms vanished within weeks."

PM, it looks as though your BPD 'infection' is beginning to wear off

I do declah she is healed!

Mailed you pm

Another reality check......

I was having sad thoughts and crying in the night,feeding baby, and was unable to resist sending a tx....

asked him if he remembered our holiday in the same way as me and dc's do - Turkey for a fortnight last summer, we had the best time ever - reminded him of the two f us canoeing on the blue lagoon and what he told me about feeling he'd been given another chance at life and that he would never waste it.....him giving me a ring and telling the dc's he would never make me sad again......No scary anger,fun all the time.....

He rang me back
Yes he remembered it like that.All true, still feels the same

BUT

I should try to understand the enormous effort involved for him in "staying in control like that for two weeks" it's one thing to do it for a holiday,but surely no one should be expected to maintain "so much control under normal daily living conditions"...."especially when sharing MY life, where his buttons are pushed all the time"......!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He would be happy to accept 90% of it as his problem, but unless I can accept and work on "how I press his buttons - sometimes even just by having had a past life like mine- then he can never consider coming back to us"

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I HAD NOT MENTIONED THAT I WANTED HIM BACK

I said goodbye and goodnight

Well there you go. He's told you who he really is and how it would be for ever after. Being apparently relaxed and happy on holiday, something that comes naturally to most of us, was a tremendous strain for him. Because of everything that you are and can't stop being as long as you live, he will always "have to" break out and abuse you regularly. You can't make enough changes to satisfy him - nobody could. You may change your weight, your clothing, your opinions, have radical cosmetic surgery, anything at all until you don't recognise your own self, but you will always be you and will always somehow manage to "press his buttons". Doesn't that suggest that maybe he's the one who needs to work on those sensitive little buttons? No, because it's his universe and you are encroaching on it in a way that annoys him. I would say stop engaging, don't send soppy "remember when" texts, as you really need this very strange man out of your life; on the other hand, every time you do he gives you yet more proof that he is off on a very strange planet indeed, so maybe it is doing some good.

But its so very hard to disengage. I keep reading and re reading the Teddy Bear section in Controlling People.

I also have an amazing friend who is willing to listen to me, whose wife is a psychiatrist, who tells me to ignore, ignore and ignore again, He says that there can be miracles, but ignoring is the only way to make that very unlikely event occur. They must be faced with the REALITY of THEIR circumstances...not the pretend construct of teddy bear world.

Why would you stop living in teddy bear world if you didn't absolutely have to?

PM you have an expectation of reciprocity, but teddy bears ask for nothing back. You exist in parallel worlds, AS i do with h. And I miss him so very mush, I miss those sparks of humanity and humour....but to be thrown the odd bone, to have him show teddy his things sometimes, is not a relationship.

It's funny, the number of times I have screamed at him..."I am not a doll!" or that I feel functionally dead. I was that teddy bear. And PM so are you.

Since we have been conversing on this site, you have developed a relaxed sense of humour and delightful ironic view of the world...and a gentleness that DESERVES nurture. Don't let that stop with more trips to his vortex of insanity.

Annie- as I said yesterday,it's bizarre how effective that kind of evidence is...I can "take" that response from him,spoken in a bright friendly voice, because it "proves" to me how out of synch we really are.

How pointless it is to hope to re capture the
experience i was describing,when clearly,it was not "real" to him - at least,he is clearly unable to empathise with my reality as I recall our shared experience.

As I said,that is easier for me to "see" than all the mad,mean abuse - which just had the effect (intentionally,as Grace pointed out) of binding me to him,believing it was true love....

Prettylegs -thank you for your lovely,touching words. The book you refer to is my bible at present,also the companion book of womens' experiences of verbal abuse.

We have shared before how difficult it is to ignore when you miss the lovely parts of the man ,and as you rightly told me - and I always say the same to dc's - no one is 100% bad. It would be easier in She Rah land - To be able to identify the "baddies" by their black cloaks and evil faces and wicked acts !!

The things I miss are connected to places,too - many different places that we walked in,stayed for weekends when dc's away,explored cities and landscapes...Those are the memories that hurt ,it feels like it will be difficult to think of ,or go to any of those places alone or with anyone else in future since his intensity really chiselled detail into my mind..

But I know I felt invisible very often,even at those times,and I did often sit in those special places listening to an opinionated monologue and wondering why he didnt notice my non-verbal queues screaming "shut-up I'm bored,ASK me something,don't TELL me any more"
But he never did...

He is welcome to the vortex....

[I can feel another thread coming on....!]

Gosh, I can;t say it any better than prettylegs tbh, but if I find you have texted him again I will, um, let the DD's wreck your house