Dear Heartache,

I am in a similar situation. I have been married tona man with npd for 23 years. Together for 27. He left me.after i found out he had been cheating on me.for at least 8 years and has now left to go live with his gf whomis 18 years younger than him. I had known there was something wrong but thought it was just that he.needed to be able to communicate better. That if i could just get him to let go emotionally we would have the marriage i felt.we had had in the very beginning before “life happened.” I have now learned that he has npd and i am emotionally addicted to him. Someone with npd cannot communicate or open up. My struggle now is because we have 2 children together i see him.more than i should. I struggle with whether or not i should hang out with him and the kids. He invites me to go places with them. I am told i should not. My feelings in that are complex. One the one hand i feel it is good for the kids (16 & 20, mostly with the 16yo) to see us get along. Then on the other side of it i don’t know if i feel like he deserves my friendship. Deserve the part of me he liked while he abandoned me for the parts of our life he couldnt handle. I know that is on him and in all actuality he gave me a gift by leaving. I will ultimately be better off without him
That i can now be who i really am instead of someone always worrying about the way he and i should be. So i guess i struggle with forgiveness and feeling the need for punishing him. However it is more difficult.than that because when we are together and getting along it messes with my brain. It will upset me later because i will not understand why he didnt do the work in our marriage. Why was our family not important enough for him to do the work before he started using other women to try to feel better in his life? So then in those moments i feel.like it would be best to just not be with him when he is with the kids. But i go anyway. I need to know why i still go.