Need to get something off my chest...

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

I’ll be honest, Skip.  I don’t feel any empathy for him.  None at all.  And it’s not like I haven’t tried to process his point of view.  I have.  I just don’t get any of what happened.  Maybe it’s because this relationship stuff is so new and foreign to me?  I’ve been told that my Asperger’s makes me see the world in a different way.  

I think you're talking about compassion (not empathy).  

Empathy is understanding what another person is going through (to a reasonable extent). I never had a son die, but I have life experiences that I can call upon to help me understand what a friend who is experiencing this is going through and I can make sense of his actions and relate to him.

Using the DSM definitions about the ability to empathize as you describe in you post, you comments would fall in the impaired range. I'm not extending my comment beyond just your words in this post and the DSM definition.

This is an important skill for dealing with people... .no matter who we are, others can legitimately think differently than we do. I would contend that not being able to see the others sides of this is making this harder for you.

On significant benefit of a support group is that people can help you with that. I ask members from time to time to help me understand why others are doing what they do and it helps me find solutions, ways to improve, and self satisfaction.

Why not try that here?

[Skip]

I’ll be honest, Skip.  I don’t feel any empathy for him.  None at all.  And it’s not like I haven’t tried to process his point of view.  I have.  I just don’t get any of what happened.  Maybe it’s because this relationship stuff is so new and foreign to me?  I’ve been told that my Asperger’s makes me see the world in a different way.  

I think you're talking about compassion (not empathy).  

Empathy is understanding what another person is going through (to a reasonable extent). I never had a son die, but I have life experiences that I can call upon to help me understand what a friend who is experiencing this is going through and I can make sense of his actions and relate to him.

Using the DSM definitions about the ability to empathize as you describe in you post, you comments would fall in the impaired range. I'm not extending my comment beyond just your words in this post and the DSM definition.

This is an important skill for dealing with people... .no matter who we are, others can legitimately think differently than we do. I would contend that not being able to see the others sides of this is making this harder for you.

On significant benefit of a support group is that people can help you with that. I ask members from time to time to help me understand why others are doing what they do and it helps me find solutions, ways to improve, and self satisfaction.

Why not try that here?

[Nuitari]

I think you're talking about compassion (not empathy).

No, I'm talking about empathy. I don't understand what was happening inside his head, other than the obvious fact that he was angry. If you read a lot of my posts, you'll see that understanding his mentality has been one of my primary objectives here, but most members here don't want to go there. Despite many members here asking me to empathize with the husband, they themselves have been unwilling (or unable) to explain his mindset.  Several members here, as well as my T, have suggested the possibility that my ex's affair with me was not an isolated incident, that this may be a recurrent problem in their marriage. If that is true, then I'm even more confused by his behavior. It would mean that he had to know that I wasn't the origin of his marriage problems, but still chose to behave as if I was. I get that he doesn't like me given what happened.  I wouldn't expect him to, but to single me out as the source of his problem while his wife is actively pursuing other men is pretty messed up.  Its a different story with the school.  I broke policy, and I completely understand my employers' reasons for letting me go.  I can't figure the husband out though.

[Skip]

Several members here, as well as my T, have suggested the possibility that my ex's affair with me was not an isolated incident, that this may be a recurrent problem in their marriage. If that is true, then I'm even more confused by his behavior. It would mean that he had to know that I wasn't the origin of his marriage problems, but still chose to behave as if I was. I get that he doesn't like me given what happened.  I wouldn't expect him to, but to single me out as the source of his problem while his wife is actively pursuing other men is pretty messed up.

Nuitari, you where in his wife while he was away on assignment. Its a pretty good bet he wanted to destroy someone. He was violated to the deepest extent. If he wanted to salvage his marriage, he couldn't destroy her, so it was you.  Be thankful he had self control.

Watch the bull seal fight over mating partners... .its not much deeper than that. We are all still animals. 

[Nuitari]

If he wanted to salvage his marriage, he couldn't destroy her, so it was you.

So he wanted it both ways.  He wanted to have his cake and eat it too, while I lost everything, and I sat back and allowed this to happen.  That is what is eating away at me.  I had a lot of power that I didn't use.  I could have told him the truth about me and his wife.  I wonder what that would have done to the marriage that he was trying to salvage.  I that didn't destroy it, it certainly wouldn't have helped matters.  But instead I quietly let myself be cast in the role of the pursuer while my world fell apart around me, and what lesson did he learn from this?  That his animalistic behavior works!  That it solves problems.  It didn't have to play out like that if I had been man enough to stand up and tell the truth, and this will always nag at me if don't do that.

I want to make something else clear.  Had he discovered that I had slept with his wife, became so outraged that he called the school, I wouldn't feel any anger toward him under those circumstances.  That to me is somewhat understandable.  That is the story I feel like a lot of you have in your heads, but that's not what happened.  It is the particular circumstances that led to him calling the school that I can't get past.  Do you know what my ex said to me after I lost my job? After telling me how much she loved me and how she was so unhappy in her marriage?  She said that she would have never pursued me if he hadn't went away.  Can you imagine how that made me feel after losing everything?  She had no problem telling me this to my face. Being used in that way and being a scapegoat is too much.  Something has to give.  If you were in my place, you'd want to expose the truth too.

[Nuitari]

Watch the bull seal fight over mating partners... .its not much deeper than that. We are all still animals.

Its not much deeper than that?  That, to me, is appalling.  I've watched plenty of nature documentaries where two males are fighting over a female.  The male that can inflict the most damage gets her.  There is no sympathy on the female's part for the male who was just killed.  Aggressiveness is all it takes to win the female over?  That is what impresses her?  And she isn't with the male because she chose to be, but because the male won her like some kind of prize?  There are no feelings involved in any of that.  Its not much deeper than that in human relationships?  It was a lot deeper than that for me.  I took everything my ex said about leaving him at face value.  I thought those were decisions that she made.  I didn't realize until too late that the husband and I were fighting for her.  I don't feel like I live in the same world as other people sometimes.  What I did learn from being with my ex was that I did like being in a relationship.  The world was all black and white, and suddenly there was color.  After that experience, I thought that maybe I actually had what takes to sustain a relationship, but now I'm not so sure anymore.  

[Nuitari]

Here's something I've realized.  I have other problems going on that I haven't shared here, and they're all based on not being heard.  That's what it all comes down to.  I remember the way my ex responded to my telling her that I didn't want to see her anymore, telling me she didn't need the drama. I didn't need it either, hence me telling her that I didn't want to see her anymore. It was that simple. She couldn't seem to wrap her head around the idea that I was being sincere and wasn't playing some game.  When I finally broke down, the husband accused me of acting so as to "get pitty" from her.  Even after making it as clear as I could to both of them that I wanted out of that situation, they still continued to cast me in the role of pursuer, and then I lost my job. Do you have any idea how excruciating it is to simply speak what is on your mind, and still somehow communicate nothing? 

[Skip]

Had he discovered that I had slept with his wife, became so outraged that he called the school, I wouldn't feel any anger toward him under those circumstances.  That to me is somewhat understandable.  That is the story I feel like a lot of you have in your heads, but that's not what happened. 

What did happen?

Do you think anything you could have said would make a difference?

[drained1996]

Do you have any idea how excruciating it is to simply speak what is on your mind, and still somehow communicate nothing?

I can relate to this statement many times over in my life.  It is excruciatingly painful not to be heard by those you love.  Many here have experienced the same circumstances.  Lots of our family of origin issues play a role in our subsequent not so healthy adult relationship choices.  It seems from your posts, you seem to realize a very crucial issue which is, you are not heard.  That's painful... .I know, I'm still not heard by my family.  
My own process took me to realize my own FOO issues... .which made me realize putting much weight on my exBPD's thoughts/actions/reactions was not very productive in moving forward in life.   Realizing the depth of which an emotionally unhealthy partner could influence my own life required me to look at my own.  How and why did I get here, and how and why did I allow it to continue for so long how and why did I react in such an unhealthy manner?  Shifting my focus from her issues (while still learning and understanding what they were) to my own was a turning point.  I'm still a work in progress, as are many here.  I'm going to go out on a limb and say you may see the unhealthy part in your focus on how they have reacted... .
You're not alone here, many have been or are on the same path... .keep sharing.