I have no solutions for you. But you must never leave those children in her care for more than the minimum required time. I know it seems like forever until they go off to college. But it isn't. And you are their world. Don't you ever forget it! They can't trust her and they can't depend on her. Yes, she is an egotistical narcissist. And a pain in the behind to you. But those kids give your life meaning, and you are their only salvation from being crushed by her.
I agree with Lotus, Smiley. I know you're hurting (and loathing) right now, and it pains me to see a man of such strength and character having these challenges, but challenges they are, and staying with Themselves is STILL "The Right Thing to Do."
Puppy
“No, do not be afraid of those nations, for the Lord your God is among you, and he is a great and awesome God. 22 The Lord your God will drive those nations out ahead of you little by little. You will not clear them away all at once, otherwise the wild animals would multiply too quickly for you. 23 But the Lord your God will hand them over to you. He will throw them into complete confusion until they are destroyed. 24 He will put their kings in your power, and you will erase their names from the face of the earth. No one will be able to stand against you, and you will destroy them all.
-- Deut. 7:21
Just read that about 20 minutes ago. I thought I'd share it with you.
>>>"I agree with Lotus, Smiley. I know you're hurting (and loathing) right now, and it pains me to see a man of such strength and character having these challenges, but challenges they are, and staying with Themselves is STILL "The Right Thing to Do."
And I agree with Lotus & Puppy, your children need you now more than ever. You are a man of strength & character, which is why I have no doubt you'll find a way to rise to the challenges ahead.
a spiteful, uncaring woman who never took any interest in what I do, who secretly harbored a genteel loathing for me, and who held a million secret conferences in her head about my myriad and sundry failings as a husband and as a man and who never thought that was information that might be useful to me.
...
In a nastygram today she said flat out she categorically refuses to negotiate with me, categorically refuses to authorize her lawyer to negotiate with me. She wants it all or she wants to destroy it all.
Add to this the fact that she continues to pursue (yes, she is pursuing you for control) and harass you long after you have separated ...
...and the fact that she is jumping from one relationship to another - all of which are "perfect"
and this all sounds similar to what I am going through and will go through...(although your stbx is more violent in her criticism than mine)
...and from what I am reading, it is all characteristic of NPD or BPD.
I found that reading up on BPD helped me really detach from the craziness - almost like reading the script in advance.
Me 42, W 39, S8, S6, S2 M 11y, A & ILYBNILWY 11/08 Walking away from a bad situation.
Now if I could have a dollar for every time I thought that - I would pay your lawyers bill. I think everyone thinks that. But we dont act upon it because the next step happens when the anger and hate dissapate and your left with indifference .
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So which lessons, exactly, would you recommend I learn?
Not for me to say. You need to recognise what it is that brought you to this situation. Who are you or what situations got you to this poiont in your life?
If you dont work that stuff out, you will probably find the same problems but different wife down the track !. You could also move away but you are still going to have the same issues in that town. You have to face this crap and then take measures to correct yourself.
What we focus on is always enormous and all consumimg SP. you need to take the heat out of your situation. Who cares if you can hear her clip clopping along or sending a message.Dont bite that poison apple , focus on what matters and all her crap does not matter. focus on what is right in the situation and dont bend at all. Dont argue or discuss or even frown when she is spewing her venom at you.
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I don't know. I spent over a year in a nasty place fearing a bullet in the brain or an IED blowing my legs off, yet mercifully I didn't attract either. So....
I understand that there are 100s of millions of people in USA. Does everyone of you go to war? Thank goodness there are those that do choose to be soldiers, But what makes you choose and not your neightbour to do a tour of duty. I believe it is what makes SP , SP .
Random thought for the day: Dealing with someone in the depths of mid-life crisis is a beeeeeeeeeeyotch. Getting divorced by someone in the depths of mid-life crisis is a beeeeeeeeeeyotch-on-wheels.
S10: [Tenuously] Daddy?
SP Himself: Yo!
S10: Can I ask you something about the divorce that confuses me?
SP Himself: Always, Big Man!
S10: Why does Mommy say that thanks to you she's going to die alone?
SP Himself: [Pulling it out of his a**] Welllllllll ummmmmmmm ooooooookayee. Well, pal, I can't read your mother's mind, so I can't really say why she would say this or that. But I guess that's her point-of-view. Everyone has points-of-view on everything, and all we can do is look inside ourselves at our points-of-view and try to understand them for ourselves.
S10: Are you going to die alone?
SP Himself: Not as long as I have you, buster.
S10: [Seemingly satisfied] Okay.
Ho. Lee. Shnikees. Everytime -- Every.Freakin.Time -- I think she's taken the cake, she finds a new cake to take.
I've really been working hard on the @Gypsy Doctrine. Also stayed up on my flight back to Coastal City from Famous European Capital and read this collection of meditations on anger that I took from one of @Orangedog's threads: Taming the Tiger Within: Meditations on Transforming Difficult Emotions by Thich Nhat Hanh. Good stuff in there, even for (especially for?) the Grand Poobah and Head Mo-Fo In Charge of the Loyal Order of Heathen.
He compares anger to fire and promotes the idea that, instead of repressing or ignoring your anger, you should in essence drop everything else and pay very close attention to it, respect it, try to understand its source rather than lash out at the person you blame for making you angry (cf, @Gypsy Doctrine, "always be impeccable with your words"). He writes,
If your house is on fire, the most urgent thing to do is to go and try to put out the fire, not to run after the person you believe to be the arsonist...That is not the action of a wise person. You must go back and put out the fire. When you are angry, if you continue to interact with or argue with the other person, if you try to punish him or her, you are acting exactly like someone who runs after the arsonist while their home goes up in flames.
@pollyanna: Thank goodness there are those that do choose to be soldiers, But what makes you choose and not your neighbour to do a tour of duty. I believe it is what makes SP, SP
That's a nice thing to say, @polly, and I wish I could say I was all John Wayne and "Remember the Maine" and Three Cheers for the Red-White-'n'-Blue and stuff, but in my case what made me take the crown's salt was sheer boredom.
I was nearing the end of my first term at university, walking down the street to the pub, passed by the recruiting office, noticed this poster of a jeep with a machinegun parked in front of a Hollywood-cute half-timbered German house, said to myself, "Hey, that doesn't look bad," and the next thing you know 20 years had gone by.
So you might be right -- if spur-of-the-moment decisions reached without systematic thought make SP, SP, then by golly....!
