Doesn't seem fair

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

I'm posting lots today bc I'm needing to empty my brain. Need help. S9 is on vacation with his mom and her BF. I'm happy for s9 but it a struggle I'm trying to grow from, re frame my thinking. He was at a MLB game and got a ball. What a thrill of a life time but he got it with another man. I'm happy for s9. But it seems everything she put her hand to since she left me, turned to gold. I'm bad for filling in the blanks so that doesn't help. When all these good things happen to her, it re enforces in my brain that I must of been the horrible terrible person she said I was. She would cry and scream and tell me no one ever made her cry, or treated her so horrible. She would tell me I'm crazy and I'm driving her crazy. She controlled and manuplate me and emotionally abused me but she could never push my family out of my life. Not that they were intruding, she just hated them and took every chance to abuse them. I wasn't allowed to talk about my family in our house. That was one of her rules. I'm thinking now, in her extended family, did she do the same. Is she the puppet master of her family? Her father pushed his family out of his life, her mother pushed her family out of her life. She could and did tear me down in every part of my life but she couldn't put that wedge between my family and I. My family is my family, I love them. When they got the message they stayed away, than my ex twisted it around, see your family doesn't want us in there life. I was that far from dropping my family but I found therapy, oddly enough it was her who made me go to therapy, saying the therapest will tell me how crazy my family is but the T opened my eyes to emotional abuse and it was a downward spiral from there although I'm on the up ward now, back than when I started trying to get her to see what she was doing is abuse and wrong, she just got meaner. I pushed for councelling she said it was easier to leave so she packed up and left.

[bus boy]

I'm posting lots today bc I'm needing to empty my brain. Need help. S9 is on vacation with his mom and her BF. I'm happy for s9 but it a struggle I'm trying to grow from, re frame my thinking. He was at a MLB game and got a ball. What a thrill of a life time but he got it with another man. I'm happy for s9. But it seems everything she put her hand to since she left me, turned to gold. I'm bad for filling in the blanks so that doesn't help. When all these good things happen to her, it re enforces in my brain that I must of been the horrible terrible person she said I was. She would cry and scream and tell me no one ever made her cry, or treated her so horrible. She would tell me I'm crazy and I'm driving her crazy. She controlled and manuplate me and emotionally abused me but she could never push my family out of my life. Not that they were intruding, she just hated them and took every chance to abuse them. I wasn't allowed to talk about my family in our house. That was one of her rules. I'm thinking now, in her extended family, did she do the same. Is she the puppet master of her family? Her father pushed his family out of his life, her mother pushed her family out of her life. She could and did tear me down in every part of my life but she couldn't put that wedge between my family and I. My family is my family, I love them. When they got the message they stayed away, than my ex twisted it around, see your family doesn't want us in there life. I was that far from dropping my family but I found therapy, oddly enough it was her who made me go to therapy, saying the therapest will tell me how crazy my family is but the T opened my eyes to emotional abuse and it was a downward spiral from there although I'm on the up ward now, back than when I started trying to get her to see what she was doing is abuse and wrong, she just got meaner. I pushed for councelling she said it was easier to leave so she packed up and left.

[gotbushels]

We win a little when they fail an attempt to isolate us from other people.   

[bus boy]

Why did she put so much effort in isolating and tearing us apart and none into keeping us a family?

[SoMadSoSad]

Why did she put so much effort in isolating and tearing us apart and none into keeping us a family?

My ex liked a quote once... .":)estroy what destroys you"... .

[gotbushels]

bus boy and SoMadSoSad I think your observations on their behavioural tendencies are a big step toward a healthier understanding of the behaviours that went on in these relationships. I think a helpful question from here is, "To what extent are these types of behaviours voluntary?" You might even skip that and ask, "What was my role in that behaviour and why?"

[bus boy]

I have to say my roll was the roll of the codependent. I kept trying to please her. Very early in our r/s I got a glimpse of that behaviour. She one day up and stopped talking to me, I asked what was wrong and she said if you don't know what you did I'm not telling you. I reacted very negative as time went on, I would not talk to her, silent treatment. I did see this as destructive and pushed very hard for councelling but that usually took her into the everything is all my fault speech and than off topic to my family, she knew she could get some narcusdtic source out of me. Reaction, get defensive. I fed her for a long time. I've gone nc.

[gotbushels]

She one day up and stopped talking to me, I asked what was wrong and she said if you don't know what you did I'm not telling you.

I got this a lot. With caution, I think it's a sort of lose-lose. If you give attention, you lose. If you don't, you lose. Can you see which person is more anxious than the other person early on in this exchange? Does that indicate where the source of the anxiety is?

I think here, there's is a bit of forcing you in to mind-reading, that I think can be seen as a behaviour that promotes you cycling into enmeshment. I think this is a plain way to see how this increases your tendency toward codependent behaviour. Can you see how mind-reading is a problematic type of thought distortion for you to get in to? Can you see how it is trying to get you to problem solve for her? I encourage you to think about this. I think it's quite plain to see how it's not always you that makes you codependent as you call it, but how things occurred between the two of you that gave you a given result.

I have to say my roll was the roll of the codependent. I kept trying to please her.

Where are you at with addressing this role bus boy?