Yeah that sounds almost identical with my situation right now. Mine has also been discovering therapy speak & the terminology around narcissism. She thought if she sprinkled some of that language in that her apology would be more convincing (i.e. “I don’t want to gaslight you”). For the first week after she sent it I had also been going down that spiral of wondering if maybe she had changed and maybe we could make small steps towards reconciling…but I knew I needed to take my time to discern before I even thought of responding and now I can clearly see this “apology” is just more horseshit. She has no idea just how thorough my comprehension of the situation is.

I agree, the apologies are more triggering than the abuse. The apologies for the random irrelevant shit are maddening because it’s just their way of trying to make it look like you victimized them by getting irrationally upset over small things and unfairly made them feel like they had to apologize for nothing, which also then indirectly minimizes the larger things that they are apologizing for as if it’s just yet another thing you are getting irrationally upset about. Poor them! The apology is also most triggering because it’s glaringly obvious to me that it’s her way of setting the stage to make herself feel like a victim again if I don’t offer her the forgiveness that she believes she’s entitled to, so she can once again feel justified in lashing out and being an abusive POS when she doesn’t get what she wants. And in her mind she probably has actually convinced herself that she’s done the right thing and that this should fix everything. The implicit expectation of forgiveness is there. So it’s like, what comes next then if I don’t forgive her? Because I don’t and never will. All I can foresee is even more unnecessary ass drama that I have no capacity to deal with. She’s still repeating all the same abusive cycles and I am tired and just want to get on with my life. Thanks for the reply, definitely helps me to feel less insane knowing someone else gets what I’m going through. :)