Love of my life won't let go of his narcissistic ex-wife -- Advice? Validation?

[tejaspear]

Yes, but what you are saying, Brigid, is not to trust myself because I am feeling okay with this where we are with it now. When I am not okay with it I will feel it. I am not numb. And I am not asking him to change. There is a difference between expecting someone to change and giving them time to heal. Even a "normal" divorce makes a "normal" man need 2 full years of healing after the divorce (according to psychologists). He has not had his 2 years yet.

But anyhow, y'all's warnings and cautions are noted and acknowledged, even appreciated.

Take care,
TP

[Hopalong]

TJ,
I'm sorry, I know I am projecting a ton. You do sound confident and calm. I just am worrying, because I am seeing a rough prognosis for this coming all the way around to meet your needs.

I read a description of healthy intimacy once, and it said something to the effect of, healthy relationships do not involve exhausting struggle and analysis...there is a sense of comfort and ease about them. I, personally, have NEVER had one of these. So I am very very interested in that notion. What? No drama? No picking apart layer upon layer of bruises and scars and fears and reactions and subtexts and what-ifs and persuading and cajoling and explaining and, especially, "helping" him understand what kind of love I need?

when you say, you are just giving him time to "heal"--couldn't that be a euphemism for "change"? The reason I ask that is that above it, you said:

He also has a history of staying somewhat attached to a previous lover after getting married -- both marriages. In both cases he continued to see the previous lover once in a while until the attachment fell off the branch. To him, this is normal. To me, I've always been the opposite.

I don't want to make him "bad" for that either. There is a wide range of what people are comfortable with. I just know that I would need a clear demarcation and wouldn't wait through a year of ambivalence. Spent decades doing just that with various men...now I'm 55. Never did let myself attract or choose one who did not give out that signal.

Two books come to mind:
Escape from Intimacy by Anne Wilson Scharf (alas, I need to read it over and over and over), and
Passionate Marriage

Well, three:
Men Who Can't Love and the Women Who Love Them
(this is about commitment phobia, and the signs are so much more subtle than you might think. Has absolutely nothing to do with verbal declarations of love. Has everything to do with patterns you might possibly not recognize...one of the BIGGEST red flags in that book is keeping one toe in a previous relationship. And as you describe him, he's got a whole leg in there.)

I wish you luck, hon. I want it to work for you if it should and maybe it can. These are just the thoughts of someone who thinks she sees trouble or heartache or disappointment ahead for you, and doesn't want it to happen! (At the same time I am sure, sure, sure, that this may be too much projection from my own experience.)

I am glad you stick up for your own wisdom and sense of what's right for you, and hope what's posted here doesn't feel unsupportive.

Hugs,
Hopalong

[tejaspear]

Thanks for your caring and loving words, Hops.

Coincidentally I just got an email from him that wasn't just a red flag to me but a tankful of red flags with cannons booming. I don't care to go into it just now. Definitely not feeling content like I did an hour ago. I'm outta there. I'm still feeling stunned and just gonna go be alone now...

Hugs,
TP

[Hopalong]

TJ,
I'm so sorry.
I am guessing you may have just experienced "A Curtain Call."
That's in the Men Who Can't Love book...
which really made my hair stand on end the first time I read it.

Come back as soon as you can and let us help.
(((((((((((((((((((((Teja)))))))))))))))))))))))

Hopalong
PS--If it was a mistake, you made it out of hope and dreams. No punishing yourself, okay?

[Plucky]

Hi TJ,
I'm sorry you feel disappointed now.  I hope you were not in far enough to feel real hurt again. Maybe you just postponed feeling some of the original hurt but now it's back.

I was going to jump on the bandwagon and try to say in a nice way that it sounds fishy.  All of our emotional immune systems are malfunctioning.  Sometimes I seem to have no gut feeling at all.  That's not right.

Just keep moving forward with what makes sense to you at the moment and try not to Monday morning quarterback too much.  Now is a time to keep finding out what is cooking inside you, not to blame yourself for anything.  Hope this is helpful - if I'm off base, ignore it all.
Plucky

[tejaspear]

Thanks y'all. I'm all right. So what's a "curtain call" -- like an encore?

[Healing&Hopeful]

Hiya Tej

Just a quick email to say thinking of you.... I hope whatever you decide will bring you much happiness in the long term.

Take care

H&H xx

[Hopalong]

Hi TJ,
I think I'm making up too much, filling in the blanks too eagerly (when I'm half off my own rocker I identify so intensely with everything I read that I often guess wrong). I don't know what was in his email.

But if you just went through a fairly dramatic and intense reunion, only to have the whole thing suddenly and painfully end (perhaps through harsh rejection or abrupt withdrawal on his part)...then that's a Curtain Call (one of the chapter titles in Men Who Can't Love). It's a specific and common thing that is unconsciouslly acted out by men who are phobic about commitment. That anywhere close?

I recall what you said about the trash in his house, which seems to show how he can't really claim the space he lives in. Can't resolve an uncommitted ambivalence about that either. That's in the book too.

But I could very well be totally off base.

I think you've had a hard shock and a rough day.
(((((((((Teja))))))))))))

Hops

[tejaspear]

Thanks.

It doesn't matter anymore. I'm done analyzing it. The email he sent me made me feel I can just been beat up. I was accused of doing something wrong and treated like the villain (for bolting when he made it clear that the N ex has her foot permanently in the door of his home). "You left me so that makes you the bad guy" kind of accussation. And there was threats of how angry he would be if I did it again.

Like being knocked on the head with an anvil at first I was stunned, and then I realized that he holds much hostility toward me. There is only one reason for him to have hostility toward me, and that is because I won't let him have both of us -- both me and her. He wants both and I won't let him have it and he knew as long as he hung onto her he could not feel certain I would stay.

First he said he would let go of her if it became a problem for me -- adding the proviso that if he did that he give her his property so he wouldn't feel guilty anymore. (Fine by me. That guilt is a cancer. If he had to give away the property to get rid of the cancer, so be it.)  It turned out to be a bluff, because when I needed him to let go of her he couldn't do that because then his daughter wouldn't get to inherit his property. That was the beginning of the end -- really was the end -- my realizing that he was only bluffing me when he said he'd give her up if I needed that.

He wanted to wear me down. So many things tell me that he never had any intention of truly severing the primal bond with her. His admitted strategy was to keep me around until I got used to it. He tells himself and his friends that his bond(age) to her is spiritual and loving and giving and that I am just sick and insecure. I should put up with it without complaint. And, as the email showed last night, he was not above badgernig me to "keep me in my place." He wanted me to feel it was all my fault we ever broke up and that if I left him again it would be all my fault again and he would be pissed. Setting the whole stage for how *I* am the sick one so that he won't ever have to stop and look at himself, won't ever have to face the fact that he is still in a bondage and that part of it is his own making -- just as it still holds together because he guards it as if it were a precious pearl.

I'm not going to pity him anymore. He has made his choices. He chose to treat me the way he treated me. He chooses to short shrift me and then blame me when I complain. He would, if he had his way, turn me into something like the victim he has been to her. There is a sickness he used to and still calls love. It repulses me. I don't want it.  I won't do it. I'm outta there.

As respectful goodbye I will not pity him. I hope for him the best for him and that he finds himself and gets really healthy someday. I can't be around to see it happen, coz being around him would only pull me down. Like Meatball says, "I would do anything for love, but I won't do that."

I won't post on this thread anymore because I know he'll probably continue to read it. I need to stop communicating with him.

[tejaspear]

P.S. Hopalong, thanks for the book recommendations -- and I love your analogy of the toe in the old relationship and him having his whole leg in it.

[insomniac]

I didn't say this before, but he gave me the distinct impression that he was a narcissist himself.  For example:  the superior attitude of his ideal love, trying to "save face" by writing to you here, the subtle and not-so-subtle put-down of the people here being "pseudo-psychiatrists", the projection of his problems onto you.

Sorry, just my opinion.  I'm no expert.

[mum]

hey, Tejaspear: I waited to post, glad I did. Things have a way of working out....or not....and then it really works out because even if it hurts we wake up and heal.
 I would have said that the guy sounded like a real P. I. T. A. (fill it in) if not a full blown A. H. and I was feeling bad for you that you felt like it would feel different in the future. Just my gut on him.
If he's reading, well, I don't think it would hurt for him to hear that he sure doesn't look very "evolved" even with all his esoteric posturing....(although I doubt he will ponder the opinions here very much)
It gets sticky when people invite significant others, ESPECIALLY those  that they are having issues with, to also post and read here.  I've seen that backfire before.. Your safe place  gets invaded and no longer feels safe for you.  Oh well, perhaps you can become "someone else"?
An additional thought: you were in a love triangle without your consent. That's painful, and I understand why you hurt but NOT why he defended any of it....(except the A**h*** explanation).
Good wishes to you. Sending love, light and peace.