What you're going through must be extremely hard, and you have every right to feel the emotions you are feeling. But he doesn't deserve the amazing mother and women you sound to be. You should be happy that he left you because you had to big of a heart to do that to your kids or him. When your kids grow up they will appreciate and love you so much for all that you have done for them, you will find a man that appreciates and loves you the way you deserve to be treated. You're in my prayers.

I feel your pain and understand the loneliness. I have been married for 18 years, but with him for 25.

My stbx is a narcissistic and definitely has traits of antisocial personality disorder per our past therapist. He is mean and not anything special either!!!
He left to move in with another woman and her small children. Instant family!! When he left it was not a smooth transition and he has caused so much damage.

He is with her, but he is alone. He no longer sees his parents, his family, his kids, or the dog!

And... I am single, but
I am not alone. I have family and friends who love me and my children.

And it makes me angry at times, but I am healing and growing. And I am lonely at times, but this is why there are groups like this. And I am tired from taking care of everything, but I keep going.

Be patient and love yourself... that is what I am doing.

It is not fair, but hang in there and ask friends and family for help.
Hugs

When dealing with narcisstic abuse
Therapy is a very good idea along
With support groups. HUGS

I feel your pain. I too have a narcissistic stbx. This divorce process is going to be messy I know. It's hard for us to process and hard for us to work through. We feel the pain and suffering while they seem happy. Perhaps they just look happy. We have a chance to work on ourselves and improve our lives. Im working hard to turn this negative into a positive. In time we will all get there. Keep putting in the work and stay strong. It will be worth it.
-HUGS-

Oh I know just how you are feeling , I feel as if I was stuck with cleaning up a mess that I did not make that keeps coming back. That is the negative and I always find a positive and for me the positive is at least I am cleaning up the mess so I can rearrange my life with a better future and a happy ending. Being alone is not a bad thing although your stbx seems to have found a temporary fix and that is a negative to you but the positive is you have not found a temporary fix you are finding a permanent fix that will last a lot longer than his temporary fix. My stbx is narcissistic pig that uses people for his gain and he does not care who he uses, hurts in the process. I know I am better off now than I have been with him. I wish you luck and hang in there . Hugs

In my own divorce currently and trying to be a positive person for my three grandkids. Not sure where guys got the idea of leave a family behind in a divorce and just ignore your own kids. They're our very own flesh and blood and I guess I'm a dinosaur from a bygone generation. Namaste....

I was married to a narcissist for 33 years. They come in all forms. Some are mean, definitely abusive in some form and some seem like normal people. The ex seemed like a normal man. He was good at making things not his fault but getting what he wanted without the blame.

I had to get the divorce he pretended not to want. Everyone thought he was such a good guy.

By the time we divorced I was handling three retirement accts, buying and selling our houses to go to the next job. Taking care of the horses, dogs and kids.

Our marriage finally unraveled when he took a temp job overseas that lasted ten years. He got careless and let me see what he really was. I ran for a divorce. I can tell you that you will be stronger when the divorce is final. You will like who you will become. You won't put up with a lot of BS from the men you meet in the future..

I could of written your post. I'm left to raise 2 small boys whilst he is living a care free life. It has to get better for me for them. X

I'm thankful for all your comments. I know it's for the better, I know that his "happiness" with his new life isn't real, I know he lost. I know all these things and more. I just am tired of being alone. I know I need to work on me first but I just am trying to believe there is more for me out there.

Being fooled by him has been the hardest, most humiliating thing that ever happened to me. I can't believe I fell for it. No one around me understands. I'm grateful to find this board for support

Hi there, I'm sorry to hear that you are going through a difficult time right now. Raising or parenting a kid is the hardest job on earth and I'm sorry that you have to handle your child on your own most of the time. On the other hand, I'm also glad that you found the courage to share your issues on this platform when it seems to become unbearable for you at this moment.

Not sure if you and your child's father are on talking term. It might be worth sitting down with him and work out a co-parenting style that might work for both of you for your child's sake. I chanced upon a book titled "Co-parenting works!" by Tammy Daughtry several years back. The book offered some practical strategies and sound advice to help divided parents to find common ground for the benefit of their child. Hope you will find it helpful in your situation. Keeping you in my prayer.

Nightingale77 - thank you for your niceness suggestion. But that isn't something that will apply in my situation. He has chosen to be with a heroin addict that has lost custody of all 5 of her children and is now pregnant. I refuse to allow my child to be around her or them together. My ex can see our child with me present only and this other woman isn't allowed to be there/participate. So it makes it harder because I'm essentially the only parent

I feel like I relate to where you are coming from. My exH, like trisha9054 said, "seems" like a nice normal guy, at least to some people, and especially until/unless they get to know him well. But in reality, he's an alcoholic, cheating, narcissistic, manipulative, dead-beat. I caught him in 2 affairs, at the same time. He's a drunk, but refuses AA because "all those people there are losers" as though he's not on the exact same road. He got involved with a woman much like the one your ex is with now, and managed to get himself thrown in jail, he's only recently gotten that settled legally. So he's not allowed to be alone w our kid, which is fine by me. But he always has a sob story for anyone who doesn't know the real story about how he "wishes" he could see his son. Well, he could, but he ghosts for weeks or months at a time, then pops up out of nowhere wanting to see J right away, only to turn me into the devil if I can't drop everything to accommodate him. It's very stressful, and honestly the times when I can pretend he doesn't exist are better than the times we have to deal w him.

We KNOW all of these things: we are better off. The kid(s) is(are) better off. He will never find true happiness unless he changes his ways. Etc. But, that doesn't mean there aren't hard days. It doesn't mean there aren't times that I get mad that it all falls on me, that I don't have a "normal" or "reliable" ex, that my kid's dad can't be left alone w him for 15 minutes. It just sucks sometimes, I really get it. It's good to vent to those who understand (which for me is only on here, people in real life don't understand usually)
(((HUGS)))