reality check - trouble facing how bad the N is

[fifi]

Does anyone have family and/or friends who have trouble believing you don't see how evil/malevolent/malicious your N is?

My ex N has done so many horrible things  and now that we're divorcing, so many new, horrible things.  I still however, give him the benefit of the doubt, feel sorry for HIM, make excuses, minimize, etc.  I don't like it when people on the board and elsewhere refer to Ns as monsters, but maybe I'm coming to terms with the term evil although it still bothers me.  My family and friends (even the ones who are very very good, caring and loving people) think this N is vicious, has no feeling, and is even, according to some of them, evil.  They say do not trust him (which I finally agree with), do NOT feel sorry for him, and get revenge.  I could have sent him to jail or had him arrested several times and with the courts involved with our divorce now can do the same, justifiably.  But I don't, and I do feel sorry for him.  

Why can't I feel angry enough?!  Why do I still have the burden of having to feel bad for him when I feel bad for me enough already, having to have had him in my life and still having him in my life?!  I need to care about and protect myself and my children now - I can't afford to waste any pity and energy on him.  I need to get angry and realize how dangerous he is to me and my children, in order to get thorugh this divorce with what I need to obtain w/regard to custody and settlement of property, etc.  I do not want to feel anything for him.  But I do.  (NOT  love, just pity, hope that he really will change or that there is good in him, and hurt - for him.    

Advice would be really welcome.

[Anonymous]

Personally, I don't think you need to get angry but I do think you need to do some substitute thinking.

Why add another already negative emotion to your situation?  

You are generous and kind and that is why you pity.  That is not a bad thing, it's a good thing.

However, your n-ex is not "evil", he is sick.  I have a problem with "evil" because it infers such love for hate.   I think sick people are often very full or hate and wanting to disperse it.  That is why they try so hard to drown you with it.  They are consumed with it and by it.   You can decide not to accept their hate.  That's just what I think and I offer this idea for you to consider.

So, what thoughts can you choose to substitute instead of thinking you can't seem to get angry enough to protect your kids, or for changing your focus from soley on your abuser??

Well, first of all, you're not the only person who focusses on one aspect of a problem and sees only one perspective, so forgive yourself for not being perfect.  We all do that sometimes.  The thing to do is imagine yourself up in a plane and try to get an aerial view.

What do you need?   You must do the best you can for yourself or you will be of no use whatsoever to your kids.  What do your kids need?  What does your n-ex need? Make a few lists.  Try to decifer the facts and priorities.   Decide to aim for those that you see as essential.

In order to help yourself bring your emotional focus into a more real light, you must first be aware of what it is that you are feeling and second, express it in some therapeautic way.  One way is writing it down.  Another is screaming into a pillow (often many other emotions surface and come out when this is done).  You're already doing the third thing by seeking support.   Do some reading on positive thinking.  It won't hurt.   Give yourself permission to just feeeel and soothe yourself in whatever harmless, healthy ways you can find.

Don't expect youself stop wishing your n-ex would simply stop behaving badly.  Your feelings for him are a separate issue.  Your feelings are valid.

The best thing you can do, though, is to try really hard to set your feelings aside, just for a bit, and think logically, consider the consequences of your decisions, and then go for what you think is best.

Do what your mind tells you, and not so strictly, your heart, for the time being.
Stick with those who support you, they care, and have you, and your children's best interests in mind.

[Anonymous]

fifi,

Let's say your H isn't evil or a monster. Let's say instead that he is psychiatrically disturbed with a disorder called psychopathy. This doesn't mean he's a serial killer. There are many garden-variety psychopaths among us. They often commit crimes to various degrees of seriousness. They are pathological liars and severely angry, abusive people. They will destroy the lives of their families. Psychopathy is classified as a mental illness and there is no cure for it. The person cannot get better. Therapy has no beneficial effect and even makes it worse. The psychopath only learns more manipulation techniques from the therapist.

You may be able to intellectually understand this and still feel sorry for the psychopath. This is legitimate. You can feel totally sorry for him and still proceed on your path of self-protection and children-protection. One thing about psychopaths - they can take care of themselves.

If you want to understand your own denial, this is the book for you: The Illusion of Love by David Celani. It's all about being unable to leave an abusive relationship.

bunny

[BlueTopaz]

Fifi,

For the longest time, I also could not stop excessively focusing on my xN. I was feeling soooo bad and hurt for him, on top of the torrent of my own excruciating pain, caused by that very person.  I was constantly analyzing his personality, and what went wrong in this life, crying over the pain I'd imagined he was in, hoping he would get better, still wondering if I could do anything to affect a change in him (geez!)

I realized that the reason I was still so invested, was that in the back of my mind, I always had hope for reconciliation.  I had never let the “dream” go.      

Currently, I think I have managed to accept that the things I had wanted with this person would never come into being, at about a 90% level.   It has been really difficult, and it took a very long time after our relationship ended, but now, I am so much less focused on him.

What I wanted to mention as my point in writing, is that I think that when one lets go of the hope of change in the N partner, and lets go of the hope reconciliation, or “the dream” (of a life together, being a family again etc.), this is key.   You become able to stop focusing so much on that person, and to put your attention onto yourself, and your life (in your case, your children’s as well).

If you can work to a point to truly be able to let go of any hopes of reconciliation or him changing (many times I’d convinced myself I’d let go but hadn’t—you really know when you have) you will just naturally, automatically stop thinking so much about that person.   You won’t even have the desire to invest so much of your thinking and emotions in them.    This is true, even if you still care about them, as I do my xN.

It may sound a strange thing to say, but I feel one could get over this kind of relationship easier, and stop all of the over-focusing, if the N partner had died (rather than relationship dissolution), because one would not keep holding the hope of change.   There would be zero possibilities to "dream" about.      

You would be amazed at how much you can change in your thinking and perceptions of things when you let go of "hope", related the N's.   It places a much, much needed sense of finality around the relationship (relationships with N's are so often left "open", vague in standing, no closure) which will enable you to move on and focus on other things in your life.

Best...

[gnostikos]

When we see people in ordinary situations, when they are presenting an apparently very human, skillful, sociable, intelligent, or reasonable enough and normal side of themselves, we have one picture of reality.

When we see people as they do something vicious, depraved, totally lacking in empathy or compassion, unable to have common decency, that is an entirely different picture of reality.

It is very difficult to hold two interpretations of the same reality in one's mind at the same time.  That could be demonstrated by most optical illusions, for example the 2-dimensional drawing of 3-dimensional stairs, you can't see it from bottom and top at the same time.  That could also be demonstrated by the optical illusion of the rabbit/duck... you can't see the rabbit while you are seeing the duck, and vice versa.  When people speak about paradigm shifts, they use these analogies to describe situations where given the exact same information, facts, and connections, two people are in different paradigms, interpreting the same information differently.  It is difficult to communicate because both are accepting the same information, but seeing it differently, and unable to easily switch to see the other view, unable to easily do a paradigm shift.

But with cognitive dissonance, the difficulty and mental confusion is even more radical.  It is as if you drew one of those 2-dimensional optical illusion line drawings on two very different things, two different types of things altogether.  I.e., you draw the image on a blue sphere made out of wood and also have it depicted on a red cube that is projected holographically.  Is it a rabbit or a duck?  Are the stairs going up or down.  Ah but the question is further about whether it is a blue solid sphere or a red illusory cube.  Can you really hold both these realities in your mind at the same time, consciously, easily, as the same object?

It is not just two ways of seeing the same thing, it is that you are seeing two VERY different things, things that are NOT reconcilable to your conscious mind, and so there is a flip-flopping as you doubt what reality is.

[Jenocidal]

My VERY Narcissistic mother is so volatile, so toxic, that every extension of all sides of my family do not get along, or talk with her.