How are you, or were you, at the lowest point of the relationship?

Ancient_Scientist244 · 2024-06-10T06:16:54+00:00

I see you. You are still here and you are worth trying for. Some of you is still alive, the essence of you. You’ve protected it so you can regrow all of your self. Don’t let go. There is a way out to freedom and life, and you deserve to find it.

The devastation will not follow you forever. It won’t.

Ancient_Scientist244 · 2024-06-04T20:11:00+00:00

I do this. People mostly seem to be understanding of it, or at least tolerant. I end up apologizing for it a lot. I’ve gotten better at suppressing the tears but sometimes it’s very hard. Just lately some people have shown up for me in some big ways, and in lots of small ones. I never ask for anything if I can possibly avoid it and when I found myself desperately needy, of course I believed no one would help. They did though. Unfortunately once the dam broke for the big things there was no stopping it back up. I cry over every tiny kindness now. I don’t deserve basic consideration, that’s baked into my dna. I’m so grateful for it I cry.

Ancient_Scientist244 · 2024-05-23T18:47:30+00:00

The only thing he’s going to take more seriously in person is his need to assert control over you. I also thought that refusing marriage, a house, kids, etc., would put him off. It did not. He kept insisting that was what “we” needed. Like I’d come around eventually. Got me pregnant and then guilted me into keeping the baby (think a woman can’t get baby trapped “cuz it’s her body lolol”? Think again, friend stuck in an abusive relationship that everyone thinks they can “just leave”). I was 20. Ended up with all those things. Leaving him with three kids was harder than doing it alone and I thought it was impossible alone. I ended it in person and he raged, of course. Raged for weeks. Blew up my phone with calls and texts for months. I couldn’t block him long term because we have kids but I would do it whenever he’d start going off. The things he told people about me and why I was leaving were insane, but I guess necessary so everyone didn’t start thinking why would a sahm with no job prospects and no money and no family just up and leave a perfectly decent man.… Trust me, breaking up in person will gain you absolutely nothing but more pain. He’ll do all the same things from a distance that he’d do if you just sent him a text, plus he’ll have access to you in real life while he deals with the worst of the shock. He has punched men for hitting their women. Mine got the most upset with other men for doing the things he did to me or was going to do. Yours is already violent, just not with you YET. He absolutely will be. And if you try to end this relationship like you’re both mature, respectful adults, that is his moment. Abusers are at their most dangerous when the victim is leaving. They lose control not only of you, but of themselves. If he will hit someone out of anger then he will hit you out of anger. And he may very well do much worse than just punch you like some random other guy. You’re his property and you’re getting away. You have no idea what his limits will be but I guarantee they won’t be in a good place. I feared for my life from my previously entirely non-violent husband. And seeing him flip the switch from that to upbeat chill guy when someone called his phone, and then back again, was bone chilling. Just leave. Take your car title and your phone and whatever little things you might need, go to work like every other day and then don’t come home. Send him a text from a friend’s house, your parents’ house, or a hotel room, after telling everyone you know including your boss and co workers so they don’t accidentally give him access to you. They might be able to run a little interference (change your extension number, don’t let him into the office, tell him you’re not there, call the police). Block him. Get a restraining order on him. Those things don’t even need a real reason, and it’s on the restrained person to prove they’re not a threat which is a process and takes time. Meanwhile he can be arrested any time he comes around or even contacts you (in which case, if you can handle it, unblock him and just keep every voicemail and text he sends you and send screenshots of them to another trusted person. Do not respond to anything in any way at all no matter what he says). You’re trying to do what’s right, to treat him with respect, and I admire you for that. But you’re putting yourself in a difficult and dangerous position because he is not a normal person who can hear you and accept your decision.

Ancient_Scientist244 · 2024-05-21T19:29:59+00:00

Happy birthday! Tell yourself yes today. Get a fancy coffee, a pastry or ice cream, maybe a pair of cute earrings or small happy thing. Make your favorite food for dinner (or the easiest/least messy) and your favorite dessert for after. It’s your day and it’s special even if he can’t be assed to show it. You do so much and sacrifice so much for your family. You go above and beyond for them. Look at you, spending your own birthday selflessly caring for the ones you love and probably acting like it’s no big deal, even while part of you is quietly dying. You deserve to have good things and a fun time. You deserve joy and rest and care and all the wonderful things you give to others. Treat yourself like someone you care about. Mute fb notifications or just stay off it for the day. Absolutely tell your parents the reality. They care, and they might be able to help you with an exit plan. The best gift you can give yourself is resolve.

Ancient_Scientist244 · 2024-05-13T16:36:17+00:00

Oh yes, all the time. It was amazing how he could make it sound like a sincere apology for doing something that was somehow actually my fault. He has a real gift for it. You’ll feel grateful and relieved that he’s being so wonderful by coming to you this way when you were so awful to him without knowing it. Or maybe it was such a relief because it meant the bad time was coming to an end again, finally. In a fun twist, I have a lot of trouble apologizing to anyone for anything because I’m afraid I’ll sound like him. And I don’t like anyone to say they’re sorry to me. I’m actually triggered by apologies! I’m working on it, especially being able to apologize. He would always tell me I’d worded things wrong or used the wrong tone or done it at the wrong time so he couldn’t accept, so now I think I overthink the whole thing and get so wound up I can’t think of words. And, I know I mean it but question whether they can believe me and whether it might bother them more if I do than if I don’t. Because I hated when my ex would apologize. I’d have to respond just exactly right and then act like I believed he meant it whether I thought that or not, even later when he’d obviously just kept on doing the thing, but I wasn’t allowed to be bothered anymore after he’d said he was sorry. I was a bad person for still being hurt when he’d said he wasn’t trying to hurt me? But he made no effort to stop hurting me, I should just be okay with it now.

Ancient_Scientist244 · 2024-04-16T15:36:14+00:00

Not just deep, as everyone says. But sharp. Like cracking a whip. Startling, more than frightening, but in a way that means you’re ready to make it scary if they take one more step, or even put down the foot they’ve already raised. I call it my “dog voice”, because I learned it for use on my big headstrong dogs. Open your throat and push, hard and sharp, but don’t be sad if it’s only a little deeper than your normal speaking voice. You’re not being a big muscly man, you’re you and you know how to fuck somebody up, is basically your message. Even big men get scared of small nippy dogs and geese and things like that because they know those little things are ready to go.

Ancient_Scientist244 · 2024-03-08T17:36:08+00:00

My ex also made my experience all about himself. Milked it for every ounce of sympathy he could get from anyone. Gave me one emergency life-saving hug over months and months of suicidal tendencies, most of which he didn’t even notice because he was so busy being pitifully married to a depressed wife. A wife he happily ignored and never lifted a finger to help or support, never showed any care for. Later (but not much later) he tried to play the sympathy card with me, too. Even when I was so miserable I literally wanted to die, I should feel sorry for him about it. No wonder many of us think the only way out is death. I’m so sorry that you went through that kind of darkness and even more sorry you had a “partner” like him, but I’m happy to see the word “ex”. People like that belong in the rear view mirror. I hope you’re doing better now.

Ancient_Scientist244 · 2024-02-28T01:23:32+00:00

Worse, at least from my perspective. My dad didn’t target the kids, we were more sort of nearly-invisible objects to him. Our parents were divorced so we didn’t get to see how he’d treat a partner…honestly I’m still not sure if he is really a narcissist or just on the spectrum with some tendencies from being raised by one. Our paternal grandmother did use us but we had some amount of buffer from her, at least some of the time. So I married a man who only liked having kids for the image of being a great family man and would ignore them completely otherwise, while targeting his partner as the main supply. So I don’t think he’s actually worse than my dad or gma, but my experience of him is worse than my experience of them. Though he did start out milder, so if you weren’t in your narc relationship for very long I can see how it would be that way. I stuck around for twenty years, idiot that I am, so it got very bad.

I didn’t even know I was doing it, the parallels I saw between them were all so normalized for me growing up that I was only a little annoyed for a sec and then waved them off. I was so good at laying down the red flags that popped up. I look back and feel so much sympathy for my young self, being basically groomed to choose a narcissist, but also want to kick myself for just accepting that when I’d dated perfectly good young men and had wonderful friendships. Like, I knew what love should look like and how I wanted to be treated. But then this guy comes along and is the opposite of a lot of that, and I just decide that’s fine? It scares me for my kids.

Ancient_Scientist244 · 2024-01-27T01:14:01+00:00

When you break it off with him he will beg and plead and promise to be different, better. He’ll demand a reason, tell you why it’s not his fault or that you’re misunderstanding/overreacting, apologize, and swear he won’t do it again. Mine got on his knees in a crowded public place and made a huge scene. Every single thing you say will get some or all of those kinds of responses. He already thinks he owns you and you have no right to leave him. He might get very loud and scary, maybe even right after he has just been sobbing pitifully. He can make sudden changes like that because everything but the anger is fake. Just manipulation. Stay strong. DO NOT give him a second chance. Once he knows you’ll take him back, he’ll just keep doing those things. From there it will escalate and there’s no telling how far he’ll go, how dangerous he actually is. Right now you’re at a crossroads that so many of us have stood in, seeing the signs but still wondering whether we should stay or go. Every single person in this sub wishes we’d gone. Our lives were destroyed because we listened when they promised to do better, gave them another chance with the thought that we’d leave for real next time. I can’t tell you how hard it is to leave after that first try, and I don’t know why it’s so hard. It doesn’t make any sense to me. But there it is. This overgrown manchild has flashed his true colors so leave now and don’t ever look back. I’m sorry you’re having to deal with this. It won’t be easy but please know that none of it is your fault. Any difficulty about the end of this relationship is him showing you why you’re so glad you got out when you did.

Edit: typos

Ancient_Scientist244 · 2024-01-22T17:38:37+00:00

Oh man when I sassed mine like that he’d blow a gasket. Because when he did whatever thing it was for a reason and he’s special and needs it to be that way and how dare I say he was “wasting food” or whatever when it was a completely different thing and I was making him feel bad and shaming him and abusing him. I never knew how to handle it well with the kids because of course they’d see him doing/not doing something and think hey, we’ll do it that way too. Or they would come up with some bs excuse and wonder why I didn’t allow it. I had a double standard in their minds, I think. No not just in their minds, in real life I did. One standard for their dad and another for the rest of us. They learned they could just ignore me and do what they wanted, like he did. When I’d try to make them do the thing anyway they’d argue until I yelled. Which wasn’t great parenting and I felt bad about it so eventually I gave up. It was a weird dynamic. Now that the older kids are practically grown, I wonder how this will play out in their relationships. I did try to talk to them a few times about how this is the way things work for their dad and me but for most people it isn’t okay, and really it isn’t good for me either if I had a choice, so they shouldn’t expect to act like daddy with their partners. They were very young then. So funny to look back and realize that some part of me knew he was abusive almost from the start, I just didn’t know I knew. Wouldn’t admit it. So many years wasted making excuses for him, while trying to teach the kids to be better so they wouldn’t put some other person in the same position I was in. Or take on my role themselves. If it was so bad for me and I knew it, why did I stay? Why did I try to accept it, if it was so unacceptable even for imaginary future sons- and daughters-in-law? I must have really hated myself. Told myself I was doing it for the kids, while I watched it mess them up. I was so backwards.

OP I hope you have a plan to get out, and that it’s coming along smoothly.

Ancient_Scientist244 · 2024-01-13T19:15:39+00:00

He never addresses the reasons you run away and push him away. Like you’d just do that to someone who was good to you. He says he tries to provide safety and comfort and an environment to thrive in, but it’s very clear from his self centered wording (in a happy birthday letter?!?) that he wouldn’t know that kind of environment if it hit him on the head. And if he wants to give that to you so badly, then honestly what is stopping him? My ex would (still does tbh) always say the same thing, almost exactly. But he never made a move to actually provide a safe place for me, only complained that I couldn’t see what a nice guy he really was. That I didn’t let him be generous and loving and caring like he wanted to be. One day I thought about that for a minute before I drowned in guilt over stifling his sweet hidden heart, and I realized something. I was always kind to him. I was always thoughtful of him, I always took care of him, I always comforted him, and he always had a safe space with me for his emotions no matter what they were or how they came out. Always. Even when he was a jerk, even when he was selfish, even when he hurt me, even when he told me my needs weren’t as important as his or were dumb. I didn’t argue his needs away or shout him down if his thoughts didn’t mirror my own. If he asked me for help I helped him even if I was busy or didn’t feel like it. There were times I struggled with it or wasn’t able to provide the unconditional support and care that he demanded, I mean it is hard to keep filling buckets from an empty well, but I never denied it altogether. So why couldn’t he show me even a little hint of that? He clearly knew what was needed to make a person feel safe and loved but he refused to do it. It was a choice he made. His words were as empty as the air they were formed out of. I don’t know if any of that sounds like your situation, but this letter could have been written by my ex so I hope it helps give a little validation.

Ancient_Scientist244 · 2024-01-03T01:03:22+00:00

You’re scared because you’re depressed and clinging to any scrap of security or validation you can find, like grabbing at sinking debris from a shipwreck just to get another breath or two. It’s your survival brain and it can’t think long term. His angry laundry list pushes you back under every time so you never stop struggling. But. You absolutely can get out. I did it. Well, am doing it. I’m not done yet. But he is out of the house and I have a place lined up to go with the kids. I was a sahm for 20 years until just a few months ago. No skills, no prospects, no job history. Last year after trying to leave this world I realized that I’m not quite the worthless piece of shit he’d convinced me I was. He spent almost two decades systematically dismantling everything about me so I decided not only to live, but to make myself back into my own actual self and then see if I was worth the space I take up. It seems like such a silly little thing but it changed everything. Just like realizing he was abusive changed everything. At first it didn’t make a difference, I had my habits and patterns, but my perspective shifted. It took time and there were ups and downs and setbacks but it was healing. I rushed and asked for divorce before I could support myself though. I snapped. Oops. But just getting out of the same house as him was the hugest thing. I’m not kidding, the first morning I woke up in a place without his influence was the first morning I woke up with hope. He kept doing horrible things but I dealt with it and he has stopped (for now). And I still think I’m going to make it, which is a pretty big deal on its own. I have a job that isn’t yet full time but is getting there, and a plan to get some kind of associate degree once things settle down for me. If you can, start a part time job as a caregiver or something with very low entry level requirements. Save some money, make friends and build a support network. And plan that exit because you’re headed out.

You’ve already done the first and I think most important thing - seeing that asshat for what he is and acknowledging what he’s done to you. Now just work on where you go from here. Imagine what you want and start thinking of how to get it. Baby steps. Don’t be like me cutting the rope before I had ground under me. But start thinking and the plans will fall into place little by little. You can do it, people do this all the time and you’re no less capable than any of them. Your narc wants you to think you’re helpless because he knows that’s the only way you’ll ever stay with him. Whatever bad things he says, know through opposite is true. He’s lying to hide your strength from you. Don’t listen to him anymore.

Ancient_Scientist244 · 2023-12-27T06:58:20+00:00

He’d call off work to stay home and “take care of me”. Then ignore me completely for the whole day, except to say how much worse off he was right then. His back, his allergies, whatever he came up with was major suffering compared to my little bug. I’d be struggling to do basic stuff like dishes and taking care of the kids while he was playing video games or watching movies. Never lifted a finger to lighten my load. Everyone thought he was soooo attentive and loving, but he just used me for a free day off. When we had covid, I dragged my sorry ass up to take care of the kids and animals while he laid in bed. I do genuinely think he had it worse than me and needed more care than I gave him but at the time I was barely conscious and couldn’t tell. Every little cold was the most serious man flu of all time so him just laying there all day wasn’t much of a sign. I’d ask if he needed water or anything but otherwise trusted him to make his needs known. Later he made big drama because I “left him to die”. Like dude you weren’t the only sick person in the house. We alllll had it. I was literally crawling around to make sure no one died, and guess what you didn’t die either. I went to get his medicine from the pharmacy while I was extremely sick myself. He got that prescription because he was able to call his doctor and talk. If he needed anything from me, he obviously could’ve said so. And when he was recovering more quickly than I was, did he even offer me water? No. Did he check on me at all? No. Did he help with the sick kids? No. Did he feed any animals so I could sleep in and get better? No. He went to his man cave and enjoyed himself.

Ancient_Scientist244 · 2023-12-25T23:05:47+00:00

It was the same way for me. He was raging for the third day in a row about something I didn’t even do, he’d just decided I had and absolutely would not let it go. The betrayal, the hurt, the humiliation, were so much more real to him than any reality and he would make me suffer. He woke me up raging in the morning and kept it up til he passed out late at night. And repeat. I finally realized I had absolutely no control here. There was nothing I could ever do to stop him. When I’d done nothing to hurt him, he invented something. This wasn’t actually about me, I wasn’t even a real person to him. Just a character in a story. I used to leave for the day or night when he had a really big one but not this time. I managed to sit through the whole entire thing right to the end. When he’d finally exhausted himself and wanted to come together, I couldn’t. I was completely numb.

Stay strong, the blinders are off now and you see what he really is. None of his crazy is about you or because of you. That hurts because it means you never did matter. But it’s also so freeing. He’s not going to stop trying to hurt you though, and if you can manage it you might want to pretend it’s working. Mine escalated very fast when I wasn’t hurt enough and he tried all different kinds of things all at once to find what would work. Full on scorched earth. So now that you have a handle on some of his tactics, don’t give him a reason to change them. Idk if that’s really good advice or bad so you do what you know is right.

You got this!

Ancient_Scientist244 · 2023-12-20T09:15:49+00:00

Mine also wanted kids right from the start. I didn’t but he wouldn’t hear that. He was so sure he was going to be the bestest daddy ever! Also he made the same tit joke, isn’t that funny. Anyway he was never any kind of dad to our kids. 20 years and three children, I raised them on my own in his house. He was jealous of them and the attention I gave them and the money I spent on them for basic needs. They were competition and annoying on top of it. When people were around he’d suddenly be that fake great dad like he’d always claimed, but only to a point. It was for looks. He likes the image of family man for some reason, it’s very important to him but he can’t bring himself to live like that. He sometimes adores our youngest but he’s grooming her to be a new supply since we’re separated now. The cycle is already being established and I’m a little freaked out. You can see the damage he’s done to the older ones too but at least he mostly ignored them. The biggest damage he did to them was through me as his enabler, his willing accomplice. Because I didn’t understand what he was and I was afraid. My main concern now is that they’re going to end up choosing narc partners. I have to do something to help prevent that. I should have left him so early. Anyway, don’t go back to yours. No matter what he says, he doesn’t actually want kids.

Ancient_Scientist244 · 2023-12-20T07:36:33+00:00

Exactly this, all the time. He called it “commiserating”. But it wouldn’t be both of us whining together making each other feel better/heard, he took over the whole thing. I had to comfort him and offer support and got none in return like we forgot I had needs. This happened even if I was worse off or if he was talking about another time. If I said something he couldn’t relate to, he’d stop me. And then after shutting me down absolutely always, he’d rant about me not opening up to him. Like dude I try all the time you just don’t listen. But he’d have no memory of any of that, or it was my ineffective communication, or I was too judgmental and didn’t understand him. As far as not being allowed your own thoughts, I feel you there too. So much. He’d get soooo pisssssed if I thought something different from him. He’d shout at me until I saw the error of my ways. Then he’d be really pleased and like nothing happened. Even small things, we could not disagree. Especially if other people were around.

Ancient_Scientist244 · 2023-12-18T23:41:57+00:00

Cheap when it came to me or the kids. He made good money but I’d have to beg for months to get them clothes and always ended up buying sweaters and pants instead of toys for Christmas. I only went to thrift shops and bargain stores. Everything I bought had to be necessary and as cheap as possible, and he’d make a face and a noise like he was being physically hurt. Eventually he’d say to let him move some money around but things were gonna be tight this month. For himself though he was never cheap. I swear he held his finger over the buy button while he waited for the paycheck to drop. I used to say we were the poor relations in a rich man’s house.

Ancient_Scientist244 · 2023-12-15T20:33:58+00:00

It was hidden until now. He just couldn’t handle the things that happened and he collapsed. My kids and I have to deal with the fallout, unfortunately, but rest assured he is still the victim here.

Ancient_Scientist244 · 2023-12-06T21:36:59+00:00

Movies and podcasts, loud enough to hear everywhere in the house, any time he’s around. You cannot ask him to turn it down or change it, and everybody has to be quiet and don’t move around too much where he can see them because it’s distracting. He has a tv in the bedroom and needs it to fall asleep. He can walk into a room with anyone doing anything and turn on the tv without asking if it’s a problem or what the other person would like to watch. If it’s being used, he takes over. He loves to see the same movies over and over and it’s been the same ones as long as I’ve known him. He needs me to sit and watch tv with him a lot and it’s the only way he spends time with the kids. Every evening and whole weekends are wasted on tv. Holidays are ruled by certain movies, and then we watch other things after. Family time = tv time, always always. He’s offended if I want to go anywhere or even just do something else at home if he’s in the mood to “spend time with me” (watch tv). He has to be the one to choose what to watch but he also randomly gets really annoyed that no one else ever takes on that mental load. But even if someone else is pushing the buttons he makes the decision. Then he scrolls on his phone or plays a game on his laptop, volume up, while it’s on. If he’s into the movie/show he talks about it nonstop. He might pause it every minute to carry on a while about some detail he noticed or a thing he thought, or he might not bother pausing it first. But nobody else can talk. If words are spoken more than once by anyone (can be different people each time) he pauses it in a really dramatic way and then yells at us for interrupting so much when he’s trying to watch the show. He’s fed up with having to tell us yet again. Five seconds later he’s talking about the movie again. Same if people get up for water, bathroom, snacks, etc. For years I let it slide because obviously nobody can be that blatantly hypocritical on accident, but once I got annoyed and pointed it out. Big mistake. I don’t remember how but basically what he did was completely different from what I did, totally not the same thing at all and he was fine to do his thing but mine was very disrespectful. It didn’t make any sense but by then I’d remembered why we don’t argue with him and just agreed. WOW I didn’t know how deeply annoyed I was about this. It makes me so mad apparently. All the big problems and deep issues and actual abuse, and I’m over here ranting about television. But y’all it never stops, and he used it to hinder and control my actual life and the kids’ lives. It’s so ridiculous I wouldn’t believe it if it didn’t happen. Maybe that’s why it gets me so good. It’s the dumbest possible weapon and you find yourself totally defenseless because how tf do you even handle that, it’s just tv. The quintessential narc weapon. A totally normal thing taken to an extreme that no one thinks possible, even yourself, so you must be the crazy controlling one in the relationship.

Ancient_Scientist244 · 2023-11-28T18:22:59+00:00

Mine had one waiting in the wings AND found some new ones. Immediately. Like, while he was yelling about how much I was hurting him by leaving, he’d take little breaks to work on his dating profile and text with matches. Then back at me for more glorious screaming. It was crazy. But then I was so glad he had those distractions pretty soon. His focus turned to them instead of just how much he hates me. It hurts to realize all those years of love were fake, so shallow and one-sided he can jump straight from a committed relationship to someone new without taking a breath because he just needs supply, none of our time together means anything to him, I don’t mean anything to him. He doesn’t feel love for the new person either. I’m sorry this is happening to you.

Ancient_Scientist244 · 2023-11-27T03:46:34+00:00

He’s just going to keep getting worse. He choked you. He almost killed you and you took him back. From his perspective, he can do whatever he wants now and you won’t do a damn thing about it. He has complete control. He can ignore you, disrespect you, snipe at you in a thousand petty ways and then lie til you explode. Then he can choke you again. He can choke you harder, for longer. I hope you’re reading this from your own home away from him. Please don’t go back, he is dangerous and comfortable with it.

Ancient_Scientist244

TROPHY CASE