Hi waitingwife,
I have seen the several posts you have published and I will try to comment on all of them in one.
First of all, I was very sorry to read you are going through all this pain.
My idea of ending it is going through it. When you take on an active position and reclaim your life, you will be able to achieve emotional freedom and relief. I think you have waited for him long enough.
With all due respect for the damage psychopaths cause all around them, have you ever told your husband that it is unacceptable that he has had an affair? Have you even gotten angry with him for changing things and putting you on hold? Was he ever emphatic towards your position in this whole thing?
I believe this are these are the things to consider. Because now it seems like a revolving door.

I have been to two therapist who determined that the behavior of my abuser is psychopathic.So some therapists do say that. And then we continued working in my experience and not on his character or personality.
Labeling someone has a bad connotation and it does seem like the purpose of him is to make it easier to deal with someone. I don't think you need that. It is enough to determine that he was abusive and share that with others.

I will end this comment with a recommendation to practice self care and to honor your feelings because they do matter.

Blessings.

disi22 Thanks for your response.

I have been going through it. It's almost 2 years now of going through it. But the whole of two years has never been consistent, constantly evolving. So there has not been in length of time that I have been able to get stable on and move forward. I do agree with you that one MUST go through it. I have taken a lot of action. I'm pretty much out of cards as to how much more action I can take.

Reclaiming my life. That is part of my problem. The issue gets complicated here in that I live in his country and am stuck here. I invested my entire adult life into my family. Now I am left with a broken family, few friends, and little skills to go out and make a new life at this age. A life that will be satisfying and bring me joy.

I am definitely not waiting for him anymore. I have come to terms with accepting he isn't coming back ever. Of course I told him all of what you mentioned. In fact his excuse for leaving me is 'because I fought with him'. (over his relationship with her) There is your lack of empathy. I was supposed to just ride it out I suppose. There was a period of 7 weeks after he had been with her for more than a year and I had caught them together where he was trying to come back to me. Only in this period did he come close to showing empathy. He would say things like he understood how much he hurt me. he acknowledged what he had done and how he destroyed our family and the children. Things of that nature. But never once did he apologize. And all the while he continued to jump hoops for his psychopath girlfriend. And then after 7 weeks , boom, AWOL.

You are right regarding the labeling. It's not really important I guess. What's important are simply his actions. The importance of it for me I guess however is that I have learned from experts on the subject of narcissism is that there is no talking to them. There is no way to reason with them. This is what's very frustrating. He is the father of my children and I have to allow him to father my children and not be able to communicate at all. Whenever he does decide to respond to any of my requests he responds with anger, For no reason, just comes off with this angry front. I wish I could understand that.

Thank you

Your husband seemed to portray himself as very passive throughout this whole thing, and I am glad you have decided to not play his game and put the entire blame on the other woman.
Reclaiming your life does not mean performing some massive reforms. It means not letting neither of them to control your life.
This relationship your husband has with her seems unstable and he may want to come back to a safe place with you. As you are bonded through the children it can be even months and years from now, so the choice is in your hands and I am glad you have decided not to wait for him anymore.
Finding out that my ex is a psychopath helped me realize I am not alone and to stop searching for answers with him. And then I moved on with my healing.
I get the idea that you are very strong , logical and emphatic person and you will survive this.

Thank you so much.

What makes me feel like I will never be free of him is that not only he, but he got his also narcissistic father to help control me. He lets his father know it seems every time I message his with a request regarding the children. I don't even speak to him about us anymore. But he doesn't want me speaking to him at all. I refuse to have to be triangulated with his also abusive father, but sometimes i have to , to get what I need. His father constantly throws accusations at me. I can't bend enough to please them. Unfortunately, unless I'm willing to have to leave the house with my children, accept less money than can support us, and accept having the car taken away from me , then I too have to jump through their hoops. They use their keys of empowerment to keep me doing what they want. I still haven't been ready to sacrifice that minimum security to be away from them. And even if I got away from them, my kids will always be stuck with them and I have to be supportive of my kids.

You have to find a really good lawyer that is compassionate to you and that
understands personality disordered people and their dirty tactics. They love
to control others and see using kids as bargaining chips. Please protect yourself
legally as much as you can. They will not listen to reason or have any compassion.

You know, sometimes I forget that it is a process and in the beginning I had a lot of questions about this disorder and a strong need to understand.
What I can offer you from my experience and knowledge is that narc/ sociopaths/ psychopaths often display a false image that does not correspond with who they really are, and con others, including family members.
The high level of awareness these people have, the lack of remorse, guilt or shame, differentiates them from the mentally ill. And their acts consequently are considered evil.
You can use the information about this disorder to eliminate the surprise factor because they become predictable once you are familiar with their pathology and to not let him or her get to you emotionally.They love mind games.

bettybean......Fortunately, the law here, always sides with the mother unless it can be proven with hard physical evidence she is unfit. So I think I am safe in that department at least.

disi22......Yes, I am constantly still trying to understand him and his girlfriend AND her husband. The one thing however I don't believe my husband has is awareness. He's always seemed aloof. I don't think he cares about or enjoys playing mind games. His strategy is financial power and he uses it. And he also simply uses 'almost zero contact'. He only responds to me if he has to.

I had a conversation with a guy criticizing Americans for attaching a label to everything. I told him basically, that's science. If you can't label, and compartmentalize then, you can not deal with it.