Fighting with myself

Hey everyone. I'm still vacillating in and out of my confidence with NC. I have these wonderful periods of realization that having my exN out of my life is that best that could have ever happened and that I'm actually so much happier now.

And then I have moments where I've exhausted all reasons to hate him and my natural inclination to forgive then sets in and I just want to reach out to him.

I also have moments where I want to reach out to him to screw with him like he's screwed with me—I haven't because I know narcs are skilled manipulators; we can't beat them at their own game. Nor should we waste the time. I know.

Last night I dreamt about him and the OW, whose existence in his life he's always denied. That has always made it so so hard to move on. If I could see them explicitly together or have him actually admit it, while it'd hurt like hell, I would KNOW.

I've gathered plenty of convincing evidence but his denial of everything really rattled my sense of confidence—I know this was gaslighting.

But those damn dreams really pull me back in. What have been all of your experiences with the dreams and fighting yourselves?

I still have not replied to his last hoovering text, and it was easy when I was still in shock about it. Now I feel like I'm really getting back into the swing of NC and it is such a hard place to be in. It's really tiring using so much self control all the time.

I wish more than anything I could just write him an email getting everything off my chest and have him genuinely put in the effort to understand it. To understand me. To show some emotion similar to my own. I hate having to make myself cold to him. I'm not a cold person.