I know you don’t realise this… but from where I’m sitting, you’re making good progress.
Something I think you’re ready to start thinking about - expectations.
These are the cause of your fear and pain and anger. It’s really important to have realistic expectations.
You said above “mainly because he never used to lack empathy or emotions”.
Do you think that perhaps, even just a small part of you, messaged to make a connection with him through an emotional topic? I’m guessing part of you thought “if I message him about a 12yo friend of his son who has died, I’ll get some sympathy or emotional connection with him when he replies, says thankyou and agrees with it’s sad. Then I can feel a bit like the old Mr Pattnee is hiding under the monster somewhere.”
And, completely true to recent form, he’s been a un-emotional troglodyte.
What happens then? You get disappointed and have to go about reminding yourself you can’t control him and his thoughts.
Don’t get me wrong, that point where you consciously realised he is not in your control shows excellent progress. Eventually, you didn’t take it personally and rationalised it as him being an alien atm.
Next level DBing will be for you to amend your expectations so that you are never surprised. Sometimes that might mean you don’t even send information that you know he won’t be interested in.
Other times, that may mean you message him (perhaps for your son’s sake) but knowing he won’t take it on board. Perhaps even sending it with “no need to acknowledge or reply, but son’s friend died and it may be important for you to know that.”
If you cut off a reply before it happens, you won’t get disappointed. Also, he won’t feel trapped into an interaction and so won’t respond like a Neanderthal.
You know what the definition of insanity is? Trying or doing the same thing over and over, but each time expecting a different result.
Next time, write down a list of the five absolute worst possible answers he could reply with. Then when you hit send, you might be pleasantly surprised when it’s something half supportive.
One of the most helpful things during my recovery was when I would text screenshots of my freak-show’s emails or texts and responses. I’d be so angry - omg, look at this complete b****, she’s a nut-job.
Other friends would say “Yeah that’s total BS, can’t believe you have to put up with that.”
My brother, on the other hand, would shrug his shoulders and say “Yeah, that’s pretty consistent with her previous behaviour. What the hell were you actually expecting?”
