Dear Javier,

My therapists claim that my urge of getting kids, the desire, the deep longing stems from my vulnerable inner child. The main reason I long for having kids is to protect them, save them and give them the love and caring I never had.

I believe this to be true. It appears you see your becoming a father as the only way to heal and sort of rewrite your painful childhood. I’ve been trying to tell you that the real way to heal is to heal your inner child – to give him that what you haven’t received in your childhood.

I’m grieving my childlessness, my inability to heal myself, to be “normal” and to be a loving and caring “family man”. I know this doesn’t make sense, and sounds empty-headed, but I’ve been grieving for my “loss” for decades and the wound will never heal.

You don’t need to have a child of your own to heal. In fact, if we depend on our children to heal, we won’t do them justice and won’t be good parents. We first need to heal and then we’ll be able to be good parents, who won’t transfer our wounds on to them.

If you’d heal, you would even have a chance of becoming a parent,  since you’re not an old man. But do it in proper order –  first heal, then seek to have a child whom you can truly and properly love.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by Tee.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by Tee.

Dear Gary,

A long while has past since my original post , and although I’ll never forget those days and events of long ago , I’m in a much better place now.

You started this thread saying you are in pain because you don’t know if she ever loved you, and that you need to know before she passes away. You now say that she indirectly told you she didn’t marry you out of love but because she got pregnant with your child (“What else was I suppose to do.”)

You sort of have your answer (and had it years ago), but are you at peace with it? To be honest, it seems to me that a part of you wants to put all the blame on her for your breakup (and in the recent weeks this part got stronger and more convinced that it was completely her fault). But another part of you has doubts, and that was the part writing the original post.

In your original post you wrote:

About 3-4 years into the marriage I got caught up in activities that required a large time investment plus worked a full time job. What followed was my blindness to my wifes needs for my attention. And I basically dismissed it as an overreaction and suggested she get a job to break up her daily boredom.

You acknowledged that you were blind to your wife’s needs, that you dismissed them and suggested her to find a job to “break up her daily boredom.” I can hardly imagine a woman with 2 small children (and no full-time nanny service) to be bored during the day. Raising 2 small children is a full-time job, so I don’t understand what you were referring to when you described her problem as “daily boredom”? I cannot match raising 2 small children with “boredom”, but rather with “exhaustion”. That’s why I said that when she opted for a job in the night shift, she might have done it out of spite, protesting against you accusing her of boredom.

You now say that you gave your wife everything she needed:

I was there , all she had to do was open up and talk about it. I recommended counseling , therapy , whatever it took … she was just not interested.

So when she first complained and asked for more attention from you, did you dismiss it and suggested she should find a job, or you were there for her, showing compassion and understanding? I think that if you want to heal the pain you are occasionally feeling, it would be important that you answer this question honestly for yourself…

Dear MKnox,

you are welcome.

I don’t have a therapist. I cannot afford a quality one right now and the wrong one can worsen my condition.

Perhaps there is a support group for victims of narcissistic abuse that you can attend for free (or even online)? You said you’re suffering from PTSD symptoms and that your life is a mess. That’s why it would be important to have some psychological support. It’s good though that you have trusted friends, who were with you in your hardest moments.

Dear MKnox,

I do not expect them to read the letter and change their behavior. I only want to be able to say the truth of what happened. This is for me! not them!

This is different than what you said in your previous post. In your previous post you said:

if they did the right thing, it would make healing a lot easier for me.

Closure not a thing you can give to yourself. Closure involves both parties being on the same page. Closure is having that full picture of what happened in the relationship and being on the same page together about what happened. Apologies and forgiveness are there and both can move forward knowing how to grow from it. All I can do is give myself understanding and information and learn to heal from this and it will take so much longer and leave more wounds than if they did the right thing.

So in your previous post you said your healing depends on them and their reaction. I said this attitude isn’t helpful and would make it more difficult for you to heal. But if you don’t expect anything from them and only want to put it in writing – I guess a testimony of sorts – which you will hand to your friend, it’s a different story.

I just don’t know if from the legal standpoint sending them a letter (even if it happens via your friend) represents a violation of the restraining order?

Dear AK,

you are very welcome, I am glad it was helpful. And I hope you had a pleasant trip with your parents.

I kinda know the answers I will get for these questions but it’s good to say (or write in this case) out loud.

So would you like writing down those answers, and then I can perhaps comment? These are the questions you are asking:

Am I wrong to think that in the right relationship the person will accept all of me? Or I will only find the right person when I am fully healed.

Growth is a never-ending process. I have been changing, learning, growing and healing since I was 16. So when will this process end? Will it never stop?

Does that mean that you only need people because you have unmet childhood needs, if not you will be happy alone?

I’d gladly give you my perspective, but perhaps it will help you if you first write it down? Whatever suits you best, I am in.

Dear MKnox,

His dad pulled him out of the car when we got there and called him a dumbass and dragged hi into the house, and his mom told me she would make sure he pays to have my windshield replaced. He replaced my windshield the next day. We talked. She KNOWS what her son did. She knows many things her son did to me that was abusive.

I see. So they know about this concrete incident and perhaps some more. When I said they are protecting their son, I meant protecting from legal charges. They don’t want him to go to jail. Simple as that. That’s why they cannot – even if they had some conscience – afford to admit that he did anything wrong to you. I am sure they know he’s problematic, but probably they don’t know even 10% of what he did to you. And even if they do, they might have spoken to him in private, but will never admit it to you.

The problem is that when the abuse was happening, you never reported it to the police. He on the other hand reported it that you were harassing him (the incident when you followed him with the car), and you got a restraining order. It was your word against his. You unfortunately didn’t have anyone to testify on your behalf, and he had his parents who were willing to lie to keep their son out of trouble. Another problem is that in the case of Larry Nassar, there were more women who testified against him. Here, you are alone, or at least you don’t know about his other victims.

I agree that his parents probably contributed to a lot of his behavior, and it can very well be that his mother is a narcissist. If so, the chances that they would admit their son’s offenses are even smaller. A narcissist will never tell the truth but will try to keep the pretenses. There is no way that a narcissist would admit something incriminating to either themselves or their family (whose good name they are trying to protect). So perhaps they too participate in the smear campaign, because they need to make you appear as the crazy one, so their son would seem innocent. That’s despicable, but maybe they are capable of something like that. Your ex is probably leading the smear campaign, for exactly the same reason – so he can wash the dirt off himself.

You would need to accept that you won’t get any satisfaction from them.

I just need answers!

I am afraid the only answer you will get from your ex is “because you deserve it” (when he abused you). Or “because I can!” (when he smashed the windshield with his foot). You can’t get valid answers from neither your psychopath ex or his enabling parents. He did it because he is mentally disturbed.

I want respect! It is highly destructive to my wellbeing to be treated with such disrespect and have my voice taken away and not have any answers. Its like I am being told I deserved the abuse. It makes me feel worthless and like I should just die.

You have the right to be respected! But they won’t give you that respect. That’s why you need to start respecting yourself. You definitely didn’t deserve abuse. That should be 100% clear to you. You didn’t deserve abuse – even if your psychopath ex says you did. Can you accept that?

Dear MKnox,

I am sorry you’ve been through all this. He has hurt you badly and treated you in despicable ways. Your biggest mistake was that you sought closure from him. Instead of leaving as soon as he started abusing you, never to turn back, you went back and sought explanations, and then sometimes he would give you false promises that he would change, but the abuse would continue.

You said you went through at least 7 cycles of being horribly abused and then reconciling with him (I thought this was just another typical discard situation that I had been through with him at least 7 times before.) The last time he discarded you, you went back, followed him in your car, tried to overtake him, he then hit your car on purpose, you then both stopped your cars, you got out, went to him and put your hand on his heart begging him for explanations and closure. And then he grabbed your hand and twisted your fingers, resulting in one of them breaking:

When I went after him and followed him, I passed him on the road, and he sped up and hit my car on purpose though, and when I entered the subdivision I stopped my car and got out and went to his car and begged him to help me understand why he was treating me this way and to give me closure, and I put my hand on his heart and said please have empathy and help me understand and you are hurting me, and he grabbed my hand and bent my fingers all the way back and he broke one of my fingers.

The judge discarded his violent actions, he only took into consideration that it was you who was following him and “harassing” him. His parents confirmed it and testified against you.

I understand your bitterness and the sense of injustice, however you made a mistake of seeking closure and explanation from a sociopath like him. And now, you seek the same from his parents. But they understandably want to protect their son and won’t show any empathy towards you.

That is over now though and please understand I don’t want revenge. Also, I am legally safe now and I want to stay that way. I have no contact with him now. I doubt he will try to make amends or give me closure which is sad but I guess he is not capable of it.

It’s good that you are legally safe now. It’s also critically important that you don’t pursue him any more, trying to “seek closure” because you might get into legal trouble again. You’d need to understand and accept that neither he or his family will make any amends to you. He isn’t capable of it, and his family is protecting him. If they would apologize for their son, they would be admitting that he abused you, and they obviously don’t want that – they don’t want him to get into legal trouble because of his actions. So they will probably never apologize and never admit that he did anything wrong to you.

You need to give yourself closure. And you can do that with the help of therapy. You probably were susceptible to this man due to your childhood trauma with your sociopath father. You sought a similar man and tried to make him love you. Your father didn’t give you closure before he died, and this man cannot give you closure either. You need to heal and give that closure to yourself.

I am a writer, and I have a voice and to have that taken away along with my character and dignity was the most traumatizing experience of my life

Your voice is not taken away from you. You can still write about your experience and help other women who may be in a similar situation. You can claim back your dignity, but not by begging him or his family to give it to you, but by healing your wounds and understanding that you don’t deserve to be treated like that.

He told you you deserved abuse from your father. Well, you’ll claim back your dignity when you no longer believe that you deserved that abuse, but you know and accept that you are worthy of love.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by Tee.

Hi Murtaza,

Goodbye teak, i really liked our conversation, at the end of it, in the few last post, i almost felt like you understood me, almost.

But it was only almost. Because you decided that I cannot possibly understand you and that I must be wrong:

im almost convinced by teak, but when i re think, when i re validate myself, i know she is wrong, but i got this tiny little voice in my head that tells me “what if she is right?” That made my life so much miserable in the past,

At the moment, you are at the stage where you believe that everybody is wrong, and only you are right. Perhaps this will change in the future and you’ll reconsider, but for now, it is what it is. Goodbye Murtaza.