Our most recent summer holiday together was emotionally traumatic for me and I'm left wondering if this can continue. All romantic and sexual chemistry between us has now dissipated and I've noticed that unless Peter is able to overstep my emotional boundaries, as he often was doing until Christmas of last year, he makes things intolerable.
In the summer, during our holiday together as a family, I felt I had to get out of the car we were all travelling in twice because of him interferring and trying to control what I was doing. When we returned from the holiday, I specifically told him that I was leaving one suitcase of clean clothes packed as I was taking the children to visit my mum two weeks later. The first thing he did when we returned? He unpacked that suitcase whilst I was making dinner for the children when I'd assumed that he was outside putting the bikes and paddleboard away in the garage.
There has been years of this sort of behaviour. Doing the opposite. I can't really fathom why- perhaps he was jealous that I might not experience any packing stress on visiting my mother. He knows I hate packing. There is something deeply wrong in him I've realised. In autism, people need to control their environments to feel safe, but what I've discovered is that Peter's need to control me and my environment has absolutely nothing to do with autism. Because my life, my environment no longer impacts him. I feel this is a development of his condition, due to it being left undiagnosed, unmanaged and even celebrated in his family of origin. Peter's autism has developed and manifested into a whole new disorder alongside his autism and this manifestation, I believe exists on the spectrum of narcissistic personality disorder.
I've been perhaps unwilling to write about this for a while, feeling that I'm failing our autistic child by viewing him in this way. But I see her empathy, her kindness, her willingness to love and care for others, her celebrations for others achievements. Things I don't see in him. I realise that autism is not to blame, but unmanaged autism is where his parents have neglected supporting him emotionally at all throughout his upbringing. Peter and his parents have always celebrated his lack of emotion and that is a pride born of dysfunction.
Peter has distanced too recently. Its brought me a lot of peace, but I know that with this will come issues with his parenting when the children are with him.
His parents and sibling haven't spoken to me in three years and recently, I began bumping into his sister almost daily whilst taking my children to school. She parks her car along our walking route unnecessarily, another opportunity to poke at the bear. My children came to collect something on their way to school last week on the day that their grandparents were taking them whilst with their father, and my youngest told me her grandmother was rude about me when they got back in the car.
"Quickly, let's go she's waving at the door." So we're now navigating the impact that their dysfunction towards me has on my children.
Coparenting issues and his family dynamics remain and continue to impact me and my children. It often feels like I'm stuck in a nightmare. I have contemplated moving away several times, away from his hometown but it's tricky because his hometown is now my childrens hometown and they are happy and settled here. I'm not sure when I get to be fully happy but I find microdoses of happiness where I can: yoga groups, my gym, writing, meditation, work and mostly my greatest blessings- my children.
I can't even fathom dating yet. I'm still traumatised by the relationship I've endured with him and the insanity that his family have projected on our lives over the years. I still don't recognise myself. My body is bigger that the body it was before him, I am older, wiser yet scared, tired, hurt and exhausted. As a child raised in an unhappy home, I couldn't wait to grow up so that I could create a happiness of my own and feel loved. I'm thankful that I no longer have to share my home with him, but this life isn't what I envisioned either.
Financially we are still entwined and until the children are older, we are emotionally enmeshed for their sakes, just like he and his family have always been. I don't think he'd have it any other way.
He got what he wanted in the end: a family without sacrificing his freedom, his parents looking after him (he STILL lives with them 3 years on), no intimate relationship demanding anything of him, financial investment in property (the one I live in) that he doesn't need to clean or maintain and he gets to be a part-time parent when it suits him.
What do I get? A bit of peace. No black cloud hanging around the house, no disappointment from unmet, reasonable expectations, no daily antagonism or oppositional defiance, no questionable passive aggressive remarks berating my value and worth, no competition, no loud noises, no being woken in the early hours by bright lights and heavy footsteps, no secrecy and no loneliness caused by his hollow presence. I feel proud of myself for giving him everything he ultimately wanted in the end because one day, when he's old and lonely, he may realise that getting what he wanted was actually a consequence. I already know it is.
Life isn't perfect. But it is better.
This is the clarity that I cling to. My home feels better without him in it and over the years any connections I need to have with him will gradually change and fade as they already have. He's out of my space so I don't need to force anything else just yet.
Women are already at a disadvantage in a misogynistic world but to become associated, enmeshed, connected to these men is dangerous. For now, I've no desire to attract another potentially dangerous man. How do I trust myself not to find another one when Peter was so wonderful in the beginning? For now, I focus on my girls and showing them that no woman has to tolerate poor behaviour from any man, regardless of the excuse.
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