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Have discovered quite a bizarre email sent to me sometime last year from him. I don’t remember receiving this, I don’t know why.
It’s a very long email where he talks about his disgust and self-hatred, and in some detail talks about generating emotions that people seem to like, but is very clear he doesn’t understand and can’t relate to. He mentions wanting to kill himself, talks about feeling incredibly angry but suppressing it, and mentions facial twitches from suppressing it all.
I remember these twitches…I couldn’t understand it, I thought he had a trapped nerve or something. They kept occurring for a while; whenever we’d have a tense exchange his mouth and jaw would twitch like crazy. I thought he was doing it on purpose sometimes to avoid confronting the conversation, but now I’m not sure.
He hates himself so much and clearly doesn’t know how to express his anger, and is perhaps turning it inward…wondering if this could explain recent threat of suicide.
I know I’ve asked this before, but what are your thoughts on recovering from this kind of mindset of struggling with emotions so much, not to mention the constant lying he’s been doing since day one?
His dad sounds hopeful that he’ll recover from his condition. In my mind I see him emerging from therapy and going on to live his life in a healthy way. I just don’t know, this completely baffles me. And upsets me, because in some ways (and I know it’s stupid) I still want him, and it doesn’t seem right that he’s completely messed with my mind and treated me so horribly, to go and treat a future partner in all the right ways???
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The point is that, if he has issues, he didn’t care for you enough to go and seek help and felt entitled to impose his feelings on to you.
This in itself shows some sense of entitlement- a belief that he had a right to do that- and that you should take it.
I would be wary of him saying he felt suicidal. Maybe he did, but my ex said that when he was worried I would divorce him, to gain my pity and make me frightened of standing up to him through court- but he was in fact at work and going out in the evenings like he was quite happy and functioning. They think you will excuse their behaviour if they get you to feel sorry for them.
He will only recover if he takes responsibility for himself and learns ways of dealing with his issues, and he will only be able to go on and have a decent relationship if he does this but also recognises – genuinely-
that what he did to you was wrong.My view is that most abusers find it too difficult to change. They don’t learn from things, and go into the next relationship playing exactly the same games, thinking they can manipulate people into ignorance.
I also think that they feel that accepting fault means a loss of power, and they’d rather blame others deep down inside.
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I feel very wary of the suicidal threats. I asked him not long ago if he’d made any plans; he said no, that it was just thoughts. I think it’s motivated by impulsive behaviour than by depression.
It seems he really struggles to relate to others emotionally, and appears to ask for direction in a lot of things. My friend remarked he seems to have been studying me, so he could gauge his responses to what was “expected” of him. A lot of the time I felt I had to repeat myself till I was blue in the face about how / why something he did was hurtful. I think he understands the concept of empathy but I’m not sure he can or does put himself into other people’s shoes, as it were.
I’m not sure how a professional can help him with that, I don’t understand it at all; it’s really making my head hurt.
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The focus of this email still seems to be centred around himself.
If he genuinely wanted to change, he would have made steps to do so without condition. These conditions can be placed directly by asking for something in return for getting help or indirectly by either himself or his family giving updates on his progress.I got all the sob story when I left. He begged me for couples counselling. He promised he was going to get help for his anger (which might have been some use if he’d actually been angry instead of strangling me with a smile on his face).
He’s sought no help whatsoever, it was just a tactic to make me feel sorry for him and get drawn back in.You need the time and space to process what has happened to you.
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It appears that he didn’t seek help sooner because he is very concerned with people-pleasing, so this suggests he was putting his needs aside to cater to others, and also that he lacked the courage to be honest. He was seeing a therapist for a short while, but I thought this was for different reasons (coping with uni, low moods, etc), and now I feel partly responsible that he didn’t keep attending therapy.
Since this situation broke his family have made it very clear they’re not dealing with the fallout, and are focusing on him alone. I understand their concern, but without sounding self-pitying, I find it strange they haven’t really apologised for his behaviour or asked me how I am? The phone call with his mum was very curt and went nowhere; I’ve had to ask his dad about some things; the communication has been very one-sided.
They say they don’t blame me for this, but at the same time they don’t really want to know about me? I suppose that’s fair enough; it just angers and upsets me that they’re attributing his lies and deceit, and mind games with me, to his bad mental health. It’s like they’re partly excusing it in some way, and contributes to my confusion about what’s wrong with him, who he is, and if I am really just making a huge deal out of this situation, and just need to accept he used me (but didn’t mean it) for years. I can’t organise these thoughts into a coherent structure at this time.
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I think it comes down to if you are involved with somebody who is acting in a negative way which hurts you, its normally a waste of time over analyzing them. Do you really want to be with this man and be on 24 hour therapy standby?. That would be so enequal. I know that it is hard. Still now I have some sympathy and sadness for my ex, i cared about him. I think he is dysfunctional and this will cause him to have a turbulent life moving forward, this saddens me. I considered not long after we split up trying to stay in touch and be friends, i would have like to have been a supportive influence in his life. He is so screwed up I realized to have done that would have brought me down. We have split & gone our separate ways, maybe if I ever do hear from him again, i will wish him well, I did that already anyway. Maybe you need to stop trying to understand him and think about the crucial questions about his partner credibility.
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I know that if I gave any more of myself to him and the relationship there wouldn’t be any of me left.
I know he’s very unhealthy for me; I think I’m still seeking what I thought he had inside him, or if he does then it’s not for me. I feel so worthless right now, he’s sucked me up and chucked me away. I’m still at a stage where I’m horribly conflicted, where I know he’s treated me terribly, but how I feel it’s because I wasn’t good enough for him, and that it was somehow my “job” to make him feel good / happy, and to make his problems easier to deal with.
Then sometimes I think I’ve been dealing with someone rather sociopathic. Tonight I felt properly angry and had a cry and felt like I hated him.
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Your last paragraph sounds really healthy to me. I think that’s exactly the thing to do. It takes a long time for the conditioned response to feel responsible for them to fade, but try to remember that’s what those feelings are. Your anger at being trapped and treated the way you have, that’s the appropriate feeling. It’s safe to hate him now and healthy to be angry. It’s a hard, hard realisation to let go of any hope and see them for the shallow, two-dimensional, nasty people they are. Keep going x*x
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He sounds very unwell, it it’s not your responsibility. And if he is mentally unwell, that’s no excuse.
If you look up the term ‘co-dependent’ it doesnt just mean someone who is dependent upon someone else- it means someone who feels responsible for someone with a problem/ issues.
But carrying them prevents them from taking responsibility for their own problems/ issues/ addictions. By putting up with their rubbish, we can actually prevent them from growing.
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I’ve been doing a bit of reading about co-dependency and there was definitely some elements of that in our relationship. Particularly the lack of boundaries. I feel like over time my boundaries just fizzled away, in the sense that I would have done anything he said, and was looking to him to disprove other people and assure me. It’s almost like everyone else biased and against me, and only he really understood me and had the ability to convince me, and he did convince me.
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