Summer1976,
I am sorry for your pain, but the things he said are so unnecessarily cruel. Leaving someone after so long is horribly vile anyway, so why would he need to add all of these additional insults???
Have you returned to counseling? You should because you feel bad, and a good counselor can help you reframe these things properly to remove the sting. For example, when you wrote the list of all he said, I thought, "Wow, what a miserable bastard. Only someone who hates themselves and hates the world lashes out like that."
I am putting a lot of tiny pieces of information about you, your exH, and your M. This is what I see:
1. A man who had a lot of selfish hobbies and did not care about being absent from his family.
2. A wife who did not say No and rearranged her life so he could do what he wanted.
3. A man who acted like a teenager with high adventure, thrill seeking hobbies.
4. A man who wanted to be his own boss, so his wife financially backed his business idea.
5. A man who left for the vanity of having a woman 15 years younger to make him feel young again.
6. A man who had control issues and frequently raged at his son as he became a teen, showing he has no true love and respect for others, just himself.
7. A man whose father behaved the same way.
8. A man whose mother accepted this poor treatment just like you did.
9. A man whose family treated you badly and continues to do so. Your exH never stood up for you, and you haven't stood up for yourself, saying you want to respect them.
Have you researched narcissits and codependency? It seems obvious to me that this toxic family has created a selfish monster, and your tendency is to value this monster and the toxic family. Where is your anger? Where is your sense of self-protection in this life with him? He has been gone from your M most of the time, and even when there he has been cruel. What are you missing about him? You need to figure out why you think you are the cause of this man's poor treatment. You are not. The problem isn't that he left, it's that you didn't kick him out long ago. He is a terrible person, and you've cut him way too much slack.
Find your anger.
He is not good enough for you. He never was. Start adopting that mindset. If we marry a serial killer because we love his good side and because we are kind people who try to love them in spite of their "flaws," why are we still so shocked when they finally murder us, too? It was always going to happen because he's a cold-blooded ass, not because you did anything wrong.
P.S. Why did you almost call the wedding off? (Or was it him?) I bet you saw some red flags that concerned you. Him bringing that up 20 years later is how narcissists are. They never forget a perceived insult because their egos are so fragile. What a total waste of your sadness. He doesn't deserve a minute of your thoughts.
[This message edited by OwningItNow at 6:23 AM, May 24th (Sunday)]
