Married for 13 years. Four kids. We were able to keep things "good" for the most part. Functioning. Social. Kept face. Decent home life, normal ups and downs.
This last year, he has been unemployed (for the 3rd time in our marriage), and our relationship "issues" have been magnified.
I have been in therapy for years for myself, and ever since my therapist brought up the possibility of my husband being a narcissist, I tried to argue "oh no, he cares, he has empathy, he can't be, he's a good dad, he tries."
This current situation has blown my mind and the blinders are finally off my eyes. I see it all. I see all the manipulation. I SEE IT ALL, AND I CAN'T UNSEE IT.
The way he love-bombed me at the beginning.
The way I shrink to keep the peace.
The way I hold myself back to ensure he is okay.
The control over anything and everything I do.
The way I don't do things to make sure he stays happy or doesn't start an argument.
The way he belittles me in any way possible makes me feel small.
Subtle...
Over time, they planted their seeds in me. I believed it was love, care, loyalty, and what a partnership was. Until I woke up and saw what was happening around me when I started holding my boundary and not feeding his ego anymore.
I have asked for space, over and over and over again, and he can't do it. He can't leave me alone because he needs his ego fed. "Why don't you respect me? Why can't you love me? I can't get a job if we aren't good. You are making the kids feel awful the way you are ignoring me. You never want to talk just talk to me ME ME ME LOOK AT ME SEE ME GIVE ME SOMETHING"
I won't do it anymore. My nervous system is FRIED.
I stayed home on the 4th of July and let him go to his parents with the kids because I need to try to and get back to baseline. He immediately tells my brother he thinks I'm having an affair. Who then told every other one of my siblings. I am clearly NOT having an affair, and he is trying to triangulate the situation and paint himself the victim yet again.
Can someone else validate what I'm feeling?
Pure shock? embarrassment? shame? rage? And an incomprehensible sadness that I can no longer be in this relationship and will have to raise my kids in a broken home if I choose myself?
Will it be okay? I am a child of divorce. I turned out okay (minus the whole marrying a narc thing), but like truly, can someone who's been through it with kids just tell me it will be okay?
I have had dreams of us being divorced (like actual dreams in my sleep), and all I feel is relief that I don't have to ask permission anymore. Relief that I don't have to tend to his emotions. But the weight of everything else (the kids, financially, the coparenting) makes me question whether I should suck it up and swallow my needs until the kids are grown.
Please help validate or give your experience.
I've been coming across that term recently (Survivor), and I guess I never thought of it like that - I'm a survivor of... living? But, I mean... it's true. When you're brought up in a home where your caretakers are essentially trying to destroy you, I mean - what else is it?
I remember when I got my first apartment (loved that place) - I would have these sessions where I would just sit on the floor, leaning against the wall - breathing deeply for 40 mins sometimes. It was as though years of compacted, oh, I dunno - emotions? - just found themselves unfurling. I wasn't weeping or anything, just... decompressing. Sitting in that apartment was the first time I ever felt comfortable - on the floor in that little one bedroom... .
I'll never understand it; the utter selfishness, the deceit, the predatoriness... How can someone bring a child into the world and never allow them to be comfortable? And then - did they know what they were doing the whole time? I know it's a pathology, but still... We're all cognizant of our behaviour, unless... we're REALLY whack - right?
Thnx.
I finally left a little over a month ago and I’m feeling so anxious and overwhelmed. I had no idea somebody I married could be like this. We have 2 young toddlers and I’ve been a SAHM the past year with them but to spite me he’s asking for 50/50 and making it his mission to ruin my life with all of this. He’s gotten his family members to fly in and be babysitters and hold kids from me just to “win” and have his “deserved time” with them. There’s so many details and events that have already happened not even including everything he’s done the past 4 years but I felt so unprepared when I finally left to go stay with a family member. He hit me with all of the craziest things to keep trying to reel me in and then flipped a switch on me when he realized he’d lost control over me. Freaking out about me not sharing my location anymore, freaking out that I’m not using our shared bank account anymore that he moves money into after I’ve asked and told him what it’s for (diapers, groceries, etc.) I’d have to wait until he moved the money so he could track my transaction and then ream me out over a couple bucks if I didn’t spend it to his liking. “Ruining our financial future” because I bought 10 outfits for the kids in the season change instead of 8. Never ending. I can’t do anything right and he’s always right no matter what. It feels like even with me getting an attorney he’s still going to somehow lie and manipulate everybody he knows into taking the kids and not having to support me when he made me quit my job and left me with $0 now. I’m in the worst of this right now and idk how I will EVER get through this part and have to coparent with this person. Sorry this was all over the place, that’s how my brain is operating now. Whew 😅
Hello everyone.
I'm F(27) live with my abusive Narc mother and want to move out. I have already paid deposit for a place and sneaked my stuff out with the help of a coworker. I'm supposed to move out in a week and I'm terrified. I feel frozen and doubting myself. I have no idea what I would tell her and I'm so scared of how she would react. I've planned to just move one day after work and only tell her that I'm going away on a vacation or something after I'm at my place. I've also thought to tell her that I've left my current job and got a new remote one because she might go to office and cause a scene there. I planned to work from home and told a coworker of my situation and to tell her if she does come that I no longer work there anymore.
But I'm also scared because I dont want to be physically harmed ever again. She is unhinged and unpredictable. I do not feel safe with her ever and she is creepily possessive and paranoid. The only thing she cares about is that we never separate and I never go anywhere away from her. She has beaten me, thrown a glass cup at me, held a knife at me, and threatened to end her life multiple times when she thought I might leave her before. She has also already been to icu after losing her shit on me and blamed for it. I'm scared that when I move something similar will happen or that she will try to find me and hurt me.
For context, I come from a super religious Middle Eastern family and currently live in my home country. I grew up traveling to different countries abroad. As a result, I don't have any close ties to my family and my closest friends are not in my home country. So I feel like I have no one here and I feel isolated and alone. Women were I come from are just expected to be obedient and live with their family until marriage. This is one of the reasons that's making me scared because my family would go crazy when I move just for the cultural/religious reasons alone. I'm scared that she will get the men of the family involved and they will try to find me and force me back.
On top of that my family is dysfunctional and abusive as fuck. My grandparents were abusive towards my mother and my mother is abusive towards everyone. My parents are divorced and my father has always been unavailable, doesn't even call or text me. My mother was the one who raised me and provided for me. She married my dad to escape the generational trauma and abuse in her family. Which turned out to be a horrible idea. I always felt like she wanted someone to give her all of which she never had from her parents. She wanted a family, someone to provide and take care of her, someone to rely upon. My dad didn't do any of that and somehow she turned her eyes on me. She expects me to be that person who does all those things for her. I've always felt like she resented having to take care of me and couldn't wait for me to grow up already so that I could take care of her. I've always felt like our roles were reversed like I had to parent her while she behaved childishly demanding attention and care from me while my needs were constantly neglected.
She expected me to be her best friend and therapist, oversharing her issues with me and wanting me to fix them. She has a fear of abandonment where she told me when I was 9 that I will abandon and leave her alone. Everything she does is to guarantee that I'm dependent on her and that we live together forever. She has always brought me down and tried to convince me that something is wrong with me and that she's only tolerating me because she's my mother. Always telling me that no one would ever love me because even she hates me. Said that she's waiting fir the day I get married so that my husband and his family see how awful I am and she can finally feel validated of how much she had to endure because of me.
I also grew up extremely sheltered as she never allowed me to do normal child/teenage things like go out with my friends and have sleepover or go on school trips. People always gave her excuses because I'm her only child and she's worried about me. But she always made me feel guilty for wanting to have a life and experience things as if there's something wrong with that or with the experience itself. Like she would come up with the most paranoid theories about how the people I'm meeting could be spies or get me into prostitution or how the mere act of getting on the bus with a guy friend is immoral.
Our relationship became worse when I went to college (I studied abroad while she was working in that country). That was the only time i started to have a life of my own. I created a support group with amazing friends and boyfriend. I finally felt like I'm not alone. But she became jealous of my friends and didn't like me seeing them often. If I went out once a week that would already be too much and I don't need to see them the week after. She would say things like why do you spend so much time with your friends but not with me? Why do you hug your friend but not me? Why does your friend stay in your room and not me? Then she would try to threaten to ruin my friendships by saying that she would "expose me" to them after we have a fight. I told her to go ahead and do it since my friends already knew everything which pissed her off even further.
I worked really hard in college because I knew that I had to be financially independent as soon as possible. (sadly I couldn't work as a student because that country didn't allow it). She knew how much I cared about my studies and college so she would threaten to not take me to college or take away my laptop with all my work on it. I don't drive and there was no public transportation that could've taken me to college. So I called my friend and she drove me to college and again my mother was pissed.
Covid came and she had to leave back to our home country. She went insane because she didn't want me to stay and continue my studies while she goes back. She made the entire thing about her and how she needed comforting completely disregarding how stressful the situation was for me. I had one year left and I wanted to finish my studies at the same college but she wanted me to go back to my home country even if that meant I would redo additional semesters/years because to her that's better than us being separated. She called me a traitor, selfish, she spat in my face, and started to threaten harming herself.
I did end up going back to my home country due to a lot of complications and it broke me. I went from feeling like I had support and I wasn't alone to going back to a place I've rarely lived in with zero support and guaranteed isolation plus dependency on my mother. During this time there were lots of fights in my family as well. Both my grandparents wanted to leave me money and she did everything in her power to not let me get that money. Saying that her money is my money.
At the same time, my grandmother from my dad's side passed away. I was heartbroken and I thought maybe I should go live with him so that he's not alone. Maybe we could get to know each other again and rebuild our relationship. I was also desperately seeking help and wanting to feel like I have any kind of family in this country everyone calls my home. I went to offer my condolences to him and he ended up congratulating me because now I have 3 year old brother. I was shattered. Not because he has his own family now, but because he never bothered to be my family when I needed him the most. He doesn't know anything about me because he never reaches out. I was doing my masters degree at that time and the only thing he cared about was that I needed to focus on being a caring sister instead of my studies. I left immediately and went back to my mom.
I still couldn't tolerate living with her so I tried to go to my grandfather and live with him instead. But he offered me no support and wouldn't do anything when she abused me but told me that I needed to go along with it because she's not right in the head and she's my mother. So again, I left and went back to her.
Thankfully by that time, I have gotten my own job and started saving my salary. I reached the conclusion that I have no family or support here and I thought if I left somewhere I would be safe. I wanted to travel to my boyfriend who I've been with for the past 8 years since college. He has always been supportive and always been there for me. We both wanted to end the long distance after the pandemic but I was scared because I didn't want to run away to another person like I tried with my dad and grandfather. I didn't want to repeat what my mother did when she married my dad. I wanted to be with him because I love him not because I was trying to escape. I also wanted to be independent and live on my own before deciding to move together or anything. He was understanding and we tried to look for ways so I could try to travel and live on my own over there while working remotely. This kept going until the plan changed and he decided to study abroad. He asked me to come with him but I couldn't afford it but I've always wanted to do a PhD so I thought I could apply for funding. I got accepted but I didn't get funding. At the same time we had some difficulties and became distant. We haven't been speaking for a while and he's going through a difficult time over there with his studies and finding work. He said that it would be unfair for me to go through these difficulties with him. That he wanted space because he can't expect to pile on my issues even though I want to do anything to support him. Now I don't know if we'll ever talk again or if things are ending between us or not.
So now I feel totally lost and alone here with no support. I never felt like I had a home but my boyfriend was like my safe space all those years especially after coming back here. Now that things are uncertain between us and all the future we dreamed together might not be happening, I feel like I must take action and have a safe place of my own. I can't keep waiting for someone to save me even though I desperately need help and support more than anything. I know that moving out is the right decision for me but I'm absolutely terrified and the anxiety is killing me.
I also feel guilt that my mother is alone and doesn't have anyone to take care of her. She's not in good health and has back issues. She is married but her husband is an asshole and doesn't stay with her most of the time. I have tried to convince her to get a maid to stay with her but she's refusing even though she can afford it and says she doesn't need a maid because she has me. I can't do this anymore. I can't be her maid/caretaker. I've already done that role for years. I hate this house. There's so much trauma in it. I just want to feel safe and calm and to feel like I finally have my own place where no one shouts or curses me. But I'm so scared of leaving. I'm scared of dealing with it on my own. I wish I had my friends/ boyfriend with me but I'm alone here. I don't know what I should say to my mother when I leave or how to deal with anything that will follow. I don't know how to deal with this anxiety either.
I need some kind of advice or perspective for how to handle this or what to say when I leave or if anyone can share their experiences and how things turned out for them, I would really appreciate it.
Can one change their narcissistic behaviours?
Problem/Goal:** **I'm curious to hear from people whose relationships started out toxic but eventually became healthy because both partners were willing to put in the work.
Context: My relationship is okay—I’m not asking because I’m currently in a toxic relationship. I’m just genuinely curious about how a relationship can go from being so unhealthy to becoming stable and loving, if it really can.
Previous Attempt: What changed? What did each of you have to work on? Was it therapy, better communication, setting boundaries, or something else?
Looking back, do you feel like working through those struggles together was part of what love is supposed to be, or do you think healthy love shouldn’t have to start that way?
I’d really appreciate hearing your experiences and perspectives. No judgment—just hoping to learn from people who have lived through it.
i feel as though i am at the ending stages of my grief. i still get frustrated and angry at everything he’s done and the ways he treated me that i never deserved. i get angry at the way he flipped the narrative at the end to make me look like the villain just so he could walk away looking like “the good guy” and like i was just “too much”. (but when i’d tell him he couldn’t handle me during the relationship he’d get defensive and act hurt lol). i still get angry at how after 6 years together on and off, a two year marriage (long story, i think he tried to trap me bc clearly he didn’t want a future with me..? anyway-), moving in together, talks of a future and children just for him to ultimately discard me with his tail tucked between his legs to scurry off and find someone else to pretend to “save” until they ultimately become the villain in his story too. but it’s been a year and one month now. and i no longer cry over him of grieve the future. i see him clearly for who he is. i have almost accepted that he will not come back. and most of the day my mind is free from him, until something reminds me and i go down a rabbit hole of all the convoluted bs he put me through like i’m gonna find some sort of hidden answer to why he did what he did or what any of that meant. so how did you finally “get over it”? like i know there is no fully getting over emotional abuse but… i just want to move on with my life and not care so bad atp. like i can guarantee he’s not sitting at home (or next to his new wife) being anywhere near as introspective as me or remorseful over the relationship. anytime i think about it, it just feels like im giving him more of the power he wants :/ so any advice?
Hey there - 14 months post being ghosted (after 9 years), then sued 2 weeks before Christmas, and recently attempted to take my own life. Trying to fight being sued, the legal system is built to take advantage of us.
Been doing therapy, recently discovered a therapist specializing in narcissistic abuse. Therapy doesn’t work for me - I ruminate, feel intense, intense longing, loneliness, the pain is crazy. Just trying to stay alive over here.
Is there a virtual support group that anyone has discovered or joined? Not enough people understand narcissistic abuse and coercive control I’ve discovered - people just think you’re depressed and dramatic.
There is a lot more behind it that is absolutely cruel and insidious - but here I am, just wishing I could go back to before, and command + z the last 14 months of my life, and realistically the 9 years before that.
Why do I keep hoping, knowing they don’t care and that I’m literally no one to them?
Something I’ve seen in many of these subs, is that at least most people have some form of contact. It was literally nothing at all for me, just blocked everywhere and that was it.
I found in my husbands(now ex) emails a reset password for Grindr account i then downloaded the app which was in his app store search bar along with other dating apps. And then i reset password again and logged on to account. I see that he had try to meet someone at a date when he wasnt home with no success, and then then night before i discovered the reset password in email he had met a man who live a 1 km from our house and wasnt at home at time of messages giving direction and locations that match where we live. Hes is claiming to be hacked which i know is utter bs just need some clarity as he is constantly going on about it as we still have contact due to a son that we have. Thoughts please...
I wanted to share a very practical approach to dealing with the endless mental loops, the "what-ifs", and the intrusive thoughts that hit after leaving or being discarded by a narcissist.
I recently stopped trying to analyze the content of my thoughts and started treating them like mechanical system errors. I boiled it down to a three-step rule that is saving my sanity right now.
Basically:
It takes the power away from the narcissist's ghost in your head and puts you back in control of your own reality.
I really need to understand if I’m in the wrong here. Me and my mother just cannot see eye to eye on these matters, and I don’t know why.
My issue with my mother is that she is very very very controlling and never gave me the freedom to grow up and live how I wanted to live and bc of this reason I am now 22 and divorced.
Let me give some examples. She tells me that I’m not allowed to cut my hair, dye my hair, get a nose piercing, and absolutely NOT allowed to wear makeup. She gives me a strict curfew and I’m not allowed to be past that curfew. She tells me that I cannot be in bed in the morning past 11 AM. She tells me that I need to grow up and that as you get older, you realize you can’t sleep in?? She says life isn’t proper this way? She tells me that unmarried girls should not put on make up and the ONLY time I ever explored makeup or was allowed near it was after I had gotten married. Naturally, I fell in love with it and now that I’m divorced I want to continue putting it on and living life for myself but the other day I put it on to go to my aunts house and my mom’s tactic is that if I do anything to upset her and if I don’t listen to all of her decisions she uses the silent treatment to guilt trip me. And that day, I asked her what’s wrong with putting it on and she was saying that you are not married anymore and she said word for word “ you have to live the same way you were before you got married” but who is she to make these rules?! I AM ALMOST 23!!!!!!! Like wtf?
As long as I’m not disrespecting her, working (I genuinely only sleep in on my days off), trying my best, learning, growing, helping in the house… and just doing what a good daughter does why can’t I make these little decisions for myself? She thinks I’m disrespectful when I say no to something she says, and I don’t understand how or why. I told her if she thinks being a respectful daughter is saying yes to everything she says then I can’t help her. And I genuinely don’t feel bad bc my ENTIRE life has been spent running on her commands and wishes like a puppet and I’m so tired of it.
And my divorce has changed me in ways I can never explain. She cussed out my ex and called him a bastard when he was divorcing me, and naturally would have a problem whenever he would politely decline her or tell her no or disagree with her bc she wanted to control him the same way she’s controlled me my entire life, but he wasn’t the type of guy to be controlled. I’m not blaming my mom for my divorce bc at the end of the day, he was a rapist and he was abusive towards me, but I’m trying to explain that I have this 15% - 20% of bitterness towards my mother for playing a tiny part in causing a rift between me and my ex bc she would pry on our personal life and ask about our sexual life. Like for example I took off my location as my husband (at the time) wasn’t comfortable with it, and my mom gave me the silent treatment and went on to say that I betrayed her. Kept asking if I had sex with him and ofc he wasn’t comfortable with her asking this. Anyway, that chapter of my life is gone. I’m just bringing this up to share my bitter feelings. I’m also the only daughter and sister of 3 brothers and naturally my mom is very protective of me and attached to me. My mother’s parents and siblings all live in Seattle. We all live a few mins away from each other. Naturally, sometimes I share some of my problems with my mom and she would call her mom and her siblings and there was absolutely no privacy and everyone would end up finding out about the problems I had shared with my mom. And I will take responsibility for this as I didn’t understand how to establish these boundaries. I turned her down many times when she would ask about my sexual life and when she would pry. I did everything I could, but my mother is on a different level of emotional abuse and strained me that I ended up telling her bc I feared for my life that she would get so mad if I didn’t. Just giving examples. And when I’d share little problems with her out of frustration, she would tell everyone.
Let me give an example. I was trying to explain the concept of privacy to her and how she can’t just go around and tell everyone my business. Like what happened is that I have one ovary and when I tell you my aunts, uncles, grandparents, and everyone knows it’s so embarrassing and she never asked me before telling them. Now you may ask, how does your mom know? She has access to my medical information (all my passwords and usernames) and obviously when I found this out for the first time I panicked and told my mom. She goes on to expose how my ex “used” me for the last time before divorcing me in front of my UNCLE. Like what’s the reason to even say this? Now you may ask how does she know that you guys had sex. We did it in my parents house in the room next to theirs bc we were on vacation visiting my parents in Seattle here before he left me in Seattle and left to go back to Canada and then called me 2 weeks later to divorce me. And I still cannot even look my uncle in the eyes bc I feel so embarrassed cause my mother can’t watch her words.
When I got divorced, she went on to apologize and tell me that she’s sorry for controlling my life and for not giving me the freedom to be myself which has made me end up in the position today as this marriage was my moms decision. Ofc I agreed and bc I had grown-up thinking that I can’t upset her and that whatever decision she makes for me I have to say yes. And now the same pattern continues and I’m trying to break it bc I’m so sick and tired of living like this.
It’s made going through my divorce so much more difficult. The one thing marriage gave me was freedom. The first time I ever cut my hair was after I had gotten married and I felt so free. I can’t move out at the moment for cultural and religious reasons, so please don’t give me that advice and I also have an anxious personality, so it’s not easy to just ignore her.
Any advice at ALL?
After 17 years and couples counseling I know my partner is a narcissist.
Every time he goes into a rage and devalues me and we get to the point of me saying I think we are better off apart he points out my weaknesses that I have in the relationship like I’m not a great communicator (which I believe has gotten worse because I’m afraid to talk about me feelings) and how I’m more passive (which I am) and uses those things and my accountability to tell me I’m the one giving up on the relationship and I must not care about him or the relationship. It guilts me into apologizing and saying I will try to be better at my weaknesses. I even say well maybe I’m just not capable of it and he says that’s not it and if I loved him I could do it.
This guilt trip always makes me stay because I think if I could just do better this would all be better. And I try and try and it’s always ends up back to square one in a cycle
At this point I truly don’t know what else to do but the thought of me being the issue and striving to try always keeps me in. Has anyone else struggles with this and how did you get past it?
So yesterday I needed to bring my daughter something to her house. and then after she left for work, I stuck around and talked to her fiancé about planning her birthday coming up this month.
When I got home, my (covert narc) husband threw a big baby fit about it and was saying that he was jealous, and he didn’t understand why I would want to talk to her fiancé for that long. What could I possibly be talking about even after I told him my answer, it wasn’t good enough. Then he stomps down the hallway, goes to the bedroom slams the door and then I get the silent treatment rest of that night and the next morning.
Fast-forward to tonight, and my daughter comes to our house today because the exterminator is spraying her house and she needs to sleep before her next overnight shift in the ICU.
A couple hours later her fiancé shows up and he watches TV in the living room while I’m working from home in my office.
After I get off work, I start making dinner, my husband comes home and we all sit down and eat. Then my daughter leaves to go to work and her fiancé and I are talking about movies and we turn on the movie Dune. My husband is sitting there in the same room didn’t say a word against it. He acted perfectly fine while the kids were here, talking like everything was fine.
Then after the movie ends her fiancé leaves, then my husband starts in yelling and screaming at me and kicking things. He’s a guilt tripping me again and saying he’s jealous that I should’ve ran him off after our daughter left. That he wanted to talk to me by myself. And he’s really upset at me that I should’ve known to get rid of him that he wanted to talk to me.
I said something about that he talked and acted just fine while everybody was here. He said yeah he’s not gonna let them know how upset he was. So I said oh I guess you just save all that up for me huh and he says yeah, he’s not gonna show it to them. He’s just gonna show it to me.
I said it must make him feel better to yell at me, because I thought he was overreacting and acting like an asshole, and that it was not fair to get mad at me for not doing or saying something that he wanted me to do if he didn’t say it out loud. I’m not a mind reader.
And yet again, he is fulfilling his pattern of stirring up shit right before bed. So it’s gonna take me a while to calm my nervous system down enough so that I can sleep. Meanwhile, he’s sleeping like a baby in there.
Update: I swear he must have radar or something. I had just looked up the domestic violence hotline number and I was going to call it during my lunch break and ask for a referral for a lawyer that is experienced with domestic violence. I had my phone in my hand and suddenly he walks in the door. He was home about 3.5 hours early from work.
Thankfully, I was able to set my phone to record. I am in a one party state thankfully. He went off on me again about the last few days in the various ways that I have disappointed him by not anticipating his needs and basically being a mind reader. I let him talk and yell himself out. I stayed calm and I told him that I understand he’s dealing with various things and he has big feelings, but that it wasn’t right to take it out on me. That I didn’t do anything wrong, and it wasn’t right that he makes me his verbal punching bag. Then we went over how he’s able to stay completely normal when people are here and then suddenly flip the switch when they leave and then goes at me with both barrels. I told him that is not right. I don’t deserve that and that he couldn’t treat me that way anymore.
He got really upset and cried and said that he guessed he’s just a piece of crap person. I think he was expecting me to disagree with him, but I did not. I think he was expecting me to apologize but I did not. Finally, he stopped and went outside and slammed the door and walked down to the garden.
At some point while he was out there, he turned off his location on find my. I guess that’s his way of punishing me? I have no idea and I really don’t care other than I’d like to know when he’s coming home so I can be prepared mentally.
A few minutes later, I had to get back online because I had a meeting with my boss. She could tell something was wrong and I had planned on telling her at some point anyway because you know how vindictive these people can be and I wanted her to be prepared. So I very softly told her what was going on and that I plan to move out sometime in the next couple of weeks, but to be prepared that depending on what happens, I might have to move quickly. I was trying to be careful because I wasn’t sure where he was and I didn’t want him to overhear. At some point, he did come in the house though and I hope he didn’t overhear much if anything. I texted her to let her know that I’d heard him and he was back in the house. That way she would know not to say anything out loud.
About two hours later, I had to go in the kitchen to get a drink and he was in there and he talked to me really quietly for a bit. And seemed to be really broken down and apologized for being a bad person and then he could see why I didn’t wanna have sex with him because who wants to have sex with someone that you can’t stand to be around. I do think that that was a manipulation tactic, but I didn’t fall for it. A few minutes later, he left to go to his golf league and at some point shortly after that, he turned his location back on.
Holy hell, I can’t wait to get out.
Additional info for those that have asked for it, I am 50 and he is 51, we have been together 33 years, married for almost 31.
One of the most disorienting parts of healing from a long-term toxic relationship is realizing how much your brain was trained to anticipate their moods. You spent decades becoming a master at reading the microscopic shifts in their tone, the exact weight of a footsteps down the hall, or the specific way a door was closed. That wasn't love, it was a highly advanced survival strategy. When you finally break that cycle, you are left with a massive amount of nervous energy that used to go into keeping yourself safe.
Reclaiming your peace means learning to reallocate that energy back to yourself. The first time you see a toxic pattern play out, like a pity party designed to make you apologize for something you didn't do, and you choose to stay silent instead of fix it, you are actively rewriting your wiring. You aren't playing the game anymore. The uncomfortable feeling that follows isn't a sign that you did something wrong, it is just the feeling of your brain learning how to exist without being a mind reader.
Acceptance Gave Me the Freedom That Anger Never Could
For a long time, I thought acceptance meant pretending what happened was okay.
It doesn’t.
Acceptance is not approval.
Acceptance is not denial.
Acceptance is not letting someone off the hook.
Acceptance is finally telling yourself the truth without needing reality to become softer first.
Divorce forced me into a mirror I did not want to look into. Heartbreak, betrayal, volatility, avoidance, narcissistic patterns, emotional chaos — all of it wrecked me.
But eventually, I had to stop only asking, “How could they do this to me?” and start asking the harder question:
“What part of me allowed this much toxicity to have access to my life?”
That question changed everything.
Not because I was responsible for someone else’s choices. I wasn’t.
But I was responsible for the doors I left open. I was responsible for the red flags I renamed. I was responsible for the patterns I tolerated because my anxious attachment wounds were starving for validation.
I can see now that my need to be chosen made me ignore what should have been obvious. My need for love made me negotiate with dysfunction. My need for validation made me stay attached to someone who could not offer safety, accountability, repentance, or emotional consistency.
That realization was brutal.
But it also gave me my freedom.
Because once I understood my role, I stopped being powerless.
I stopped waiting for someone else to change before I could heal. I stopped needing them to confess everything before I could move forward. I stopped making my peace dependent on another person’s accountability.
Clarity led to acceptance.
Acceptance led to ownership.
Ownership led to gratitude.
And gratitude did not come because the divorce was beautiful. It came because the wreckage finally told the truth. The turmoil exposed what comfort kept hidden. The betrayal revealed the wounds I had been carrying long before the relationship ever began.
For the first time, I can look at the pain and say:
I hate what happened.
I hate what it cost.
I hate the damage.
I hate the bullshit.
But I am grateful for what it revealed.
I am grateful I can finally see reality.
I am grateful I can finally see my patterns.
I am grateful I can finally see how validation became a drug.
I am grateful I can finally see why I allowed toxicity to stay longer than it ever should have.
That kind of gratitude is not soft.
It is forged.
It is born in the wreckage after denial dies.
Acceptance gave me something anger never could: freedom.
Not freedom from the past.
Freedom from repeating it.
And that freedom led me into deeper self-reflection, the healing of my inner child, and the birth of a new identity.
I am no longer just the man who survived the wreckage.
I am Kintsugi Ninja.
The one who was shattered, but not discarded.
The one whose broken places were not hidden in shame, but restored with gold.
The one who learned that what was meant to destroy him became the very place where his value was revealed.
I do not carry my scars as proof of defeat anymore.
I carry them as evidence of restoration, wisdom, discernment, and freedom.
I was broken open.
But I was also rebuilt.
And what was once wreckage has now become beauty with a blade.