That is beautiful you did, do that. Just saying even if you don't feel like that is what impression you gave her does not mean she still could have interpret it like that, even if that would sound crazy to you.

My husband had and I think still has but working on them, insecurity issues within himself, then projected on to me, that is a way, not always, some insecure people play it in romantic relationships, the need to feel control because it is scary to love someone, I guess. I did know he love me so that was why I could not understand that part. I never tried to change him regarding looks, weight, what ever. I had this saying before love them or leave them. And that I did not believe a man could be changed except when a baby. So I did not go there. He went there. If, I was someone who chose my battles and then I didn't go up face like he did me.

He, Mr Perfect, also actually had a problem with anxiety (that he did not know about) and I suspect a period before in our relationship a depression that went under the radar, that he did not want to talk or do anything about. If, when I asked if he was depressed he would just go no. It was as if he was looking outwards where he thought the problems were and not inwards where it actually was, it was how he was interpreting our reality or how he looked at me.

I left him once because he put me down, my weight, and this at a time where I did not feel like loosing weight, I think I was slightly overweight at the time. But when we had met I was underweight and struggled to gain weight. But one time he even got on one of his crazy diets, some toxic free stuff I don't know what the hell that was, and made me go on it too as he always wanted us to do this thing together, only when I got on the scale I realized I was not even overweight, I was normal weight plus his crazy diet was only suppose to be for a short period as it lacked nutrition the body needed so I went off it immediately and told him But I am not overweight and I like my body the way it is. Why are you trying to convey to me that I am not good enough he way I am? The only toxic I need to be free of is yours.

But he was always worried about my health somehow but I was doing just fine so I think it had to be looks then, I did not look good enough then somehow. He would say stuff to me like that he thought I had a good looking body but if I went to the gym and worked out this part of that part, then it would be so great, beautiful, I suppose. He always wanted improvements or to keep up some work on some body parts of his own. I only always told him I loved him no matter what he would work on or not work on and no matter the weight. But I think my words were drowned out, not important. He was so focused on his thing and that world and I drifted astray from that, had never been part of it in the first place.

Even people at work would see how my natural glow, me being comfy in my body no matter my weight went missing, I think that was my confidence that I thought every human being should have despite, but I slowly did not have it no more because of him. As a result too I lost interest in the intimate part like I never had before, and that he felt, worried him. I think the intimate part is not so much how the bodies look like but how you make your partner feel about herself or himself, that is what is passion, that is what is perfect. It's in the head, sexuality, and how we look at someone we love.

He would say later on that all he wanted was to get closer to me, for us to work out together, be together, do these (crazy...) diets together, but it backfired. I also thought maybe he wanted me to be more of his ex, this beautiful work out female.

I was being brainwashed, subtly and bluntly for years by his narc parent too, where my husband did not protect me enough from, so I began to feel as if they saw it as if my husband was superior (perfect) and the narc-parent believed it's family was too, and I was not, but that his ex was, and that he should be someone like him, not with someone like me. It was terrible. Just for the hell of it the narc-parent would call me by a different name, not even my own and then pretend? as if the parent just confused the names. You don't confuse the names after all that time unless you are really old and senile perhaps.

I used to have a good shield against all that so it took years before that crumbled and their toxic reached me. What I did to strengthen me was that I began to create and hold on and do more of things that had to do with my own life, my own friends, my own interests, my own activities away from my husband and his narc parent etc, and that whole structure as I could see the narc parent wanted my role to be inferior in the family, where as I could tell I was still the old me, the old me before I met my husband and all that began, outside of this family. I was still being loved or liked for who I was, what I could do, what I did do "out there".

There were protests as I was withdrawing, even from his narc-parent, but I was withdrawing because the one who was suppose to give me love and support and protection, my so called husband, did not convey that to me in ways I needed. I needed him to show his love for me in a different way, to fill what was empty. All of this was a process that I was not even fully aware off while I was in it. I only knew I was hurting in the relationship and that it felt as if 2 people with insecurities, the narc parent and my husband, was trying to step on me in order to feel better about themselves and their family and that I did not belong there or the work I had to do to improve my low status was too hard and not something I felt like doing anyways. Why would I? I could be with people that enjoyed me and liked me for who I was already. What would I do there? There were things they thought were traditional family times that I decided to be with my friends and their families instead. They had done triangulation to me in the past so I had no feeling of quilt, even if they wanted to quilt trip me, not to do that back in their faces. I wasn't having it no more. It was fresh air coming back into my lungs again. I was finding back to myself. I had sold myself too short, bit by bit, thinking of family and so on. It was only ideal, in my head, and not how these people were role cast. I think one of the best moments I had was when I said what is so superior about your family? I don't want to be part of your family.

We hardly have any sort of contact anymore with the narc-parent and my husband has realized fully now the damage the narc-parent has done to me, lots of things behind his or ours back as well, defaming etc. Just plain out lies with a spice of truth in them so that other people I had not even met yet were suppose to have that image of me and not like me. But they did like me and was to later warn me what the narc-parent was up to.

I remember I had been so brainwashed, put down, that when other guys showed interest in me, even if they now could see I had ring on and I did not flirt with them, I was genuinely surprised, even if that had been the deal before too, before I even met my husband. When I look back at photos I can see that I was pretty, just like others would tell me I was. It was very rare back then that my husband would give me compliments but he had no trouble giving me nonsense-critique, while I was the other way around. I know he did not come from a home where the one mainly raising him would give compliments, but point out what was seemingly wrong without a problem, like a stain you could not see with your eyes even if not really looking, on clothes.

My husband has taken accountability for where he went wrong in the past, went into therapy during our split before, still now working on himself.

Besides from yourselves, you don't have any family, relative that did not go along well with her or might have done something to her behind your back? Just saying if so then it is important to take that seriously and not leave it up to her to "work out" (like how was I suppose to work anything out with a narc-parent-in-law? It's impossible). For me it went to a length that I was starting to see the narc-parent and my husband as one and the same and let's not go with how relieved I felt when it was over between us that I did not have to deal with that narc-parent-in-law no more.

My husband claimed he was not aware of these things and try to point at all the other ways he tried to show me he loved me. I still have my scars from that though, can't be helped. I think if and when I see he has truly changed my guard will be let down but til then each time I let it down I get vulnerable and I get hurt, so then it goes up again to a level where I can take it and not be hurt at least. I will never go back to who I used to be. Never. Not for his sake or anyone else's. I'm looking out for myself now, the way he should have looked out for me. I should not had to have gone through any of this, he did this to me, when all I had done was to love him. He has apologized and so on, cried etc. Never wanted to loose me. Begging for a new chance.

These beautiful words you write here about her, do you think that could be something you could convey to her so then she knows? Maybe she thinks you look at her a different way? But that is all up to you of course. Maybe it is important for her that she knows? You had 10 years together, she must have loved you. You've must have had many good memories.

Good I think you're not doing the whole spell thing, really good if you ask me :)