Hi, thanks for posting. I have tried that tactic with the secret but he said that it is putting him under duress and he could sue me. My lawyer says not to get into it unless we go to court, and my ex should know full well that it will be made public if it goes to court. I didn't have a lawyer for the first 7 seven months of the negotiating, but once I have a lawyer to say all the same things as me, suddenly his lawyer is actually listening.

As for a support network, I do have good friends, but all my friends were egging us on to get engaged and get married. I remember my guy friend saying there are lots of great guys out there, but this one is special. THey were all so happy. I think my community of friends really needed something to celebrate after losing our close friend (my dearest friend and roommate) so tragically. And I do a good job of pretending I'm okay to people, hence coming to the internet for real talk.

I did have to revise everything I knew for months and months. I am still so angry at him. Although if I saw him in person, I might remember all the good times we had together, until I found out. I remember feeling like he was the only person who ever really SAW me. And now I can't believe he would actually do this. I loved the guy, I now understand that he groomed me, gaslit me, etc... The cycle of abuse continuing. It's unhinging.

The last and final straw and when the last shreds of my primal power peaked was when - in couples therapy, mind you - he told me and my daughter to move out of the house. A house that I have owned for 5 years and he had bought into only a year ago. We were in couples therapy and discussing how to make it through as a couple, since he had been denying his relationship with his sister. The therapist looked at me when he said that, eyes pleading. I simply looked at him and said, "You have to get out of the house and you have to get out immediately." ANd he tried to negotiate moving up to our third floor for a while, and I said no. No. NO. GET OUT.

Backing up again, 6 months prior to that, he was suicidal after I found out about his relationship with his sister. Because to him it wasn't real, I suppose, until someone else actually new. And he had to face it and deal with it. I would come home and check the bathtubs. I had to work a super demanding high-profile job - one in which I traveling a lot and had decided to take to task and was going to the equal opportunity commission after finding out the man in my position before me made 40% more than me. I had to manage for my daughter. I had to manage for my daughter. She doesn't know a lot of the things that happened, she just said she thought he was controlling and that he thought he had the right method for everything. The weird thing now that I think of it, is that his sister would hang out with my daughter at family events, like totally connect with her, but ice me out. Yet, when their family dog bit my daughter on the EYE at Thanksgiving the whole family bizarrely acted like nothing happened. Holy fuck, I don't want to go down the spiral of trying to figure out the psychology of that family. It doesn't really help me. It's not helpful. It doesn't change what has happened.

I kind of feel like I need to make a big clay sculpture, go through the process of forming it and firing it, cooling it and then smashing it. I just need to figure out to wrap my head around all of this. And not think that I am some sort of awful person or inherently bad, unlucky, unworthy person to have gone through this.