Just got this email from exH (narc, not BP) after failed recycle attempt

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

I've only really talked about my exBPDbf on here before, but I also have a Narc ex husband who I separated from a year ago. He was emotionally abusive and had a high sense of entitlement. I asked him to leave because first he assaulted me, and then he wouldn't stop hacking into my computer and devices to read my messages, then gaslighting me with the information. He moved straight in with his girlfriend, and I've heard since that he had many affairs. However he recently moved out of her house in the hopes that he could recycle me (although it seems their relationship is still ongoing). In the meantime, I've met a very nice man who took me out to dinner on my birthday last week (incidentally while my ex was on holiday with his girlfriend). I got this awful, awful email the day he found out I'd been on a date:

"I am happy to see that you seem to be settling into a new form of life, just you and the children, with me playing more of an outside role. I wish I could say I was doing as well as you.

Recently I had a false sense of hope that you were realising the true strength and love we once had in our relationship and that we may be able to somehow start to re-build something but it is apparent that it won't happen.

I realise this whole experience has taken its toll on you emotionally and mentally and I am truly sorry for that. I hope you can recover but you will also understand that I have taken a number of hits too and am now considering that I too need to move on. I have realised that I loved you like nobody else but the person I fell in love with ten years ago is no longer the person you are and I am sure you will feel the same about me. I love spending time with you and our children and doing the family days out together but they always come to an end and I am forced to revert to a more lonely existence full of regrets and confusion which is not healthy for me. Perhaps I am hoping for a nirvana that no longer exists. It is difficult for me to guess what you are thinking or feeling at any time and I fear the brief moments of affection I have felt from you over the last few months have been you comforting yourself in a moment of personal need rather than anything deeper and more meaningful. Understandably you also seem to have continued to seek out that gratification from other sources too.

Like you, I think I have come to the decision that I can’t continue to damage myself any more and if you aren’t the one I can be with, I have to try to let go. This process will obviously come with some difficult challenges as my natural desire is to care for and nurture the one I love, and that has always been you. However the one to be nurtured needs to want to be nurtured for that to have any meaning.

Today I have reduced my regular payments to you by £200 per month. You seem to be managing your accounts very well and with a new love interest that can take you to fancy restaurants for your birthday implies that you have found someone who will take over the role of spoiler and impresser.

I think it is also time to start the difficult discussion around our joint assets, namely the house and contents. It is very difficult for me to visit you in our house, then leave it all behind so often. I would like you to arrange for 3 valuations of the house so we can start deciding what is available and needed for us both to be able to find our own spaces to own and rebuild on.

I am also starting to think about Christmas and the ever more complex logistical challenges of spending time with everyone that is important to me, including you. I am happy to start discussions on this topic.

We had so many great times and I have been so desperate to return to that happiness with you but without some serious effort and having to stop this painting over the cracks (or canyons) we have created, I find myself completely paralysed. I will always love you."

He's really pushing my buttons with some of this stuff, knowing the things I feel guilty about. Would appreciate some clarity on this.

[Suspicious1]

I've only really talked about my exBPDbf on here before, but I also have a Narc ex husband who I separated from a year ago. He was emotionally abusive and had a high sense of entitlement. I asked him to leave because first he assaulted me, and then he wouldn't stop hacking into my computer and devices to read my messages, then gaslighting me with the information. He moved straight in with his girlfriend, and I've heard since that he had many affairs. However he recently moved out of her house in the hopes that he could recycle me (although it seems their relationship is still ongoing). In the meantime, I've met a very nice man who took me out to dinner on my birthday last week (incidentally while my ex was on holiday with his girlfriend). I got this awful, awful email the day he found out I'd been on a date:

"I am happy to see that you seem to be settling into a new form of life, just you and the children, with me playing more of an outside role. I wish I could say I was doing as well as you.

Recently I had a false sense of hope that you were realising the true strength and love we once had in our relationship and that we may be able to somehow start to re-build something but it is apparent that it won't happen.

I realise this whole experience has taken its toll on you emotionally and mentally and I am truly sorry for that. I hope you can recover but you will also understand that I have taken a number of hits too and am now considering that I too need to move on. I have realised that I loved you like nobody else but the person I fell in love with ten years ago is no longer the person you are and I am sure you will feel the same about me. I love spending time with you and our children and doing the family days out together but they always come to an end and I am forced to revert to a more lonely existence full of regrets and confusion which is not healthy for me. Perhaps I am hoping for a nirvana that no longer exists. It is difficult for me to guess what you are thinking or feeling at any time and I fear the brief moments of affection I have felt from you over the last few months have been you comforting yourself in a moment of personal need rather than anything deeper and more meaningful. Understandably you also seem to have continued to seek out that gratification from other sources too.

Like you, I think I have come to the decision that I can’t continue to damage myself any more and if you aren’t the one I can be with, I have to try to let go. This process will obviously come with some difficult challenges as my natural desire is to care for and nurture the one I love, and that has always been you. However the one to be nurtured needs to want to be nurtured for that to have any meaning.

Today I have reduced my regular payments to you by £200 per month. You seem to be managing your accounts very well and with a new love interest that can take you to fancy restaurants for your birthday implies that you have found someone who will take over the role of spoiler and impresser.

I think it is also time to start the difficult discussion around our joint assets, namely the house and contents. It is very difficult for me to visit you in our house, then leave it all behind so often. I would like you to arrange for 3 valuations of the house so we can start deciding what is available and needed for us both to be able to find our own spaces to own and rebuild on.

I am also starting to think about Christmas and the ever more complex logistical challenges of spending time with everyone that is important to me, including you. I am happy to start discussions on this topic.

We had so many great times and I have been so desperate to return to that happiness with you but without some serious effort and having to stop this painting over the cracks (or canyons) we have created, I find myself completely paralysed. I will always love you."

He's really pushing my buttons with some of this stuff, knowing the things I feel guilty about. Would appreciate some clarity on this.

[hope2727]

That is the most thinly veiled, manipulative threat I have ever seen. They use guilt to control us. Don't fall for it. Stay strong. Personally I think I would do nothing. Do you have a custody agreement? How about a support payment agreement? I might bring it to a lawyer and see what they say. If I did respond it wouldn't be for some time. I find mine changes his mood and mind like the wind so if I give it a few days he often is in a totally different place. When I respond right away I typically feed his current mood and that ramps things up. The mood of this letter screams hurt and control. So I let things sit and just let time pass. But what do I know mine is gone with no sign of a return. So thats just what I have found effective in the past. My two cents. Hope you start to fell better. I know its pointless to say don't feel guilty but don't. Its not worth wasting guilt over people who make their own bed and then refuse to lie in it.

[GaGrl]

Make sure you keep all these email communications.

This email, especially, so closely ties his financial support to your social activities as to be laughable.

[Suspicious1]

Thanks both. I think the whole thing was sparked because I went for dinner, and he's using one of his only means to control me, which is the house and the finances. All pretty hypocritical, considering.

We have no agreements whatsoever, although he has put a few things in writing about what he intends to give me. I'll be making appointments with lawyers soon, as he can't continue to blackmail me.

[Tiepje3]

Hi Suspicious1, I cannot give you any clarity, but when reading his email I got goosebumps, 'cause this is the kind of email I'm expecting to receive at some point as well. It could have been written by my uBPD/NPDstbxh. I am dreading this kind of email so I can completely understand your feelings of guilt, because it would probably make me feel the same way.

On the other hand... .reading it from an objective point of view: it's a LOT about him, his wishes, his needs, his longings, his decisions. It's like he's still manipulating you. It comes across as very self-centred. No apologies, accusatory, hardly anything about what you want.

If it were me, I'd try to get it out of my mind (which of course, is easier said than done), let it go and focus on things that are good for me.

[goldylamont]

Reading this made me cringe as well. He manages so softly, so passive aggressively, threaten you.

In summary the letter reads like this to me:  After finding out that you are seeing someone new, this pisses me off so here's what's going to happen. One thing is I'm going to give you less financial support because seeing you with another guy on your birthday made me feel bad. Two, I'd like to now reminisce about parts of our relationship that felt good. Also want to tell you that I feel worse than you, even though I abused you, really that's not true I think you were abusive. You finding happiness elsewhere is evidence of this. So I bring up the good times and my pain as a way threaten you with a fantasy of what you are leaving behind, in hopes that I can always have access to you at my whim.


I dunno, just how it dealt to me.