Hon ----

Yes. It's normal.

But there is no "should"
in regards to how long it takes.
It takes how long it takes.

From where I sit, possibly
the main way to stay abuser-free
is loving yourself enough
to not have even a moment
of imagining that it's okay to
have an abuser in your life.

When you get to that point,
you will not be vulnerable to him
or any other abuser.

Have you done the kind of work
required to get to that point? If
not, that's what I would suggest.

As to the "why," . . . . . the why
is basically irrelevant, but it has
to do with the same mechanism
as addiction to a substance. For
people who are maintaining
sobriety, it begins as a day-to-day
battle. That's kind of how it is, in
a case like this one, also. Loving
yourself is a huge step in the right
direction.

Are you working with a counselor
or therapist? If not, would you
consider doing that?

Also, I urge you to do the Clarifying
Index Card exercise, and to work
with them on a daily basis!

I am the opposite, I contact him, out of desperation though, I can't let go of him no matter how hard I try.
I am getting stronger, I posted earlier, I don't answer his calls on the first ring anymore, and sometimes don't answer him at all if I am busy, and it is getting easier for me not to call him as much, I just came to a realization that I am going to have to live without him, and move on.
We are still in contact with each other, I go out hunting with him, and I go get wood with him, and I give him rides when he needs them, and every other weekend he comes to my house and stays. otherwise he stays with his mom.
how sad is that a over 40 yr old man stays with his mommy:/
yeah but, weak you are not. You are strong, take a look at what you have lived through. You have to be a certain kind of strong to be able to survive abuse. I hope this helps you. I just want you to know you are not the only one. And there are many who have been in our places and you have plenty of support here. Keep posting. You will survive. and we will be here :)

Like babyrena says, you are not weak, you are strong because you managed to survive through all of that abuse.

I think that you can't get him out of your head because he keeps calling you. He doesn't allow you the time to forget him and he is so persistent that it would be near impossible for anyone to ignore him. I think the only way to end it is to prevent him from being able to call you.

You say that you changed your phone number and blocked your previous man. Could you do that with this one? If you feel that you can't with the latest man, do you know why not? Is it because deep down you still hope he will come back to you and be the good person you think he is inside?

I'm so sorry, Joanie.
You really deserve better than this guy. I really hope you find the strength to go NC. Please take care of yourself and good luck.

lilly
I read in katz post about narc behaviour and the gaslighting, its the mind control and crazy making that makes it harder to let go of this relationship.
I know for me it is, like a baby without a pacifier, I need to hear his voice, and have contact at least once a day. I am slowly making progress with my contact and need for him, day by day, but its really hard.
I am really dependent on him, and yet know in my heart and mind that it is not right. I have been working a long time to seperate from him.
My SO is staying with his mommy, and it was a joyride until he started putting me down and cheating on me, and I started making his life so miserable. I didn't understand what I done to make him so unhappy, until I started realizing he was miserable all by himself, and it isn't anything I done and there is nothing I can do to make him happy. So I am working on weaning myself from him, if that is what you want to call it.
It is a tough road to seperate from them, because you can, and they will let you for a time, but then will call you and tell you to quit pouting and grow up, and you know you love me, I love you, and come pick me up, and if you don't it makes them crazy mad and you fear for your well being.
It's not the best, and it's the hardest relationship to get out of. But we can do it. I am working everyday towards being free of him.

plus my SO is an Mj addict and he told me in the beginning that she was his first lady and he would never give it up, I should have left him then.
There was a lot of times I should of left him, the first call, the first meeting, the time he spit in my face, the time he threw me across the room, and so on and so forth,
but I can't live in the past, I have to keep on moving forward.
I wish you the best joanies, and prayers are sent to you.

Some good stuff, especially about learning to love yourself. Instead of beating yourself up for what you haven't done, pat yourself on the back for what you have. Instead of hating yourself for being weak, love yourself for being strong.

Instead of the focus being on how weak and pathetic and so on you are when you think of him, find something else - something good - to focus on. The fact is that, when you start to focus on how wonderful you truly are, and how strong you are, he will lose his power.

Lillypuddy, I think you may have something here: "You say that you changed your phone number and blocked your previous man. Could you do that with this one? If you feel that you can't with the latest man, do you know why not? Is it because deep down you still hope he will come back to you and be the good person you think he is inside? "

I think since he came to visit me the last time and was suppossedly detoxing and also came knowing full well there would be no sex so don't bother coming around if he was looking for that, well my emotions are overriding my logic?
I mean, if he faked detoxing, he really did a good job of it, turning pasty pale after eating, going into the bathroom and getting sick, having stomach cramps and having to lay down, sweating profusely and just wanting to be left alone yet when I came to check on him, wanting me there and holding onto my hand so tight it hurt until he got past it.
Suppossedly that was just from MJ, imagine if he is back to Meth? Or if he tries to kick the unneeded presciption pills he takes..I wonder is it even possible?
But in my heart, I seen him vulnerable and trying and he said he was doing it so he could foster a child. ( That really head screwed me)
If he is such a bad person, how can he want to foster children in the system who are neglected and abused? Also how can he want to " be a better man like he says I make him want to be?" Or how can he stay at my house and not even try to have sex with me, doesn't that show some form of respect or restraint on his part? Wanting to get drug free and adopt doesn't that show compassion and wanting to love?
Asking me if I could stick around and stay with him if he adopted..things like that.
These words are hard for me as my mother (who I lost to Cancer) was an adopted child and had a horrible life until she was adopted at 8 years old..then I was adopted and I wanted to do the same, even before I ended up at my age, alone and with no children.
It is like this man came along and offered me something no one else did. :(

I don't know, my head is screwed up.

As for the number change, I have changed it twice and feel stupid going and doing it again. I look like the crazy one.
I feel he wont bother me for a while anyway as he took a trip to Mexico and he will be having fun so he won't feel lonely or stressed or whatever triggers him to call me.

Babyrena, Do you know why you have such a strong pull towards your boyfriend? Does it feel like its a constant push/pull with him? That it seems as though when you finally feel like you've gained some indepandance and strength and your ready to move on, then they offer up tidbits..breadcrumbs..I'm sorry, can we be friends, you will always have a place in my heart, I miss you, can I come see you, I'm lonely and sad and so are you, we might as well be together..arghhh!
I wonder if addicts are worse? Or if abusers are all controlling and manipulative?
I am sorry your going through this..it totally sucks. :(

To add, I appreciate everyone's advice and kindness. I think llene nailed it big time when she said I need to love myself.

I honestly am not sure I ever have and don't know the path to it now.
Heck maybe I am as abusive as the men in my life were, just in a different way. I have gotten to where I go to work and go home, shop only for necessary things and when I have no choice. I have become almost reclusive and almost to where I won't let anyone in anymore.
That way they can't trick me, hurt me, or otherwise get in my head.
Online, I can control things, in reality, I feel I control nothing.

I thought that might be the case because that's the hope I still have in my heart for my H. I totally believed he was good on the inside. Whatever he did, no matter what it looked like, I KNEW he was good on the inside. Even though I logically know now that he isn't good on the inside at all, and even though he basically told me that and that he would never change and never be good, I still cling to the hope, deep down.

Like your ex, my H played the pity card ALL the time. He made me feel so sorry for him and tugged at my heart strings. I wanted to look after him and make it all better and give him a good life and make him happy, and made excuse after excuse for his bad behaviour, blaming it all on his supposed illnesses (which I now think are lies), and not him. If I ever did get annoyed, he would blame his behaviour on his illnesses and tell me I was just not understanding or caring enough, which made me feel so guilty and made me try harder for him. It was all lies and head games. All of it. He could do things perfectly well when he wanted to do it. He just couldn't do it when someone else, and especially when I wanted him to do something. He used it all to control me, telling me I was ruining his life if I didn't let him have his way and telling me he couldn't function because I was making things harder for him and his illnesses whenever I wanted things.

I did dump him once when we were dating, because he was so horrible to me. After that he was full of promises that he would change, that he wanted to be a better man for me, and that I was the only person who would be able to make him that better man, and that was what he wanted. He became so much nicer to me. He gave me specifically the things that I wanted most, emotionally. I thought he had changed and was so wonderful so I married him.

Then he went back to his old self. All the things that I wanted most were things he then used against me. All my fears and anxieties were things he used against me. He twisted everything, pulling my strings and making me dance like a puppet. He knew exactly which buttons to push to get me to do anything he wanted. He'd give me something, then punish me for receiving it. He'd offer to do something nice, then punish me whilst he did it. He totally screwed with my head, and hurt me every single day, all whilst telling me how much he loved me and how he'd never, ever do anything to hurt me because he loved me.

I'm very suspicious of your ex. He wants something, and currently that is you. I think he did the detox and said he wanted to foster because he knows that's exactly what you want. The thing that makes me most suspicious actually is the fact he said he wants to foster. From what you wrote, it sounds like that is such a huge, emotional thing for you that you want really badly. Therefore, by promising you that, he knows he can screw with you, like it's an open wound that he can prod whenever he wants. It's his way in, and that's why he chose to use it. Personally, I don't think there's anything sincere about it. I think it's just an empty promise and a head game, just like my H used to use with me. He'd always promise the things I wanted the most, just to keep me on his side and to make him look like a wonderful, caring, loving man. None of those promises actually happened though. In fact, generally what I got was the exact reverse.

He may very well have been to detox, but that is no guarantee that he will stay clean. Do you feel in your heart that he really has the ability to stay clean forever?

Be very wary that a man can change, and can be wonderful until they've got you, and then they go back to exactly the abusive person they were before because they don't need to keep trying anymore.

You are not the crazy one for changing your number again. He's the crazy, scary, stalkerish one for still phoning you after you change your number. How on earth did he find out the new number? Why hasn't he got the message yet that you don't want to be contacted anymore? He definitely sounds like the crazy one, not you.

"He may very well have been to detox, but that is no guarantee that he will stay clean. Do you feel in your heart that he really has the ability to stay clean forever?"

To my knowledge he did not go to anyplace to detox. He just tried it on his own. His reason was supposedly so that if the child service place tested him, he would not test for MJ in his system. That way he could foster if needed.
Supposedly as well, the 2 weeks he was out of touch with me after coming down to visit and suppossedly missing me so much and wanting to get together the following Saturday, even asking me to cancel plans with a girlfriend so that we could do something, then canceling our plans because he was "down" and then later saying he was "to broke to go anywhere". I ended up getting a phone call from him 2 weeks later after that Saturday leaving a voice mail that sorry he had been out of touch, he had not forgot me he had just been busy babysitting 2 kids and it just took it out of him. OK??
To give him a call and he was not so busy now..whatever.

The fostering, who knows, He says he has the paperwork to prove it. I have never seen it or asked to see it.
What is odd to me is he is snipped and can't have children and was married at one time to a woman with a child (not his to my knowledge yet he suppossedly treated the child like his own) and in the beginning of our written correspondance, he asked if I wanted kids and why I didnt have them. When I said it just had never happened, he pretty much said " He had just never found the right woman to have them with. "
HE never said he could NOT have them.

First lie in that he hid that. Second was hiding his ADD, OCD, and Tourettes. Third, his drug use. Fourth that he had no liscence.
I excused all of these and for that really there is no excuse. Well other than the health afflictions, he cannot help those, IF they are real. The other day when he was sick and wanted me to come take care of him, take off work to do it, he mentioned he did not want to go to the dr as he did not have insurance? How does someone with all those afflictions get diagnosed without a dr or insurance? He also says he can get his meds through his pyschiatrist, by just mailing him money? How can you manage that?

As for his symptoms while detoxing, if he faked, he did a darn good job, but then again, he twitches his arm and makes ticking with tourettes, also blowing out at times. He also repeats himself at times. He has other symptoms that I have looked up that mimic tourettes.
Same with OCD, he has to have certain things a certain way and do things over and over.

He has so many things going on that I am not sure where the truth ends and the lies begin or vice versa.
I think that has kept me there longer as well...that I feel his issues are to blame for his behavior. :(

I just wanted to add that I am so so sorry for all your going through lillypuddy. I can relate to wanting to believe they are good. To wanting to believe they will change. To remembering the good and pushing aside the bad.

As for the phone, that is my fault, I have changed it twice, due to the man before him and I gave the number to his best female friend who wanted to stay in touch with me via facebook. He ended up playing the I want to stay friends as well card and there you go.
So totally my fault on him having the number.

As I said though, he has taken a vacation to Mexico and should be gone for 2 weeks, I highly doubt I will be on his mind, so I wont have to worry about contact.

There is good and bad in everyone. Every single human being gas a choice to be good or bad, it's not a weakness to see the potential.

But know this, every human being has free will and if one is going to change their path it would be at their own will. You can't save everyone.

U taking his call is not going to help him change. Maybe you can't! In fact I know u can't. You can only change yourself.

You just can't save this one, sorry but the best thing u can do is let him go. Even if he can't see this, u must !

It's sad and its a loss u will need to face but its just the way things are and some people are just not made for each other.

If you persist with this man or go in circles u will not be open to the potential of meeting the man whom u are suited with.

Choose freedom, choose potential

Is there a link between your father and older brother and this ex of yours? Perhaps this is how u need to address this one?

Maybe looking into can shed some light perhaps?

"He has so many things going on that I am not sure where the truth ends and the lies begin or vice versa."

And that, to me, is the crux of the issue. The problem isn't whether or not he has these afflictions or the extent to which they are responsible for some of his behaviours. It's the fact that, whenever he says something to you, the first thing you have to do is try to work out whether it's true or not. I will NEVER again be with someone like that. It's exhausting and you end up never even trusting yourself or your own perceptions because you are so bound up in questioning what they say and do and whether it's real or not.

Lying is now my first and biggest deal breaker.