[Thunder]

paradg=I think this crisis is to allow us to learn how to love ourselves more than we love them.

You are so right!!  I have more confidence in myself and like me a lot better than before all this started.
I feel I have gone forward my X has gone backwards.  Not half the man he used to be.

Maybe he will come out a better person in the end.  I really don't know.  Remains to be seen.

[Janus2014]

Thanks, PS.  I think it's very possible that H has NPD & I am a co-dependent.  My mother has NPD.  The only relationships I've ever felt "passionate" about are with men who appear to have NPD - they lie, gaslight and engage in emotional abuse.  My H has added "becomes physically threatening" to the list.  Then if I do anything but ignore the abuse, such as respond verbally or get angry, I am labelled as the one with a problem.

I've begun to view H as "Bluebeard."  You can have what he tells you you may have, but don't try to go in his "locked room."

Perhaps what I am feeling now is withdrawal.  Realizing that we are ending feels like kicking some kind of physical habit.