The Grand Finale

Hi this is my first time posting about my XN. It's a bit of a complicated one because I wasn't sure he was definitely a N until yday. He was widowed 5 years ago and we were together 3 and a bit. When someone is widowed, the idea is that they wait until they are ready to move on before entering another relationship. With him, he wanted to keep 60 photos of his late wife up, wedding ring on etc and me to be okay with all that as long as he told me he loved me. It starts to grate after a while when you're in an intimate relationship with someone and to get to the bedroom you have to pass loads of wedding and couple photos of your man with another woman on the staircase on the way there. A bit of a passion killer shall we say. He took the photos down over time but it was such a battle along the way to get him to take my feelings on board. We were together 2 years before he started to take them down.

He also wrote a book about her dying so has been promoting that non stop for the last year and half, lots of sainting and talking about the most wonderful woman who ever walked the earth etc, and generally lots of focus on that relationship. So over time I am getting more and more aggravated by the amount of time he spends living in the past and not enough focussing on our r'ship. Every time I brought this up, all I would get is 'but she's not a threat, she's gone/ why are you so insecure/ how selfish of you expecting me to take the pics down, she's not here anymore and that's all I have left of her', why does my wedding ring bother you it's just a symbol of my love for her' etc. EVERY problem we have had along the way he has discussed it with his mum, dad, sister, friends, neighbours so it has caused them to resent me as all they ever hear about are problems, not good times.

So last week he asked to meet me for a coffee and spent an hour ranting at me about how much resentment he has towards me for having a problem with photos, rings, book etc and making him make changes before he was ready(most changes were 4 years after she died), why did I have such a problem with him promoting his book. Then y'day I had the total D&D grand finale:
-I am such a controlling person asking him to make changes and am just controlling in general
- It is not him who is a N it is me and that I should really go for some psychotherapy to see if it helps.
- He is totally disgusted with me that I had any problem with all the photos, ring, book because this is someone who has passed away so i should've put my feelings aside.
- I am incapable of love- he mentioned that he didn't think I love my sons and also that I seemed to get over my dad's death very quick so mustn't have loved him either(dad died 4 yrs ago). Cheap shot and very spiteful thing to say.
- The only reason I don't like him promoting his memoir is that I am worried if it becomes a best seller he will leave me(had to contain my laughter- it has been out 18months and sold about 300 copies)
- He went back to his friend, neighbour and dad who had all said hateful things about me based on his angry rants when we were having problems and he apologised to them for the fact that he had chose to be loyal to me over them and said that he should have listened to them as all the things they said were right.
- Apparently his therapist said that he was one of the most honest ppl she has ever met so he couldn't possibly be a N.

he is the most attention seeking person I have ever met, he's never satisfied with what he has and always whining about how crap everything is, nothing I do is ever enough. The devaluation phase started as soon as I brought up the subject of commitment a few weeks ago. Ever since that his resentment towards me has been obvious and y'day he spat his venom for the final time.

I told him to collect his stuff today, have deleted& blocked him from FB, twitter etc so tomo is first day of NC. Unfortunately our kids r at the same school but the only day that they don't have after school clubs is a Fri so I have to completely ignore him when collecting them in the afternoon. It's a big playground so shouldn't be difficult. I am so filled with contempt for this man that has taken 3 years of my life but looking fwd to my new life without him