Seeking, some thoughts on your thread

And, yeah, that sucks for your friend. What you said about her not having a voice. It's lonely and strange. And he still has ways of trying to hurt me or take me down. One of the eeriest things anyone's ever said to me is "every time you get back on your feet, he comes in and takes you down." I didn't know another human could operate like that. The thought of someone hating to see me move on or succeed or thrive or be happy is a really bizarre thing. In the end, I just had to work hard to believe myself about what happened. It's still a work in progress.

Oh my gosh, that sounds horrific!!! I can tell you, from going through a whole year of legal ABUSE (and that's what it is!!! Threatening our relationship with our children, our whole way of life as mothers... its the cruelest thing you can do to a woman, wrongly accuse her of not being fit to care for her children!!!)...you have trauma from this and you need support. I was more impacted by this abuse than anything he did in the marriage, I can tell you that. I TOTALLY SEE YOU.

It's mind bending, and so senseless. To be the target of a person's hatred, shocking. It's not about you though, as personal as the attacks are, it's not normal to behave without conscience like this.

Omg with the criminal defense attorney. That is wild.

Thank you for saying you see me. That's really all it takes. I can't explain anymore. I can't defend. It's just insane. And then to watch him go on with his life, have a soft landing, call me to tell me another baby is on the way. Watch my daughter be devastated and him less of a father to her than ever (if that's even possible) while blaming me for not "getting to see her" (he knows where she lives). It sucks.

The thing is, though, his GF was a lot behind that case. He and I had been through mediation before. This time she was pushing this. They had a whole agenda - told lies, sent child protective services to my house. They had a plan to frame me and it was really ugly. And I've always always been kind (at least neutral) to her. I think in narc world they call it like a flying monkey or something. It's wild how any of this works.

I've gotten to where I can barely drive, have intrusive thoughts. It's a lot. And now years of therapy. And I do a lot of "pretending" that I'm okay. My mom knows what I've been through but she is forgetful and my sister acts like it never happened, doesn't want to know. My dad blames me of course.

Anyway, I think it can take someone whose been there to truly get it. And it's not a great thing to "get." But I appreciate you're seeing me here. It helps to be known.

Oh... and my family didn't get it either... because in that dynamic I'm the scapegoat and they are all evangelicals, sanctimonious about remaining in their miserable marriages. But that doesn't matter to me anymore either, I feel free and happy and you can too, on the other side

Well, the psyche eval conducted during the custody evaluation indicated he has a serious, undiagnosed pathology. So it wasn't really about attachment, in my mind other than my own attachment was avoidant, I was very disconnected from myself and others. He pursued me, for his own ends and on my side, I didn't grasp the actual gravity of relationships, if you will... I viewed relationships as practical partnerships and thought that two people could decide to make a go of things together and common sense told me that it should work. I had unresolved trauma that I wasn't even aware was a factor, I didn't think in terms of trauma actually. Bad things had happened and I was fine because it was behind me. I am sure I had FA traits operating due to that, layers of functional freeze.

I listed some things in the original post, an incomplete description of where my beliefs set me up for an entanglement.. one was that I didn't believe in "love" in the sense of romantic love, I had absolutely no sense of what intimacy and partnership was on the emotional level. I thought that was all fairy tale bullshit. So when he pursued me, I kind of thought, well, maybe this is how it goes? This is what you're supposed to do? He's probably a narcissist who was love bombing me.

I had what I thought was pretty good self esteem... but what I lacked was a relationship with my inner self arising from self WORTH. My own attachment wounding minimized my value to others, and their value to me. Relationships can only be built on sand when that is the case, especially if one is preying upon the other. I didn't recognize any needs in myself, in terms of emotional needs, and I wasn't one to seek support from others for myself so I didn't recognize just how unhealthy it all was. In other words, my expectations for intimacy and connection were so low that it wasn't a red flag that they were absent. I was just going along being productive, a good team player I thought, what could be so hard?

Having children is what created the dependency I spoke about... the actual vulnerability of child birth, nursing, raising young children. That's what created a need to stay well past the point I wanted to leave. As I said, it's out of the frying pan into the fire and I knew he would suck as a co-parent, providing as little as possible and punishing me for leaving, which is exactly what he did.

I learned so much about my own vulnerability that I didn't think was there, over the years. How I basically had no inner voice to guide me in what felt right in relating, and I always felt I had an escape hatch, that no one could impact me. Had I not had children, I would have been soooo gone. I was literally encouraging him to find another woman, while I was planning to leave. I refused to sleep with him of course, and just wanted him him leave me alone, because I was making my moves to move out, which I did suddenly and without warning because that was the only way to do it.

He was furious when I wouldn't give him the attention he demanded, over the smallest things. Like, if I wasn't hungry yet and he had made food, he would rage about how unthankful I was. Maybe it was BPD, I don't know.

I can say that the difference between how I entered this current relationship is the easiest way to see what was lacking when I entered the first.

I had physical boundaries not limited to isolating... I was aware of my body, and what it felt like to be in my body, and what it felt like to be present and safe. ALL lacking in the ex situation. My biggest sense of physical presence came from sexual chemistry, which was purely unconscious drives.

Because I became connected to my body, I had developed a boundary around casual sex by the time I met my now partner. I had come to appreciate my body as my self and respect it as such. Not so with the ex situation, where I was disconnected from my emotional self and also from my body... but not immune to the chemicals that drive us in the mating game.

I was conflict avoidant in my ex situation, and therefore did not stand up for myself when I was run over, and I was run over a lot. I withdrew and shut down and was overwhelmed by his growing aggression, again staying because I became financially and logistically dependent with small children. So I withdrew further and further into myself which apparently enraged him. Narcissistic rage is a good descriptor.

Simply put, I was just very disconnected from myself, saw myself as having few to no actual needs emotionally, and that left me wide open to someone with an agenda and who also saw me as a person with no needs, whom he could trample with no regard for my personhood. It was all about him, and I was simply there to do a good job at living which I was sure I could do. I'm very capable and reliable and I thought that was enough, which is mind binding to me now that I'm truly alive if you know what I mean. It like I thought I was showing up to do a good job and I thought good relations would ensue just by doing life well and reasonably. ? WTH. 😆

My girlfriends and I marvel at can even laugh at who we were when we just didn't know... even though that stuff was tragic, it really brought us to where we are. Which is great, I'm thankful.

That's great that you can say this. 

I think it would be the same for me, although I haven't really had that opportunity in a long time. 

But I was actually just thinking about this the other day - or, more, that it came to me. 

He started doing intermittent reinforcement right from the beginning. I don't know if this was intentional or not -- but I know I had a "dark night of the soul" -- it was a lot of "I'm here, I'm not here." "I like you, . . . disappear." "I decided I like you." (Somehow that felt like I had to be chosen). It was all so bewildering - but perfect for someone like me who had zero self-confidence, and a lot of shame and a father who didn't show up for me. I can see where my brain became addicted to it - like a dopamine hit. It was all so horrible. I feel sorry for that version of me.