Alone

[Livnlearn]

I decided to email H. I thanked him for his statement that he will send down the cheque for the bike (reminding him!) and told him I was sending up two pieces of post with D this weekend.

I said I presumed that D was being picked up and dropped off as usual this weekend, as I hadn't heard anything. Told him I would be away on Sunday and only back by 6pm. (Around the time D was dropped off last weekend.)

Then said that on the 19th I had a full house with my sis and others staying.

Said I would get back to him about the rest of the letter in due course.

I had just sent the email when the phone rang and I could see it was H (yay for my new phone with caller ID! ) and I let it go to voicemail. H left a message telling me D would be picked up as usual, and had I received his email? And to let me know if I had. Obvisously our communications had crossed.

Later, I got a one line email saying that the landlord tells him they will be going down at 2.30pm on Sunday, so I'll have to pick up D from their city home at 6pm. I have no idea if H has actually cleared this with the landlord yet. Or if D will be happy with this. H sort of treats it as "the way things are". I believe he thinks it has nothing to do with him.

The more I read about Narcissism and divorcing narcissists, the more chilling it sounds. I know there are degrees of N and also types of narcissists. I sort of bank on my H being lazy and not proactive in the end. I don't know if that is a mistake. I have known him for nearly 20 years, but from what I have read, they can be roused to great vindicitveness in the divorce process.

Interestingly, H has called me vindictive a number of times over the years. It always surpised me, as I don't think of myself that way. I truly believe that I have too many positive things to do in my life than plot against people!

But there was always a pattern to when and why it happened. H would do something that would annoy or hurt me. I would tell him not to. He would ignore me, or get annoyed at my "whining", or say I couldn't take a joke. (He, typical N, is incapable of empathy.) I would get angry, and try to do the same thing to him, give him some of his own medicine, to make him understand why the action was not nice/unhelpful/unenjoyable/hurtful as he seemed to have difficulty understanding this point when I merely told him so. At this point, he would accuse me of vindictiveness.

Ah! Basically, what is sauce for the goose is NOT sauce for the gander!

I was reading about one woman's fight for custody in Israel and she lot custody of her daughter to her abusive raging N of a ex husband (who of course had remarried etc). I was in tears. She was also reduced to poverty and social isolation etc.

I need to think very hard this coming year of the long term consequences of staying in this country or moving away. Perhaps cutting my loses and starting anew and without H around the corner.

In theory I want my daughter to have full access to her Dad and for us to have a decent relationship as co-parents, but I wonder if that is a pipe dream and it is better to get out sooner rather than later.

Livnlearn

PS My good friend has agreed to help me translate the SA into English this weekend.