MLC or Passive Aggressive or Narcissism

[AntoniaB]

"Did you find yourself getting angry, getting a convincing show of 'genuine' confusion and distress from YOUR 'victim', then apologizing for YOUR unreasonable behavior, and then sinking into depression at how badly YOU behaved towards such a nice calm loving person, and finally agreeing with them just how unreasonable your emotional requests are?"

Oh good lord, this is dead one. Shockingly dead on. The whole summer leading up to my XH leaving the first time, he fluctuated between drinking and then getting black moods filled with rage and anger, and then the next day, crying and apologizing or buying me things or taking me somewhere nice to dinner, and pleading with me to see that he was REALLY just troubled on the inside and that I needed to figure out what to do to help him, and then he'd say things like "if you REALLY LOVED ME you'd be able to KNOW INSTINCTIVELY what I need to feel loved and happy..."

Yep. This is him in a nutshell. And I ran myself ragged dealing with the PA behavior and he still left, and then all I could figure was that I had failed at doing what he needed for us to stay together.

We were separated 4 1/2 months but dated for most of that time and had a sexual relationship. When he did come back, pledging for it to be forever, I didn't believe him because I could see that his behavior was still PA...and I think because I'd learned to live without him on some level, however minor, I just stopped taking the abuse, and I'd call him on it immediately, not in a mean way, but in a "hey, what's going on here" way...and when I stopped taking the abuse, culminating in a very big fight where I said to him in a letter, "I think we really need to go to marital counseling as we can't do this on our own", that was precisely the time frame down to the week that he claims he "noticed" OW at work and started to confide in her in an EA.

HE RAN BECAUSE I STOOD UP FOR MYSELF.

He's with her not out of true love, but because she was an escape hatch on his ship which was spiralling out of orbit. I wasn't taking the P-A anymore and he knew it.

WOW this has been empowering. Thank you :-)