It has been too long since I posted, but things have been quiet. Our daughter is grown now and so there is less communication now. On occasion I think my ex-husband got away with everything, but what did he really get away with? Did he ruin my life? No. Did he drive my daughter away from me? Again, the answer is no. She and I communicate regularly.
Looking back, I still wish I had moved further way from my ex-husband when I divorced him. How could I have possibly known all the hell he would put our family through for so many years. My husband just cannot stand my ex, but we are both grateful he isn’t a part of our lives today.
I still do not know what is wrong with my ex-husband that makes him do the things he does. Does he have Narcissistic Personality Disorder? I am not sure, but he certainly exhibits the top narcissistic personality disorder traits:
- Inflated Ego.
- Lack of Empathy.
- Need for Attention.
- Repressed Insecurities.
- Few Boundaries.
This list also fits my father pretty well. My father has been diagnosed with a mental illness of Schizoaffective Disorder. Well, he was diagnosed years ago and has not been well for my entire life. A little over a year ago, I accepted guardianship responsibility for my father. He can be so difficult to deal with that I often ask myself if that was a mistake. There is no one else since I am an only child. My father also has few boundaries and I have to limit his phone calls. All he wants to do is hire an attorney and sue everyone. He fully believes his version of history that is definitely not factual. It is ironic how similar my father and my ex-husband.
It has made me realize my ex-husband may not even see what he has done or see anything wrong with his behavior over the years. In his mind, he may feel perfectly justified. It does not make it right, but it makes me realize they just might not see it the way the rest of us see it.
A few months ago, I visited my cousin for her mother’s funeral. My aunt and I visited my uncle (my father’s brother) and he said “I tried hard never to talk bad to the kids about their mother.” This was 100% not true. He said horrible things about their mother and his oldest daughter remembers hearing him beat her up on many occasions. My uncle truly cannot see what he has done. It does not make it right, but it lends a different perspective.
My father tells everyone I never visited him or call him. He does not tell everyone that he was super abusive and spent 15-years of my childhood bashing my mother and calling her a whore. This abusive parenting behavior led to his daughter distancing herself for the next 20-years. He just does not see it this way at all. He sees very little the way things happened. My aunt often feels the need to prove the truth which is so similar to how I felt about my ex-husband. Generational abuse definitely runs in families.
It doesn’t make much sense to me why so many men are so similar who are not even related. There are different degrees of abusers, but their core issues are very much the same. Lundy Bandcroft said, “… it is like they all graduated from the same school of abuse.” It is so true.
At any rate, the past cannot be erased, what happened, happened. It no longer rules my mind or days. There has been real peace in recent years. I have been able to focus on my art which is a wonderful outlet. Handing my father is not super easy. In face it is quite difficult. At this time, I am just working on maintaining my personal boundaries and trying to sort through the dysfunctional connect of it all.
Is This Abusive 
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