Things I wish I could tell my ex

[2cents]

Hey all,

I am in the process of taking the blinders off when it comes to my mother, and the only way I can feel sympathy for her is if she was/is completely unaware of what she was doing... But I suppose I have to go through this pain to be free, to not be hurt by her anymore.

Good for you sleepyhead. Takes courage, but in the end you will free YOURSELF.

New Day

I once found some "notes" my exN kept from therapy. He had made a list and on the list was "At my core I am valueless, and I must hide this from people" AND "That no one will like me when they get to know me better". Those are direct quotes. I was shocked when I first saw those notes (I was cleaning out some boxes of junk and found them, I wasn't snooping).
Amazing, huh?

Kinda hits the nail on the head no? " Iam valueless  and I must hide this from people. " He's probably NOT experiencing any more joy in his life, because he can't until he stops feeling valueless. And he can't do THAT until he faces his issues, which (regardless of prevailing debates about whether NPD can be healed, ameliorated or whatnot and EACH case is different) he is certainly NOT doing by running off with another woman.

Keep taking care of you, and all the very very best,

(hope this post makes a bit sense, I'm a bit tired abd confusedy   )

2cents

[Portia]

Lara, great thread!

Princess, hi, this thread has a life of it’s own, you might want to start another one about you, coz I’d like to reply but it might get a bit messy here.

2cents said:

Sometimes I think the N is actually addicted to the damage and NOT the supply.

Good idea. I think my mother is addicted to destructive emotions. I guess it makes her believe she feels emotion, makes her alive. I think she thinks love is the absence of hate, rather than the neutral indifference that the 'absence' is. Aha that’s so true! I didn’t realise it until I just wrote it! Thank you. She thinks indifference is love – amazing!

Sleepyhead:

when it comes to my mother, and the only way I can feel sympathy for her is if she was/is completely unaware of what she was doing

Maybe you don’t have to feel sympathy for her? Does she feel sympathy for you and your childhood? Mother’s protect their children: not the other way around.

Robinm

and if anyone has any great ideas on how to get your heart to accept what your head knows

Well you could expose yourself to him some more, but under scientific test conditions! Play the actor, ask them outrageous questions, make statements that are totally unlike you and take notice of how they respond. I don’t suggest you do this. It’s dangerous and requires you to be absolutely detached, a remote observer, just proving to yourself what you already know. You can shock your heart into accepting it, but you’ll cry a lot too - and you’ll expose yourself to their conniving.   Not recommended.

[Brigid]

Robin,

if anyone has any great ideas on how to get your heart to accept what your head knows - I would really, really appreciate that!!

Since your breakup is so new, my first suggestion is just time.  If you can manage it, some good therapy is helpful as well.  It has been 17 months for me and I am finally beginning to see a sliver of light at the end of that long tunnel.  

I feel like I have made some giant steps forward since finding this site as you get so many great perspectives.  You also get unconditional support and love which we all need more of.

2 Cents,

Hope you're okay,

Thanks for caring.  Yes, I'm OK.  I had therapy yesterday and we spent a good part of the time talking about what you had said and my reaction to it.  I have been resistant to moving off of my place of anger, bitterness, resentment, etc.  But I also realize how much energy that takes away from healing and moving forward to finding a place of happiness, peace and contentment.  Thank you for getting the ball rolling.

[Anonymous]

Brigid,

I have been resistant to moving off of my place of anger, bitterness, resentment, etc. But I also realize how much energy that takes away from healing and moving forward to finding a place of happiness, peace and contentment. Thank you for getting the ball rolling.

For awhile that anger and bitterness feels pretty good, in a self indulgent way, doesn't it?
Glad to hear the ball is rolling, wise sister.
(You notice I didn't say older)

mudpup

[Brigid]

Mudpup,

Glad to hear the ball is rolling, wise sister.
(You notice I didn't say older)

Very wise of you to not say older.    
Some of you men are trainable.

Thanks for the encouragement oh wise, thoughtful (You'll notice I didn't say bratty) younger brother.  Yeah, some of us girls are trainable too if just given a point in the right direction.  The anger has lived out its useful life expectancy and now must be replaced by something positive.  You never know, it just might lead to dancing.

Love you little bro.

Brigid

[mum]

Portia: your idea that they have a different definition of love resonated with me.  It comes down to a core value, a belief system.  If those things are not the same, the relationship cannot work.
My ex's definition of "love" is so very skewed, it actual looks like "control".  I spend much of my heart to heart talking time with my children trying to diffuse this definition they get from their dad.  I grew up with such a different idea of what love is that I had NO clue there could be such horrible deviations in belief and I was blindsided.  
I think you hit the nail on the head there. It is a totally different concept of love.  It's so out of the norm that we then question our own value (how could something so wonderful be so horrible...maybe I'm wrong, oh yes, he tells me I am, my life up til him was a fairy tale, not true at all)......and then the cycle of abuse begins.
Here's to breaking free of that confusing mind prison!

[2cents]

Hey Brigid,

Thank you sooooo much for showing me how to quote Of course now I can't do it cause my mouse is acting up... ( )

I'm so glad you're moving away from anger and resentment for yourself! I've been stuck there for a very long time for a myriad of reaons (haven't we all?!) and it's hard not to stay there, but worth the effort to leave that place once and  for all.

I want to write more but I'm still tired and confusedy

Take care,

2cents

[Brigid]

2 Cents,

I want to write more but I'm still tired and confused

I have to say that this surprises me as you seem so organized and together.  Please tell me it's taken you a long time to get to that point.  You say you were angry for a long time, so I have to assume this has been going on for awhile.  

I am already feeling "lighter" due to the shedding of anger having begun.  Thank you for "showing up" at just the right time.  You are amazing.

Portia

I think she thinks love is the absence of hate, rather than the neutral indifference that the 'absence' is. Aha that’s so true! I didn’t realise it until I just wrote it! Thank you. She thinks indifference is love – amazing!

Brilliant!  I was always confused by the lack of emotion from someone who  claimed to be so sensitive and emotive.  All part of the facade, I guess.

Thank you to all of you for helping me to sort this out.  This has been a corner-turning week.    

Lara, thank you for starting this thread.  Sorry if I did some hijacking.

Brigid

[2cents]

dear Brigid,

Yesterday I just wasn't feeling so hot.  I've suffered from depression for years, and though it's MUCH better now than in the bad old days I still have times when I'm "tired and confusedy" and yesterday was one of them.
Feeling much better today though

Not  wanting to hijack Lara's thread , just wanted to explain what I meant properly,

Take care

2cents

[Lara]

Hi Everyone,

Brigid and 2cents, I didn't think you had hijacked the thread, so please don't apologise...no need at all. And Brigid, I'm very happy for you that you feel you have had a breakthrough;you so deserve to feel a bit better after all you have been through.

Bludie,it was so good to see you posting again on another thread;I have been wondering how you were doing the last few weeks.

I had a very strange dream last night, a dream I've never had before, and I'm wondering if it came to me because of the title of this thread. In my dream my ex and his girlfriend (the people in the dream looked nothing like them, but I knew immediately who they were) were asking me for favours, wanting me to give them shelter in my house and provide for them. They were both being charming to me, but at the same time being more openly abusive and exploitative than my ex ever was in real life. In the dream,and this is the part that felt good, I was telling them very strongly that I would not help them;in fact I was sending them away, over and over again. My ex was trying to get round me by being loving and complimenting me, but I knew that really they were working together to use me. The feeling I had in the dream, of standing up to them and not agreeing to being taken advantage of, was new in this relationship.In real life, when I  ended what was left of the friendship I had with my ex, it was all done in a very calm and civilised (on the surface anyway) manner. I have never in real life raised my voice to him, or challenged him much at all.

I have been looking forward to sharing that dream with you;thank you for listening.

I wish to God that I hadn't stayed with my ex so long, once things had turned from so 'happy' to so painful. Why didn't I have the courage and the determination to walk away? If I had done that, there  would be so much less to get over now.   It feels like now, I have to recover from the pain of the memories, AND the memories of the pain. Does that make sense?

With love to all the great posters here,
Sincerely,
Lara.

[longtire]

Wow Lara.  Awesome dream!

[Anonymous]

Hi Lara,

I wish to God that I hadn't stayed with my ex so long, once things had turned from so 'happy' to so painful. Why didn't I have the courage and the determination to walk away? If I had done that, there would be so much less to get over now.

I got rid of my brother in 1990 and then went back into business with him in 1992. I spent the next ten years listening to his excuses about why he didn't perform or why he needed to take a trip overseas when it was time to work. Ten years. There are people here who were fooled twice as long, or just put up with intolerable behavor. You're a piker by our standards!    
Don't beat yourself up over not wanting the awful truth to be true. Its a hard thing for a normal person to accept that there are people so alien to us.
You (we) did the best you could under the circumstances. Now its time to dig out and count our blessings. We are beginning the process of freeing our lives and minds from what amounts to psychological cancer.
God bless.

mudpuppy

[Brigid]

Lara,

I wish to God that I hadn't stayed with my ex so long, once things had turned from so 'happy' to so painful. Why didn't I have the courage and the determination to walk away? If I had done that, there would be so much less to get over now. It feels like now, I have to recover from the pain of the memories, AND the memories of the pain. Does that make sense?

Absolutely!  Sometimes it takes courage to stay and sometimes it takes courage to leave.  You can only, in retrospect, know that staying was not the healthiest decision.  But had you left sooner, perhaps you would have forever wondered what would have happened if you'd stayed.  Don't beat yourself up.  Assume things happened the way they did for a reason and take time to learn the lessons so you don't repeat the mistakes.

I was interested in your dream story and had recently thought about starting a thread on dreams and how our ex N's come to us in them now.  Thank you for sharing that.

Brigid

[Lara]

Hi Everyone,
It was  good to hear from you all,Brigid, Longtire and Mudpup.
I know that there is nothing to be gained in beating myself/ourselves up because I/we put up with unacceptable treatment for far too long. It's just that I was so twisted round this guy's little finger. Once the 'honeymoon phase ' was over, why didn't I look at his actions rather than his words? For your sake and mine, I don't want to rehash all the details, but just to give you an example:

We decided to remain friends after he met his new girlfriend. We continued to speak moreorless every day, but the sexual aspect of the r/ship was over. But even after moving in with her, he would tell me that he couldn't love her because he still loved me,wished he was making love to me when he was with her, etc.(Sorry about the gory details!)

Was I a complete idiot to feel hopeful and excited when he said those things, instead of looking at the reality of the situation, ie that he was living with her, sharing every aspect of his daily life with her, and planning a future with her? The answer that I can't escape from is that 'Yes Lara, You WERE a complete idiot!'

On another tangent, I really want to thank Portia for suggesting on another thread that when looking at another person's behaviour we ask ourselves the questions, 'Would I have said that? Would I have done that?' I wrote a list last night of things that my ex said and did to me during our five years, that I would never have done or said to anyone,let alone someone I loved deeply.. It was a really useful reality check for me  and I'm posting here to recommend it to anyone else who wonders sometimes if they are making a big deal out of things.

Sincerely,
Lara.

[Anonymous]

Lara,

The answer that I can't escape from is that 'Yes Lara, You WERE a complete idiot!'

Idiocy refers to our intelligence; but love is blind. Our emotions and our loyalty and our hopes overwhelm our common sense and intelligence. You're not an idiot. You were simply inundated with too much manipulation to overcome until it reached a critical mass. That's a very familiar story here.

Your virtues (and possibly some of your vices) were used to attach a string to the top of your head. For five years you were a yo yo. No offense intended, I was one for close to twenty years.
That string is hard to saw through. We don't even start for sometime because we don't even know we're going up and down. If we do mention the ups and downs, we're told its our fault.
When we do finally start to saw through the string is when 'around the world' and 'walking the dog' and especially 'rock the cradle' start. They pull out all the stops.
We get caught in a game at which we are complete amateurs and our opponents are hall of fame professionals. Thats why seperation is so effective. It gets us off of their artificial turf and back onto real grass where at least we can recover our senses.
Beating yourself up is part of the process of decompression. One of these days it will come to you that the idiot was him and him alone.


mudpup