Letter to a Flying Monkey Two Weeks before a Divorce Trial from a Narc

Thanks for writing back and ghosting me. Life as we know it will move relentlessly forward anyway.

It is true I sit in front of my laptop, comfortable and in a warm Blue House with my dog, and not facing the coldness of a face to face conversation with you, though I would gladly engage that.

I have been very transparent with you about my feelings and my relationship with S over the years. You conversely have not been transparent. You seem afraid of transparency for many reasons. I could be wrong, but my hunch is transparency and honesty is not easy for you.

I don’t feel or believe honesty, transparency or the Truth is easy for any woman because their mothers, grandmothers, great grandmothers and the 250 generations of women that preceded them carry forward horrible family secrets into each new female birth at a cellular level. It is one of many burdens women carry throughout their lives. Burden is the currency of Sisterhood.

When S moved away with the boys, without my knowledge or consent in August 2022, everyone on her side (including you) knew this was happening. The boys kept the Big Move “secret” from their father/me. She moved clothes and provisions to your house even weeks earlier creating the “HE is the horrible beast” narrative she still uses today.

If putting the boys through this emotional ransom doesn’t constitute parental alienation I don’t know what does. The Custody Evaluator saw it this way. It’s unconscionable. Yet there are no legal consequences for creating this falsehood or continuing the “he is an abuser” narrative.

Who needs to “Get some help” here?

When my old dog, was run over and killed by a car in front of her current domicile, I didn’t learn about it for 3 months. R told me accidentally one morning on his own. My 5 year old child telling me my dog was smashed by a car? Really? This is how to share grief and tragic news with a child, have the child explain it to the adult? Keep it a secret from their father for months?

Who needs the help here? This is horrible BPD/NPD parenting. OK?

I have been transparent because I thought it would help. It doesn’t help. I have told you many revealing and personal stories over the years, and you have witnessed a slice of my relationship/courtship/marriage/separation/divorce story.

Conversely, I know absolutely nothing personal about you. I know the city you live in. I knew you worked and then retired from a local community college. I know you wrote letters to the paper opposing a large animal processing facility. You at one time celebrated the Winter Solstice. You know certain people I know. You studied and practiced weird “healing” energy. ALL exterior things of who you Genuinely Are…. inside.

I lived with this same lack of genuineness in S. Her inability to be transparent with her feelings and regulate her Dissociative behaviors. My boys still live with this. I don’t believe you know or understand the corrosiveness of emotional disregulation. You are not wrong. You just have not lived it and do not know.

You don’t understand how damaging this lack of genuine emotion and inability to emotionally regulate can have on me, the boys, our beautiful family which S essentially walked away from after hooking up with her new guy in Australia in March of 2020. And you never seemed to care.

Today we must go to trial over custody of the boys. Can you think of anything worse for the boys to go through? There have been dozens of opportunities to settle out of court, but her perception of herself as “Goddess” will win over the judge? You call my attitude toward whats happening a “King of the World” approach. Her “Godess” perception dwarfs me and the people around her by many orders of magnitude.

I told you you have been kind and generous with my sons. I imagine you will continue to be. Thank you. I am grateful for your kindness. However, it does not shield them from the downside of divorce.

I have told you I am an imperfect human being. That won’t change.

You are also imperfect. And so is S. You also can both be very wrong in your perceptions and understanding of the world.

S believes she is perfect and this makes having a conversation with her about wall colors, Co Parenting the boys, navigating her boundaryless condition impossible. We have not had a face to face conversation in over 3 years and looking back never had a genuine conversation because she was never “present” although I sensed she desperately wanted to be.

Mistreating people, (as she has mistreated me and the boys), and then avoiding open, transparent, reciprocal conversations is not setting boundaries. Moving the boys without my permission or knowledge is not protecting her peace or the boys peace.

Not communicating after mistreating someone is avoiding Accountability and Responsibility. She is good at that. I think you are too. She has not shared a single explanation for her behaviors which led to where we are today. Not a single word or conversation about closure. There was no debriefing for me or the boys. Long emails with her, you or any of her other friends or family will never change this, but I will write them occasionally in the hope they are heard.

You and others have come to your own conclusions. Fine. I can live with that. Life as I have pointed out relentlessly moves on.

I have admitted my many faults as a man. I have shared them in therapy, in mediations, through our attorneys, couples therapy, in 14 weeks of alcohol treatment (I did not need but signed up for because S said she would return to couples therapy if I completed it.) She lied.

I have read the Gottmans. Their work is a construct that does not embrace or even recognize the importance of reciprocal, connected, transparent and honest conversations. the crucial factor that separates a great relationship from a failed one.” “A man’s actions are the key variable that determines whether the relationship succeeds or fails.” This is from the 1970’s …50 plus years ago! The literature has changed since then. Here is another quote from Gottman, ““Women find a man’s willingness to do housework extremely erotic.” Well, good luck with that. LOL!

― John M. Gottman, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work…

One can safely say Gottman’s theories are as dead as the three marriages he has divorced from.

Gabor Mate, Besser Van Der Kolk and Brene Brown are leading new constructs in the literature today in terms of WHY relationships with Self and Others fail or succeed. Unlike the Gottmans, their work actually EXPLAINS why, and where Gottman’s 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Resentment, Stonewalling, Criticism, Contempt) develop and come from. They come from Family of Origin. You learn them in childhood. They are often hardwired, especially in women.

Just so you know. The short article I sent (which you did not read) points to Divorce as the failure it is. The consequences of this failure for children of divorce remains devastating whether you want to believe it or not.

The truth is both you and S and many women play the “victim” card when you leave a Marriage and paint the man as the perpetrator and bad guy. I agree in many cases the guy IS BAD, but it works both ways and still does not answer WHY? marriages fail.

Gabor Mate’s work in Trauma answers it clearly and directly. Until Generational Trauma in women is addressed, marriages will continue to fail at alarming rates. 75% of divorces are initiated by women because of generational trauma and their lower thesholds for negativity…i.e. “I am unhappy.” “I am unhappy with him.” “The grass is greener FOMO.” “I read Glennon Doyle and I am a Goddess AND Instagram validates this”

I wish it were different, and the boys wish it were different too, but S decided it was over when I told her I could no longer clean up her emotional and financial messes, so she immediately checked out via Splitting, Devaluation, and Discard apparently finding someone else who empathizes with her situation and “victimhood”.

I do not disparage or malign or stop loving S as a human being. I am sorry for the suffering she went though and lives with every day, but I am not responsible for that. Her family of orgin starting with her mother and father and extending generationally is responsible for her sense of “never belonging” and feeling like “she is different from everyone else” Lacking a genuine Self is suffering. I am truly sorry there is no fix for that.

Respectfully,

—

This post was previously published on medium.com.

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From The Good Men Project on Medium

What Does Being in Love and Loving Someone Really Mean?

My 9-Year-Old Accidentally Explained Why His Mom Divorced Me

The One Thing Men Want More Than Sex

The Internal Struggle Men Battle in Silence

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