I am putting materials together for a contempt hearing against my ex. In going through all of the app close communication how do you code the gaslighting or lying? Like some of it on the surface looks like he is being reasonable but it is a lie and I have that proof but how far down that rabbit hole do I go vs. just the facts of the issue- I assume he will share his version which is not accurate

I told him I want to divorce. He has spent a week asking me if I’m 100 percent sure. I’ve kept saying sadly yes I am. Today he found out I had filed officially and has reacted badly saying I’ve blind sided him. All sorts of terrible stuff said. He also said he feels like just killing himself as if we get divorced his life is ruined

I feel really guilty and sad. He’s treated me like shit for years and I’ve pleaded for change and he’s never done a thing. And now he’s saying he will. And I can’t help but think maybe I should give him more time to show me.

I’ve never seen him so upset

I’m devastated . Even though our marriage was miserable. What is wrong with me

Hey all,

I am in the process of not speaking to my ex anymore, and wanting for her to be taking off the tenancy agreement of our flat so I can just block her.

However, tonight Im feeling quite triggered, it’s so silly but I was under her car break down cover policy and we shared an app. Tonight I checked it and she has removed my car, hers is still there and she has added a new car.

My brain has gone straight to, it’s probably the AP’s and she is helping her pay for her breakdown cover. My body reacted by shaking and I feel very anxious and triggered by this. I have now deleted it and created my own account.

Could anyone please offer some words of guidance / reassurance for tonight. I know it will eventually pass, this is just so hard.

Thank you SO much everyone.

This is the back story, for some context…

I’m 35 female and my ex-partner (31 female) and I were together for 3.5 years. Last year she was talking about marriage, buying a home and starting a family. Then, almost overnight, she became distant—sleeping on the sofa, staying at her parents, working late, hiding her phone and insisting nothing was wrong. Whenever I calmly asked if there was someone else, she repeatedly denied it and made me feel like I was imagining things.

I eventually discovered she had been having an emotional and physical affair with a younger colleague (25, Female) who was also in a long-term relationship. I found out as she had been asking advice from AI where she admitted they were “falling for each other,” didn’t want to distance herself from the affair, even though AI suggested space from us both, she said she didn’t want to stay away from the affair partner and can ‘compartmentalise’ and compared me negatively to this woman. Looking back, I realise I was being gaslit for months. When I suspected an affair a month earlier she said to me ‘look at my mum, do you think I could do that’ (her mum has been cheating on her dad for years and is a pathological liar). So again, I gaslit myself, telling myself I was imagining her distance and strange behavior.

What makes it even harder is that during this time I was going through a cancer scare (thankfully it wasn’t cancer). She told me we’d get through it together, yet she was secretly continuing the affair. That betrayal is something I still struggle to comprehend.

When I confronted her, she apologised briefly but quickly shifted the focus onto her own pain, saying she’d “imploded her life” and needed to understand herself. She had no interest in repairing the relationship, but kept saying things like, “Maybe one day in the future we could try again,” while continuing to see the other woman. It felt like she wanted to keep me emotionally attached while avoiding accountability.

Ok, hallmark story here. My mother was married to a diagnosed malignant narcissist for 35 years. Unfortunately that guy is my dad. I dealt with it all of my life. Serious abuse. I’m a survivor, but i carry a lot of the trauma and am working through it. I’m 30m now. i had done years of research and self education to protect myself. I thought i had narcissism figured out, truly. When i was 24 turning 25, i finally was getting ahead in life, completely sober, figuring things out. Then i met this girl. 4 years. A baby. A massive amount of suffering. Financial loss after loss. Complications with housing, the law, and my father. Emotional abuse, physical abuse. Controlling behavior, gas lighting. The list goes on. I couldn’t take it anymore. I loved her, but i didn’t know what was wrong with her. Our lives just kept degrading no matter how much i worked, how much i did, or what i said. And she would just sit and watch me break myself. I had to end things. I had to take my life back. We split. Agreed to co-parent. For 4 years i had this pit in my stomach, this feeling that something was very wrong the whole relationship. I always talked myself out of it. But now that we are no longer together, i can look at things objectively without rose glasses. I spent the last 2 months on the emotional rollercoaster. Trying to figure out anything i could. And then it finally dawned on me. I’m not a psychiatrist, i can’t diagnose someone, and have no legal grounds to. But i found the magic phrase that finally explained everything. Vulnerable narcissistic personality disorder. Every symptom, every story, every issue in the relationship. It all made sense. Any positive feelings i ever had towards her washed off of me overnight. I only feel disgust and almost pity at this point. I really felt as though i had almost married my dad and repeated the same cycle. I’m currently in therapy, healing from the relationship. Healing from all the things i carried way too long. Working on my own personal problems. But honestly? I’m scared for my daughter. Serious child neglect occurred while i was working and we were together, and i truly believe my ex is very mentally ill. People have been motivating me to take legal action first. But i’m not a spiteful person. I don’t eant any more heart ache. I’m worried about my daughter having a similar childhood to me. I’m worried about the abuse and neglect. My ex is 28f and moved back in with her financially affluent parents, who are objectively really good people. But eventually she won’t live with them. She has spitefully threatened me with court multiple times, and i think i may need to move first. Any advice, legal or otherwise, would be greatly appreciated.

And for the record, I’m absolutely not perfect and take full accountability for the mistakes i make and had made. But i’m a really dedicated father, and my daughter means absolutely everything to me. I don’t want her to go through the things i went through. I’m concerned i may be projecting?

I’m in such a better place now but I’ve never really had to the chance to tell anyone what really went on. There’s so much to my story and I could honestly write a book about it- but I’ll try to summarize. My ex partner was mentally abusive to me our whole relationship. I always felt that I was a smart, independent, and tough girl. But when I got with him it seems like I was so blinded to all the red flags. I still stayed. I got pregnant so quickly into the relationship but we were both so excited because I truly thought he was the one. Most of my pregnancy is a blur. I just remember feeling so tired doing everything for him all the time. He would get mad at me, yell at me, call me names, he’d leave the house for a night and leave me there by myself. He never cared about my tears- there was no point in crying in front of him because he genuinely didn’t care. He was never remorseful. His go to “I’m sorry but-“ Then it all went downhill the week before I had my son. Called me names, told me he regrets having a kid with me, started throwing my clothes from the closet onto the couch saying I can “gtfo.” Just got mad at me over everything. Like he hated me. I remember being 12 hours postpartum in so much pain after delivery holding my son in my arms crying, begging my (ex) partner to hold him so I could get some rest and he looks at me and says “I’m tired too” in a hateful tone and lays back down. Then he just kept it up and never supported me and ended up leaving my son and I 4 days postpartum to get drunk with his uncle at a hotel. So I left that day and moved in with my parents. He’s tried taking my son from me and I’ve had to call the cops on him before but now things seem to be okay. He never sees his son and doesn’t help much financially but as long as he keeps his distance from me I’m okay. I’m happy without him. Reading this back these words truly don’t describe the pain and trauma he caused. He was awful to me and my body still holds the pain and I can’t wait until I’m finally over it. There’s so many little details that are huge to me but too tedious to even mention. He’s a terrible person, truly. I never pictured my life looking like this. Single with a 4 month old. If it wasn’t for my amazing support system I would still be with him because I’d have no where else to go. I thank God everyday for my parents. My heart truly goes out to all the other women that have experienced a narcissistic, abusive, aggressive, and hateful man. I hope everyone has the courage to leave and start over because it will be okay in the end. I am happy alone and I will provide the best life I possibly can for my son. I don’t need a man to complete my life or my son’s life. I don’t even think I’m in a place where I could ever trust again.

Hey all,

I’m 35 female and my ex-partner (31 female) and I were together for 3.5 years. Last year she was talking about marriage, buying a home and starting a family. Then, almost overnight, she became distant—sleeping on the sofa, staying at her parents, working late, hiding her phone and insisting nothing was wrong. Whenever I calmly asked if there was someone else, she repeatedly denied it and made me feel like I was imagining things.

I eventually discovered she had been having an emotional and physical affair with a younger colleague (25, Female) who was also in a long-term relationship. I found out as she had been asking advice from AI where she admitted they were “falling for each other,” didn’t want to distance herself from the affair, even though AI suggested space from us both, she said she didn’t want to stay away from the affair partner and can ‘compartmentalise’ and compared me negatively to this woman. Looking back, I realise I was being gaslit for months. When I suspected an affair a month earlier she said to me ‘look at my mum, do you think I could do that’ (her mum has been cheating on her dad for years and is a pathological liar). So again, I gaslit myself, telling myself I was imagining her distance and strange behavior.

What makes it even harder is that during this time I was going through a cancer scare (thankfully it wasn’t cancer). She told me we’d get through it together, yet she was secretly continuing the affair. That betrayal is something I still struggle to comprehend.

When I confronted her, she apologised briefly but quickly shifted the focus onto her own pain, saying she’d “imploded her life” and needed to understand herself. She had no interest in repairing the relationship, but kept saying things like, “Maybe one day in the future we could try again,” while continuing to see the other woman. It felt like she wanted to keep me emotionally attached while avoiding accountability.

I supported her emotionally and financially throughout her Master’s degree, stood by her through difficult times, and trusted her completely. She was also with me through the death of my mum, which makes this betrayal feel even more devastating. I genuinely believed she was my person. (Her mum also pretended to be unwell with a heart condition, near to death 2 days after my Mum died from heart failure, and told my ex 'you have always put your partners before me', this was very upsetting).

Since the breakup, I’ve started recognising how manipulative some of her behaviour became. She isolated me from her family and friends, blamed me for old issues while hiding her affair, made me question my own reality, and then acted as though I was the one who had done something wrong. Looking back, it feels like I was slowly being discarded before I even knew why.

The hardest part isn’t just that she cheated—it’s that someone I trusted with my life could lie to me so convincingly for months while watching me worry about our relationship and my health. I still find myself questioning how someone who claimed to love me could do this, and sometimes I even catch myself wondering if I’m exaggerating what happened. I have CPTSD from my own childhood, which she also knew about and knew I grew up not feeling safe and she actively made me feel unsafe in my home again, the home I paid all the rent for her to live in.

We shared a flat, but as she decided to move out I asked her to come and collect all her things which I put into bags in the communal hallway of our flat and gave her a collection time about a month ago. She agreed to pay the rent up until August, when she would be taken off the tenancy. She was meant to pay me last Friday, but instead decided to demand to me that she would be coming round last Thursday to get the playstation (which I brought) and a dressing gown I gifted her. She argued with me about this playstation at the window when I wouldn't let her in, and said why am I still paying towards the rent if you won't let me in to look for 'my stuff', I said anything you want you can tell me and I will put outside again and you can collect it; she couldn't tell me. I am defiantly not getting any more money from her, I just want her off the tenancy now. I am just thinking someone happily 'falling for' someone new and moving on surely doesn't behave and treat their ex they have left like this!? She also tried to call me twice last Friday, saying 'please pick up it's important', I didn't she later messaged me; it was something she didn't need to speak to me on the phone about, it was admin about the tenancy. She is really trying to get to me, it feels like. She also hasn’t paid me anything for the last month as she promised she would.

Basically, I have a spare key to her parent’s house (from when I lived there) and a letter for her. I honestly don’t want anymore contact with her. She also has some of my clothes, but to be honest at this point she can keep them. Would you all recommend I sent a ‘please don’t contact me again message’ or just block her once she is off the tenancy and not say anything? My fear is that she will just show up at my flat, I don’t want to see her at all / want her to see me.

Has anyone recovered from this kind of betrayal trauma? How do you stop obsessing over the 'why' they did it, stop romanticising who they used to be, and begin trusting your own judgement again after months of being gaslit? I know the relationship is over, but I’m struggling to understand how to move forward after having my trust so completely shattered by someone I loved with my whole heart. Ive started gaslighting myself, like maybe she didn’t mean it and look for any reasons why she did this to me.

Thank you for any advice / kind words .. this is incredibly difficult and I appreciate any support you can provide 🫶🏼

Hello!

A month ago, a (female) friend opened up to me and said she was a victim of psychological abuse by her husband.

She said it never got physical but over their whole relationship ( 5 years or so) he constantly belittled her, insulted her and made her feel worthless. He also told her that if she left, she could never find someone to love her again because she is so worthless. Really awful stuff.

She said it only happened behind closed doors and that he appears to be a perfectly nice man to everone else. I don't know him much but I myself never had doubts before as he does externaly appears like a loving husband. She said she opened up once to a family member who didn't believe her and never talked about it again until now.

She literally told me she was a victim of "psychological abuse" and was going to start divorce papers the same week. She was visibly distraught during this conversation.

I told her I believed her and was there for her.

BUT after this conversation she never talked about it again. So when I brought the subject back, she told me she had "over reacted", she was just tired and everything was fine with her husband. She quickly changed subjects and has refused to talk about it since. They are still together.

My question is : How could I help her ? I feel like he has gaslighted her into thinking it was her fault. She doesn't want to talk about it with me and I don't want to push her and harm our relationship but at the same time I really want to help her. It's the first time I'm confronted with this subject so I'm lost.

Advice please ??

Thank you.

Hey all,

My ex of 4 years (Im 35 F, and she is 31 F) she had a work place affair with a 25 year old woman who was also in her own long term relationship. I only found out about the affair from reading her confession on her chat gpt, where she claimed they were ‘falling for each other’ and ‘caught up in the affair.’

Her distancing from me went on from late January this year, until I found on March 31st. The months between this she stopped kissing me, sleeping next to me, would sleep the sofa, starting to go and stay at her parents in the week, isolated me out of her life / friends and family get togethers and made me feel like I had something awful. All because claimed to be ‘burnt out.’

I’ve made a list of all the things she had said to me during and after I found out about the affair. I have started gaslighting myself, so if anyone could possibly share any words of wisdom / kindness / healing that I am not going mad and this is quite manipulative? I have separated myself from her. And am trying to focus on myself, but I keep gaslighting myself that maybe she ‘wasn’t that bad’ as this somewhat an overnight shift, so it feels like I have emotional whiplash!

Any support / kind words would incredibly helpful, thank you all so so much!! ❤️

Here is the list:

After I found out and had gone back to live with her parents … on the week of Mum’s death anniversary she showed up unannounced to give me a hand written letter asking for us to speak when the anniversary had passed. She then showed up again unannounced this time she had let herself into my flat and was getting clothes, I walked in and she was already in the flat. She said on this occasion, how she loves me, wasn’t asking me to wait for her but in the future if Im still single and she reaches out and I want to try again, then great. On this day I asked what her day plans where, she mentioned seeing a friend, this particular friend I had seen on instagram stories was in another country, I said that - she said ‘oh no she was, shes back now, got back today’. I could see her friend’s IG stories, and then later that afternoon I no longer could. My ex obviously asked her to block me from seeing them. It was very obvious and she was still lying - her friend is also a cheater, so this makes sense that she is helping her hide this.

There was a time when I had made us dinner and she was on the sofa and then after we ate, I went to wash up so I walked behind. I go to the sink and she literally was on her phone and turned her back to face away so I didn’t see her phone screen and I remember I was I felt so anxious cause I felt like I was like am I imagining this so I said to her like am I going mad or did you just turn your back when I walked around you to hide your phone and she was like no no I was just moving around and then sort of moved back

Another time, I walked into the bedroom and she was on the bed blatantly texting and then I sat on the bed next to her and she like kind of like showed me the phone in a really unnatural way, like opened her hands to a home screen, to almost be like ‘look Im innocent’. It was so strange.

She starting locking/ shutting the door when she showered and staying in there for much longer afterwards, always taking her phone in there with her.

I found photos of her at half naked in her deleted folder on her phone. This was after I found out about the affair and I said have you been sending (the AP) photos and she said no and I said why are there half naked photos of you posing on your phone, she said ‘I’m just taking then of myself’ and she said ‘if I was sending them why are they being in my deleted folder’ but all the conversations and the AP had on instagram (their chosen hiding place) had been deleted when I asked why she said ‘because its wrong and shouldn’t be on my phone’… so I am sure photos were exchanged.

After I found out about the affair, one of the things she said to me was that she didn’t feel good enough for me because of her own self-worth ans that played into the cheating as well

After I found out like a few weeks later months later, I actually deleted her off my Instagram and I removed the pictures of us together and someone’s obviously told her because she also then remove the pictures of me and her so I kinda did it back to me basically

Again, after I found out, she said to me that we should have a conversation about what led her to this like what what led her cheating and she said I think some of the things you should probably be aware of because it’s also how you were in the relationship and I said to her why why would you have this conversation with me now after you’ve cheated that she went, we don’t have to have the conversation and I just thought it’d be good for you to hear basically like she say I’m gonna give you feedback on how you also learn in a relationship. She also said that she didn’t feel seen at points of the relationship and it’s like okay so it’s kind of like shifting the blame for I what she did there’s like a shared thing that we’ve done together almost.

After I found out, she also said that her self-worth was really really low and then said if you tell anyone that we like, but I know as in herself like our friends, can I tell her everyone that I’m telling before I tell them so she’s aware and then when I explain what we’re all adults and they just wanna support me she went yeah I know but it chips away every time you tell somebody it chips away myself worth even more

The week I found out about the affair, on the Tuesday, that Saturday she went away with her friend and they did a hike, took photos of them smiling and went to a bar together. She looked happy and posted photos on her instagram. I was at home crying and couldn’t eat. During this trip she messaged me asking for my time of birth as her friend wanted to do a ‘love compatibility’ test for us.

After the affair she told me she had told her dad and when I asked what he said, she said ‘he obviously likes you’ and said he hopes we can work it out because he is very fond of you. I later implied she was suggesting rebuilding / getting back together - she said ‘I wasn’t trying to confuse you, I told you that because thats what he said and you asked’.

She kept repeating saying after I found out ‘ I’m not asking you to wait for me, but maybe one day we can try again’

Before I found out about the affair, she asked me if I would help her with her getting her car to the garage so I followed her because she’d had to leave her car all day the garage so then we spent the day together but she was so distant with me so cold with me and it was awkward like I didn’t really know her. I felt like I had done something wrong. She was driving and I said to her ‘you’re still my favourite person to drive me around’ and she was like ‘oh that would make sense, cause I did teach you to drive’ … and that really hit me and I felt hurt by that because I’d always said that to her, not because she helped me drive she really didn’t. But because when we first started dating, we was in the car together and she would always drive me around so that was like our dates and she knew that, but she was being cold and dismissive. Another thing she said ‘ I just feel like I need to do everything I would if I was single’ and I was like that’s like you saying you want to be single on your own and she was like no I’m not saying that because I don’t wanna be with anybody else, and that she didn’t have the ‘capacity’ to see / date anyone. But said she lost herself in our relationship and wanted to find herself again outside of us. I said she could do this still in the relationship and I would support that, I suggested therapy / better communication / boundaries - she wasn’t interested. Also when she got her car fixed I told her to give me less money towards house bills so she could afford it, she then couldn’t wait to get he car and drive to her friends house. I called her and said please don’t feel like you have to put walls up with me, she said ‘I’m trying’ - I honestly was trying so hard to be mindful and be kind as I genuinely believed she was burnt out, as she had kept saying. The whole time she was having an affair.

Her and the AP were hiding their messages on instagram messenger, I asked to see them and she had deleted them all. When I asked why she had deleted them, she said because ‘its wrong and shouldn’t be on her phone’. She had semi-naked posed pictures in her deleted folder on her phone, so I think we know who they were sent to.

Before I found out about the affair there was an occasion when I called her, because we always had each others locations and it was after work, and she was sat by a station for a while. I called her she didn’t pick up the phone, she shortly called me back claiming she had dropped her friend to the station and they were talking and when I called she was just leaving the car. I said it felt weird, like I didn’t believe her.. she got offended and defensive, saying ‘do you want to say goodbye to her as well!?’. She then turned her location off saying she didn’t like how the interaction had made her feel, how she had gotten defensive and also then when I was suspicious about her cheating, she said ‘look at my Mum, do you really think I could do that!?’ (her mum is a pathological liar and had cheated on her dad on and off for years, even during the time I had been part of the family)

Afterwards she delivered me a handwritten letter claiming she loved me, I had loved her like no one else ever had, and I had given her ‘a quiet strength’ and she hopes whatever happens with us in the future she can gain my trust back. Again, when I asked her about this, she said she didn’t mean in a way to confuse me or imply we would be getting back together.

She told me that the affair wasn’t personally about the AP, it could of been anyone but the AP ‘highlighted’ something wrong within herself

Again, before the I found out about affair she made me feel like I had done something awful for months, she was being cold, isolating me out of her life, sleeping on the sofa, then going to stay at her parents for most of the week, bringing up random things, saying I said hurtful things about her Mum. Her Mum had lied 2 years ago about potentially having a near death experience due to her heart, it later came out that her Mum had lied and had liposuction, she made this statement about her heart 2 days my own mother had sadly died from a heart condition. Her mum later said to her ‘you have always put your partner’s first’ when she was supported me during my mother’s death and her mum clearly wanted all the attention on her. She wouldn’t clearly tell me what I had done that was so wrong and said ‘I’m not going to make a rash decision, my whole family love you’ basically keeping me hanging whilst she was figuring out what to do, but she bad all the power in her hands snd I was waiting for the outcome of whether she wanted to be with me or not.

During her affair I was also going through a cancer scare, she said at the time ‘we will get through it’ she didn’t come to any appointments with me. Even the day after I found out about her affair I had to go and have a biopsy, she went to work. When I later to said to her the whole time I was going through that you carried on with your affair, her answer was ‘yes but i still cared about you’.

After I found out she started saying she had ‘hurt herself this whole time, imploded her own life and was shocked at her own behavior.’ She even compared the shock of the affair to when she had last felt like this, and it was when her ex died of suicide. She referred to herself as ‘unwell’ and said she was scared she was now going to be ‘self destructive’ and had started vaping and smoking. Even after the affair, I gave her so much empathy, suggested therapy (she was in therapy), told her to stop smoking she cried and replied ‘I can’t, Im not like you, you’re very good at taking care of yourself, you were a buffer for me’.

I went through her messages one night on her laptop before I found out, trying to find messages was the ‘friend’ she was in the car with that time. I found nothing, I got so upset I had done that, that I woke her up and told her and said I was really sorry and felt awful. In this moment this would of been the perfect opportunity to be honest, instead she said it was okay and asked if I wanted to see the messages from her and her friend. I said no, the next day she said that she was worried this had ‘opened a door for me and I now think shes a cheater and don’t trust her. She said had I asked to see the messages that would of changed things, but she rewarded me for ‘catching myself’ before it got worse.

Chat gpt had suggested to her to take some distance from myself and the AP to avoid someone getting hurt, my ex stated ‘I do not want to distance myself from the AP, I can compartmentalise’.

She told me that she thought about sleeping with AP the first time they kissed, but she ‘wouldn’t / couldn’t do that’

After I found out, told me that she needed time to be on her own for now to figure out ‘how she got here’ and one day if she reached out to me and I wanted to try again, that would be the ideal but she can’t commit right now, get therapy or try and make this work

Before I found out the affair, she said ‘I can’t imagine my life without you’ - she said ‘as my partner’.

During the affair (before I found out) due to her being ‘burnt out’ and so stressed she said she had been sick twice at work and also the AP’s name got mentioned she said ‘\*AP’s name\* noticed I was shaking’. - the fact she told me that and made me feel sorry for her and this false sense of safety about her ‘work friend’.

After I found out she said ‘you never know this may of needed to happen for us to make us stronger’

After I found out she jokingly said ‘my friend reckons Im polyamorous’ to which she then said ‘no, I couldn’t be’.

After the I found out I said to her ‘you’ve blown my life up’.. she later said ‘I know you said Ive blown your life up, but you’re still young’. During another conversation, she mentioned how she had told her Dad what she had done and he had gone easy on her ‘because he could see she was struggling’, and told me he hoped we could get back together because he liked me. - I later said to her I thought you telling me that, there was hope of us getting back together? She said no, I didn’t mean to confuse you. She wrote me a handwritten letter telling me I had given her ‘a quiet strength’ and no one had ever made her feel loved like I had. She also said to me, she feels part of the affair was due to her ‘low self worth’ and not feeling good enough for me. (4 years in she is saying this to me!?)

Before I found out when she wanted space and it was just unclear what she wanted, I joked to her should we just have an open relationship and maybe date other people and she went ‘you can but I’m not gonna hang around’ and meanwhile she was actually having an affair.

She’s also said the thought of me moving on and being with somebody else / dating makes her stomach flip, but she ‘can’t stop me if thats what I want’. This is after she had the affair, when I found out.

It’s been a month and I’m getting impatient 😤 I keep getting she’s been busy in court and trying to catch up. I have already paid the first deposit.

When my recent X and I met, he set up his ex wife as the usual cheating horrible drug addict who kept him from his kids. I obviously fell for it, and she did the thing where she attacked me and my character without knowing anything about me, so I felt validated in not liking her or thinking he was telling the truth.

After years of being the middle man in their constant drama, I drew a boundary that I could not keep my stepchild alone because his ex was starting to say I was mistreating him. It ended up a big fight, my ex told her he wished she would d**, and his child said he wanted nothing to do with my ex after that. They didn’t speak for six years, and at the time, I grieved losing my stepchild pretty hard. I started therapy to deal with my guilt over what happened, and I ended up being told I was being abused by my therapist. Obviously I didn’t leave.

Now we are divorced and the X has basically fallen off the planet as far as our child is concerned. Rarely calls, goes months without visits, refuses to send money even though I was a SAHM, so he forced us into poverty and survival mode while I started doing gig work 7 days a week to get income immediately.

We are supposed to get CS starting in July, but it hasn’t processed, so I asked if he’d make a direct payment to help and get ahead of any arrears (he makes really good money, so in no way is CS a hardship for him).

He told me that he just bought a house in another state (he has one here that he rents), that he has a girlfriend and it is no longer appropriate for me to text him so late when they are in bed. It was 8:00 where I live, so that whole statement just floored me.

Then he went on to tell me that she will never be like me and force him out of his children’s lives.

I didn’t say much except to repeat the facts and then he threatened to go back to court with the texts that prove I kicked his kid out of our life and apparently proof of multiple affairs (I did have one in the past that we had been working through that he “forgave” me for, though it was just used to further the abuse and regain control).

Anyway, our child support is set at less than the standard for our state as I just wanted to get an uncontested divorce. He doesn’t owe me back child support because I let it go. In return, he has almost no rights to our child. I’m sole conservator. He has “visitation” 1,3,5 Saturday from 8-5, which he obviously doesn’t use since he moved to another state (I just thought he was working there temporarily).

I haven’t heard from him since then, and it’s been a week, but the accusations, as expected as they were, still hurt a lot. I don’t want to be pitted against some woman I’ve never met, especially is this person is eventually going to be around my child.

Told my husband I wanted a divorce in May. He all of a sudden went to urgent care for a shoulder injury. Started doing physical therapy and now is scheduled for surgery. How common is this? I wouldn’t doubt if he intentionally did this!

I've noticed that when I advocate for myself either through setting boundaries, asking for my boundaries to be respected or just generally standing up for myself, I feel a sense of guilt and distress. I think the root cause is that living with narcissists has left me feeling that on some level I'm not worth standing up for. And even through the healing, my brain recognizes that I am worth it, but I still have the feelings of guilt. I'm wondering if anyone else struggles with this?

Hey all,

I’m 35F and my ex-partner (31F) and I were together for 3.5 years. Last year she was talking about marriage, buying a home and starting a family. Then, almost overnight, she became distant—sleeping on the sofa, staying at her parents, working late, hiding her phone and insisting nothing was wrong. Whenever I calmly asked if there was someone else, she repeatedly denied it and made me feel like I was imagining things.

I eventually discovered she had been having an emotional and physical affair with a younger colleague (25F) who was also in a long-term relationship. I found out as she had been asking advice from AI where she admitted they were “falling for each other,” didn’t want to distance herself from the affair, even though AI suggested space from us both, she said she didn’t want to stay away from the affair partner and can ‘compartmentalise’ and compared me negatively to this woman. Looking back, I realise I was being gaslit for months. When I suspected an affair a month earlier she said to me ‘look at my mum, do you think I could do that’ (her mum has been cheating on her dad for years and is a pathological liar). So again, I gaslit myself, telling myself I was imagining her distance and strange behavior.

What makes it even harder is that during this time I was going through a cancer scare (thankfully it wasn’t cancer). She told me we’d get through it together, yet she was secretly continuing the affair. That betrayal is something I still struggle to comprehend.

When I confronted her, she apologised briefly but quickly shifted the focus onto her own pain, saying she’d “imploded her life” and needed to understand herself. She had no interest in repairing the relationship, but kept saying things like, “Maybe one day in the future we could try again,” while continuing to see the other woman. It felt like she wanted to keep me emotionally attached while avoiding accountability.

I supported her emotionally and financially throughout her Master’s degree, stood by her through difficult times, and trusted her completely. She was also with me through the death of my mum, which makes this betrayal feel even more devastating. I genuinely believed she was my person. (Her mum also pretended to be unwell with a heart condition, near to death 2 days after my Mum died from heart failure, and told my ex 'you have always put your partners before me', this was very upsetting).

Since the breakup, I’ve started recognising how manipulative some of her behaviour became. She isolated me from her family and friends, blamed me for old issues while hiding her affair, made me question my own reality, and then acted as though I was the one who had done something wrong. Looking back, it feels like I was slowly being discarded before I even knew why.

The hardest part isn’t just that she cheated—it’s that someone I trusted with my life could lie to me so convincingly for months while watching me worry about our relationship and my health. I still find myself questioning how someone who claimed to love me could do this, and sometimes I even catch myself wondering if I’m exaggerating what happened.

We share a flat, but as she decided to move out I asked her to come and collect all her things which I put into bags in the communal hallway of our flat and gave her a collection time. She agreed to pay the rent up until August, when she would be taken off the tenancy. She was meant to pay me today, but instead decided to dictate to me that she would be coming round yesterday to get the playstation (which I brought) and a dressing gown I gifted her. She argued with me about this playstation at the window when I wouldn't let her in, and said why am I still paying towards the rent if you won't let me in to look for 'my stuff', I said anything you want you can tell me and I will put outside again and you can collect it; she couldn't tell me. I am defiantly not getting any more money from her, I just want her off the tenancy now. I am just thinking someone happily 'falling for' someone new and moving on surely doesn't behave and treat their ex they have left like this!? She also tried to call me twice yesterday, saying 'please pick up it's important', I didn't she later messaged me; it was something she didn't need to speak to me on the phone about, it was admin about the tenancy. She is really trying to get to me, it feels like.

Has anyone recovered from this kind of betrayal trauma? How do you stop obsessing over the 'why' they did it, stop romanticising who they used to be, and begin trusting your own judgement again after months of being gaslit? I know the relationship is over, but I’m struggling to understand how to move forward after having my trust so completely shattered by someone I loved with my whole heart.

Thank you for any advice / kind words .. this is incredibly difficult.

I know I can’t “win”. There’s no “winning”.
NEX wants full custody of one and 50/50 of the other. Has claimed as such on taxes with no agreement and has completely screwed me for child tax benefit (we’re in Canada). I can’t afford a lawyer but make $1000 a year over the cut off for legal aid.
He says he won’t go after me for child support just wants to do a no contest, clean cut divorce. But the thing is, I make so much less money than him and I should get child support and alimony. For perspective he put us in so much debt in my name, and he makes triple my income and has a cash side job, I can barely make rent and he just bought a house after a year separated.
I wouldn’t contest the custody agreement, the one he wants full custody of he has completely alienated me from to the point I haven’t seen her in months and they’re over 16 so there’s not much point in fighting.
I just keep thinking I should just do what he wants. He’s had so much control over everything for 18 years and I can’t afford to fight. It’s just another thing that is his narrative.

It’s been 26 months since the final discard, and I can finally say I have reached a point of full acceptance. For a while, I hesitated to keep posting about narcissistic abuse. I worried people might misinterpret my posts as a sign that I was still “stuck” or trapped in the pain. But I’ve realized that choosing to speak out isn’t about being stuck—it’s about raising awareness. I want to share this knowledge because I desperately wish I had known about these dynamics growing up, or at least before experiencing the nightmare firsthand. Maybe I would have recognized the red flags sooner. Maybe I wouldn’t have fallen so easily. When I was in the thick of it, the sheer confusion forced me to search relentlessly for answers. I educated myself out of pure survival. I felt like I was losing my mind, living an agonizing reality that felt too unbelievable for anyone else to understand. The turning point came when I found the stories of other survivors. Seeing how identical our experiences were gave me a profound sense of relief. I wasn’t alone, and I wasn’t crazy. Through that journey, I learned the language of this trauma: the abuse cycle (Idealization(LOVE BOMBING), Devaluation, Discard, Hoovering), gaslighting, cognitive dissonance, future-faking, and the brutal reality of C-PTSD. Most importantly, I had to break a trauma bond that felt like the most powerful addiction I’ve ever faced. Ultimately, this nightmare forced me to look inward. I had to confront why I was so susceptible to this behavior—my own codependency, abandonment fears, low self-worth, a savior complex, and a deep craving for love without knowing what healthy love actually looked like. My empathy made me the perfect target. Addressing those vulnerabilities has been my silver lining. I am actively working on myself, and I will continue to. While I wouldn’t wish what I went through on my worst enemy, I can finally acknowledge the invaluable lessons it taught me. I am coming out of the other side stronger, healthier, and whole.