Working on Plan B

[InTheDragonsDen]

Had a pretty stress free life, surrounded by good friends and I felt happy and alive before entering this relationship.
Gave up everything.
Want my old life back.
Working on Plan B and Plan C.
Plan B will take a bit of time (less than 6 months) to exit on more "friendly terms" regarding assets.
Plan C if she ends it now or I need to go before Plan B is ready. All good.
8 years ago I asked her if her moods changed quickly. She said yes.
2 years ago I asked her if she had contempt for me (I thought it was something other than npd). She said sometimes.
You will never know how many red flags, how many boundaries I let her cross. How much abuse on myself I allowed. I did this to myself willingly. All a learning lesson.
Have my health. Have my life skills. Have friends and family. Life is too short to look back. I know I can do this. My last partner I have never wondered what she was doing and we have had no connection in 10 years. No reason I can not do the same. New phone number. No social media, it least for a year.
Working on boundaries. Paying attention to red flags. Working on me. Reconnecting with friends and family. Will keep reading and reading and watching helpful videos to make sure "I get it and I do not forget it".

[escapingman]

ITDD, the split will never be on your terms. If she decide to make it friendly, congratulations, but it will ultimately be her choice and you will have real say in it. I tried to make it as "friendly" as possible but STBX kept ramping it up until the whole situation was completely untenable and the entire situation just waited for a real disaster to happen. Had I not got her out of the house and a no contact order this had continued forever, or until one of us would have died.

The advice from my lawyer to stay in the house was dangerous, I get why she told me to stay and had I left on my own I had lost both my girls.

Remember, you are entering a war you can't win. You can only do as much damage limitation as you can. But eventually you win the freedom and that is priceless. I am not there yet, but I am getting closer.

Keep it together, you are doing great.

[InTheDragonsDen]

Friendly was in terms of asset relocation. Takes time.
Many different types of NPD with many different combination of traits. Think mine is part covert and needs the alcohol to "step into the lime light". She will not actually start dancing until she has consumed a fair amount. She has a lot of anxiety about a fair amount of issues. One anxiety is lawyers. For what ever reason she does not want to use them.  She knows my last divorce I contested and it took years.
Dr. Ramani says it works better if they discard us. Doesn't bother me if she does the power move.
She will not discard me until she has a replacement, if she has a replacement, she needs the divorce.
Their is a slight potential for me to be lucky as also I am looked at very well in the community.
She does not want anyone to think badly of her.
I have hope.
Today she was cold, distant, no eye contact, tried to make me jealous, notice her parents are also not making eye contact with me and understand what that means. Overall it was a great day and she was ignoring me for the few minutes we have been together today.
Yup, I know I am going to be lonely. Have to work on reconnecting with old friends, making new friends. Finding a way to keep myself busy and avoid sitting in the house all day when I move. It is going to take a lot of "work" on my part not to be a hermit and avoid being depressed. No one said this was going to be easy. It isn't.