Your True North

[sunshine702]

Dr Ramani has a concept called True North.  That absolute ride or die value with the PD disordered individual. 

For the people that left and the people that stayed - - was there an example of True North that happened or was it more of a slow process?  Was there something that happened and at that moment you got deadly serious at planning the escape or figuring out how to deal until certain milestone?


Feel free to put in trigger warnings and be broad/ vague if you need to be. 

I just think we could all learn a bit by each other here. 

[sunshine702]

Here in an example from my life -  when you truly SEE it.  I always asked my ex husband to burn me a CD of music he was downloading (2003 time frame) I had very long drives each day for work and kept asking and kept listening to the one CD I had.  During our separation (sparked by something else) I was going through his things and found HUNDREDS of burned CD's for HIM.

I realized how SELFISH and UNCARING about me he was RIGHT THERE. 

[escapingman]

There were many episodes that took me closer and closer to deciding to leave, but it was pne final straw and when that happened I just knew. It then took a further two years and a bit to actually leave, thanks Covid.

The episode in question was her throwing food around the entire kitchen crying like a baby because she wanted her dessert but me and the children were still eating the main course (neither of us objected to her starting her dessert before but we were selfish for suggesting that).

[StartingHealing]

For me it had been a gradual build up over several years.  I finally realized that some sh-te was seriously wrong and then found this space as I was trying to figure out WTF was going on.  When I started applying the tools in the toolbox, her behavior got even more severe which reinforced the truth that she at the time had a personality disorder.  On that day, the result was me calling the police and her being arrested on DV and disturbing the peace. That was the last night that we slept under the same roof. 

 

[SeaBreeze]

I vaguely set a goal of leaving stbx-uNPDh when youngest child graduated high school... when youngest was age 8 or 9. I was definitely playing the long game.

Sooo... The summer before youngest started high school, we went on a planned family outing to the beach. And of course stbx had a mood swing and started his usual sabotaging antics. I'm standing on the pier, watching the waves crash, ignoring stbx and pointing out dolphins to youngest, when a voice in my head says "Youngest is starting high school. You only have to put up with this a few more years." After several years of being a SAHM, I went out and got a job a week later. The exit plan was officially in motion.

And then Covid happened a few years later, prompting me to stay a couple years longer, but in a serendipitous way actually helped my plans. Finally, I set an actual exit date, but between a rather scary incident where the "Gift of Fear" kicked in that set me on hyper alert, followed the next day by a seemingly trivial incident for which I simply no longer had the patience, I left "suddenly", "unexpectedly" a month sooner than planned.

That pivotal moment at the beach that summer day is why I call myself SeaBreeze. Perhaps that was when my  spinning compass pointed True North.

[Call Me Cordelia]

For me it was my parents, not a partner, but I was really, truly, irrrevocably done with them when it became evident they were targeting my kids. Mama bear kicked in and that was it. My experience is not uncommon. I think this idea of True North is that you have a love or a truth that is just plain stronger than the FOG, and the FOG just can't touch it anymore.

[LemonLime]

It was with my uPD sibling.  She'd been "quirky" our whole lives.

But when she had a meltdown at me five years ago, in front of my young daughter, and shrieked that I'm a bad person and a bad mother (because I hadn't done my share of chores at the vacation house, according to her), I realized somewhere deep inside that the relationship was essentially over.

I look back now and see that even then, I was willing to give her another chance if she had apologized, etc.  But over the past 5 years she has not apologized, and now I realize I should have not even been willing to give her that chance.  So even after the incident, it took a few years for me to totally "get it".   The yelling incident is what led me to this site, and my education began.

It was Mama Bear that kicked in for me too, Call Me Cordelia.   I had taken her sh#t before, but had not been shouted at by her in front of my child.   She messed with the wrong person, and even I didn't know how protective I would be.  I was not about to let my daughter learn that it's OK for someone to yell at me that way.  It was not good role-modeling.  My daughter was going to an all-girls school that stressed boundaries and "girl power" and how to be strong.   I just couldn't let her see me bullied.

[PlantFlowersNotWeeds]

First, my close friend was diagnosed with cancer which helped open my eyes, so I planned on leaving when my son graduated from high school - which was 3 years.

Then, I suspected that my ex stole money from our elderly neighbor.  I was so disgusted that I was just done. 

This group helped me tremendously. 

Plantflowersnotweeds comes from my friend..... my True North

I'll be divorced 2 years this August 

[losingmyself]

I'm a little late to this conversation,  but wanted to share my true north story.
I knew my ex had a problem,  and thankfully found this site to help me realize what I was dealing with and help me deal with him. I should have left a long time ago, when my (not his) kids were much younger, but I didn't have the strength.
My DD had moved to a different city, and chose to come back, and she was going to come work with me at my place of employment,  so it only made sense that she would stay at our house, since she didn't have her drivers license yet, and we had plenty of room. Only until she found her own place.
He had a fit and said that he would move out before he'd live with her again, and actually started packing up his things.
I didn't stop him, but she chose to live with her dad, ten miles out in the country, and I had to go get her every morning through the tough winter months, and ex was ok with that.
I had wanted to leave for a long time, but that was the moment I was done. I told my sister what was happening,  for the first time, and started my exit plan.
It took almost a year,  but I have been no contact for more than a year now, and I haven't ever been happier.

[looloo]

For me, the deciding factor to leave toxic/abusive relationships happens only when it becomes obvious that the person just doesn't trust me.  I noticed this pattern only after many many years!
Decades ago, after working in a hugely dysfunctional, exploitive workplace for several years (that I didn't recognize as such because of my f—cked up FOO), "management" decided to install a timeclock.  I wasn't happy about it, but whatever.  One day, the timeclock fell off the shelf where it had been placed precariously, and I was accused of tampering with it.  That was it—after years of harassment, not getting overtime pay, etc.  I walked out the door at lunch and didn't come back.
My ex husband—had pressured me for years to "open" our marriage.  I struggled to keep an open mind, and eventually I did become accepting of it (blaming myself for not being good enough).  Soon after, ex H began accusing me of cheating, being a "whore", and demanding to see my phone (which I showed him because I hadn't done anything).  That was it, I began planning my escape, which happened about 10-11 months later.
My mother, who began exhibiting signs of dementia but had never thought highly of me, started to resent me for "interfering" and "taking over her life" (well, yeah! she couldn't manage her affairs any longer!). She started to smear me in such a way that I worried about false accusations of elder abuse and how I might have to defend myself legally. So I continued to handle her affairs but no longer spoke to her or visited, I dealt with everyone BUT her, and documented EVERYTHING.
So, for me, it's when I know for sure that I'm not trusted.