So, I met with my psych at the hospital before I was due to meet H for the check-up.
We were discussing the extreme nature of H's behaviour towards me - the shut down of emotion/compassion.
2 points worth sharing: I said apparently H cries at night or when he learns from a third party about my 'suffering'. She said crying is not remorse. True remorse is something else. People who feel remorse will face their 'victims' head on and acknowledge their pain, and may try to right it even. My H is not facing me (in fact he told me a few months ago he doesn't like seeing me because it means he has to face my pain). If he goes back to Europe, he will further escape facing it and the damage.
So conclusion - despite my H's crying, he is NOT remorseful for his behaviour.
I asked her what she thinks is driving H's 'extreme' behaviour - is he sick, or evil, or what?
She said that although she hadn't met him and so her diagnosis is already flawed from that perspective, she has enough experience to see his problem as neither a 'sickness' nor a 'depression', but as a kind of "personality" issue/disorder. She said sick and depressed people don't behave this way..they ususally feel remorseful for what they have done and beat themselves up that they are not doing better or the 'right' thing. With H, his selfishness and immaturity is revealing something is missing in his personal makeup/personality. This makes her very pessimistic about H's ability to change because "personality" issues cannot be treated as such, like a depression might be. He's probably had this personality problem all his life, the past 40 years, but it's just taken a major life event(s)(baby = more pressure) to reveal it. Until now, it hasn't been a huge promblem.
