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I just want to share an email exchange between SA and me. I have a great relationship with his children and they don’t know anything. I’m starting to feel crazy and need your support and opinions.
Sent from me to SA:
Today was hard for me and I don’t think you understand or even have an idea what I am feeling. Your blank stare and asking what can I do better just pisses me off even more. I don’t know what you can do better. YOU figure it out! You damaged this relationship. I am NOT a priority in you life. After you told me you had an affair during your first marriage you could have included I like to pay hookers for sex. “Check Please” That would have saved me from all this trauma.You have no idea how hard this is for me. I’m committed to a 1 year. Don’t even know why I’m doing that, but if after a year, I hoping things will be different. But for now, it is what it is. I don’t trust you, I don’t feel safe with you, I don’t want to be touched by you. My therapist assures me that this is all normal. Doesn’t feel normal to me. I don’t feel loved by you. I just feel empty.
I’m so angry that I have to deal with this at this point in my life. Not fair. You figure it out and decide if you want this relationship to work. And if you do, then do what you have to do and be transparent, accountable, honest, have integrity. My therapist said not to believe anything you say and believe your actions. OK….. If you want this relationship to work, it’s up to you. I don’t have the energy and my heart is empty.
SA’s reply:
I’m sorry for all that I’ve done and I know that you have reason to leave this relationship. Right now I’m feeling sick to my stomach because I told my own daughter she wasn’t welcome in her childhood home last night, then was alone and ended up drinking again. I know that you are hurting alot and reserve judgement on whether to continue in this relationship. The way things are right now is not healthy for either of us and is having a big impact on my kids. You can accurately say that I don’t deserve you and no one would fault you for walking away from this relationship. But if you are going to stay, even temporarily then you need to agree not to be disrepectful and unkind to me and not to undermine my relationship with my kids.My reply:
First of all I am NOT disrespectful and unkind and I DO NOT undermine your relationship with your kids.I can’t even believe you would make these statements. Unbelievable. Are you kidding me? Wow.
Dear God…RUN!! He is so far in denial it ain`t funny….even IF you were the wicked stepmonster from hell it does not “undermine” his relationship with is kids. And if I had a nickel for every time I have heard the “not healthy for either one of us” line, I could send us all on a nice vacation!!
Get out!!
Well, at first read, I think that sounds a lot like the crap I get from my STBX. He does the same thing: I tell him how I feel and then he turns it around so that now I am the one who did something wrong. And I have been accused of ruining his relationships with his kids when he did the damage himself. Whatever. Typical gaslighting, blame-shifting bs.
What did he mean by him telling his daughter she wasn’t welcome?
Notice how you got a cursory “I’m sorry” and then he turned it right back to how he is feeling sorry for himself? Not a hell of a lot of concern or validation for you.
Narcissism in it’s truest form. It’s all about him.
Mine similarly raged at me when I tried to kick him out when he was on a binge. He said that I had no right to keep him away from his children. He sees how outrageous that was now – but didn’t at the time.
I’d tell him to go work a 12 step program or go to therapy because the world doesn’t revolve around him. Tell him that his kids can stay if he comes clean and tells them what he did. That should be interesting….
Deb
Dmarie,
Your letter to him was spot on and written from your heart. His response sounds like a 12 yr old. I would not bother trying to communicate with him; he’ll just manipulate and make you feel worse. The best thing to do with these guys is ignore them, they hate it and it protects you from further trauma and abuse. So sorry this is happening right now.
Love, NapThank you for your support. That’s exactly what I thought, but started second quessing myself.
Teri – His daughter is home from college. All the kids are with their Mom on Wed Thurs evenings and my kids are with their Dad on the same evenings so it is kind of nice because we get time together. I guess his 19 year daughter wanted to stay and he told her that she is with her mom that night and now he feels like he just kicked her out of her family home.
The undermining, unkindess, disrespect….Laughable. I don’t even have those qualities even on my worse day. I have only yelled at him LOUD 1 time during since disclosure and the kids where not around. We act like the fake happy family. They have no idea. If there is an impact on his children, it is of his own doing.
Deb – he goes to 12 step, has a SA support group and CSAT therapist. When he asked me what can I do differently, I told him he has support and he can learn from his support what to do differently. I would have expect he would already know that by now!
Love, Dawn
Dawn,
Dear God, are they all printed from the same mold? I swear they must download these and fill in the blanks. Which of us hasn’t seen this template?:
1) The perfunctory “Sorry”
2) now, back to me “I have my problems, too and it’s time you realized YOU are one of them”,
3) And THEN he starts a negotiation on his own terms. ESPECIALLY THIS: “But if I/you/we are going to stay, even temporarily then you need to agree not to be disrepectful to me.”
Barf! It’s the “I can’t do this” thread and texts all over again. My SAH’s most repetitive line here – “I admit I could have done some things better, but regardless, you owe me respect. If I don’t feel that you respect me, I cannot trust you, so I get all stressed and then I start looking for ways deal with stress and fall back into my old patterns.” What a circular load of crap.
I say respect is earned and once you’ve lost it, telling me I owe it keeps wiping the slate to -10 because you haven’t got the sense to figure that out. Maybe this misogynistic patarichial society we live in, and those putrid whores you pay to touch you, think your Y chromosome earns you rank and honor. To me, that extra body part, that you obviously worship with your body, mind and soul, controls the rest of you like a puppet.
Ahem…
Dawn, no, you’re not crazy. But the longer you spend trying to make sense of this type of nonsense, the closer you’ll come. Just speaking from personal experience.
LynnG—preach it sister!
dmarie, your guy is doing exactly what they all do. There isn’t a piece of original material between them. They all do the same thing. They say their sorry, they say you are contributing to the problem, they triangulate with children, they make ludicrous accusations and start making demands. Like they are in a position to do that!
he is so far from being in recovery. He’s at the “I want a parade” stage for everything he’s doing when he has to work with people as difficult as you. (I’m being sarcastic)
HOnestly, the arrogant self-centreed oblivion knows no bounds
Seriously, it’s a formula. Maybe it’s handed out at their first SA meeting. I could show you a hundred examples of the same email.
Thank you so much! I have read the same thing written by many of the sisters and I thought his response sounded familiar. I’m not going to engage with him at all. Just let him stew in his own shit!
Dawn,
Oh dear god – he has a sponsor, a CSAT and a group leader all helping him and this is the best he can do??? Tell him to go talk to even one of them and have them read his ludicrous email to you. He is sooooo not in recovery. He is stuck on Narcissistic Island.
I wish you the best on getting off the Island. There are ferry’s that run every 15 minutes. Get on the next one!
Deb
Dear Dawn,
well, sure seems barf worthy to me also. I just hear excuses. not healthy. yes, because you have infected the whole relationship. i don’t blame you for leaving, blah blahll blah– but i m still not gonna change no matter how much pain you are in. male privelige and entitlement. with no recourse.
focus on you, and what makes you happy Dawn. it is not going to be him, that makes you happy for a long time. sorry.
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