Scrooge Was a Narcissist

Tis the season of lights, mugs of hot chocolate, and giving gifts to the ones you love...unless you are a narcissist.

Here's the thing: Narcissists hate the holidays. Anything that takes attention away from them is enemy number one, so that goes for birthdays, Christmas, anniversaries, and any other gift-giving occasion. It took me about a year and a half to realize that my ex-husband had never given me a gift for any occasion, despite the fact that I was giving him things for special occasions. I'm not even a "gift person"...if we're talking in terms of "love languages," mine are words of affirmation and quality time. I never thought I cared about gifts at all, until I realized that I didn't get anything from him, ever.

I was giftless in our marriage from 2012 until 2014 when I was doing his greencard application for him. I gave him handmade cufflinks for our wedding. He hadn't even gotten me an engagement ring until the day before our wedding, and only then, because he had to. It was nothing I'd asked for and nothing like the pictures of things I liked that I sent him. I told him I didn't even need a diamond...just something unique and affordable. He came back the day before our wedding with a band half-lined with tiny diamonds, and complained how much he had to spend on it. I apologized, and told him that he didn't need to have done that. Our wedding was three days after Christmas. I gave him a small gift of a tshirt he liked and a full-series set of dvds of his favorite show. He gave me nothing, but I understood, because he had just spent "so much" on my ring. Since we were long distance, I'd find little things here and there that reminded me of him or of us and send them to him...he never did that. Valentine's day came and went. I sent him a card filled with sentiments about how much I loved and missed him. Nothing from him. Then came my birthday. Nothing. Not even a card in our first year together. For his birthday a month later, I bought him concert tickets to one of his favorite bands who was playing in town. Then came Christmas again. We got into a huge fight on Christmas eve, and he still hadn't bought me anything. He stormed out saying "Now I have to go buy you a f&#*ing gift! This should be great!" He came back with eyeshadow that my mom had already bought me for Christmas, and he knew it, forcing my mom to return hers.

I never brought it up until March 2014 when we were preparing for our greencard interview. I said "They want to see receipts from gifts we've exchanged and cards we've given each other...I have copies of all of the cards and receipts from gifts I've given you, but you've never given me anything..." He panicked. "We have to get our story straight!" he exclaimed. "
"Story? What story? I love you. There's no story here on my part."
"Oh, you're going to be like this again? If you doubt me I'LL LEAVE RIGHT NOW!" he screamed.
I apologized for "doubting him."

He once told me that the only gifts he gave anyone were things that he liked and could use himself. I thought he was kidding...up until he bought me a smart watch for my birthday that year. I never wore watches...he loved watches and had a watch collection. Of course, we were long distance at the time, and the "gift" arrived two weeks after my birthday. And when he came home months later, he took it with him back to his country. I never saw that watch again.

"You didn't like it anyway," was his justification for taking the "gift" he bought me.

From that point until we broke up the final time the following year, I got a few gifts from him, but all things he liked that weren't my style at all--two pairs of Swarovski crystal earrings. They looked like diamonds, but weren't REAL diamonds. I didn't like diamonds at all, and he was very into fake things that looked expensive. A glass rose for Valentine's Day with a cheesy, pre-written poem about love...he sent that while he was cheating on me with the other woman. Same with the fake diamonds, actually. And that year for my birthday, I got a pink (I hate pink) purse that he'd gotten for free from one of his celebrity appearances. He made sure to let me know that he'd spent MORE THAN HALF of his free gift certificate on me.

It wasn't until I ended my marriage and started researching narcissism that I realized this was a common theme amongst narcissists...they don't give gifts, and if they do, it's only things that they'll use/take themselves. Overarchingly, it's also NOT NORMAL in a relationship to NEVER get any gifts. I made every excuse for him, but when it came down to it, it was very hurtful and very much not ok with me to always be giving and never receiving...again, a very common theme with narcs.

So this holiday season, take note...if you give an never receive, it may be time to re-evaluate your relationship...and your partner may be a narc if he's consistently a Scrooge or makes a big deal about how much he "hates Christmas" or makes you feel guilty about spending any amount of money on a gift for you.

To the judge who dismissed my divorce over a typo...

Dear New York State Supreme Court Judge [name rescinded],

I recognize that this letter is likely against protocol, and I mean no disrespect. My voice was silenced during the 3 years I spent with Mr. [name rescinded], and throughout my divorce proceedings, I've felt that my voice has been silenced again. My request now is simply to be heard.

On July 28, 2015 I filed for divorce. My lawyer advised me to file "no fault" despite the fact that I learned first via pictures and later via phonecall from the other woman that my husband had been cheating on me for over a year and had also fathered a child outside of our marriage, because proving it would be long and too costly, and I couldn't afford that. Beyond that, and perhaps more importantly, he is an abusive individual with Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Anti-Social Personality disorder. I married a narcissist and sociopath which only became apparent many months into our marriage.

It has now become clear that my husband married me for a greencard. He is a con man who committed fraud against me and against the United States. Immediately upon receiving his greencard, he abandoned me and returned to his home country "to work." While he was there, and while I was here patiently waiting for him to come back and while I remained committed to the marriage and completely faithful, he betrayed me over the span of 11 months. He impregnated another woman, and had intimate relationships with at least three other individuals that I know of. 

I paid for our entire relationship, including his greencard and legal fees. In the entirety of our time together, he never paid a bill, never contributed to rent, and never shared in household expenses in any way. He took all of my money (I willingly gave it because I loved him), exhausted my life savings, and left me with nothing. When I'd finally had enough of waiting for him and being verbally and emotionally abused, I told him I wanted a divorce. Because I couldn't afford proper legal representation for a full court battle, I filed "no fault." I asked for nothing. I just wanted out. I wanted my life back.

Coming to terms with the fact that I was an abused wife was incredibly difficult. I'm smart. I do the right things. This wasn't supposed to happen! But I was smart enough to kick him out and file for divorce once I realized what was going on. I tried to do the right thing. I spent $3,000 on a lawyer and on international service to end the marriage. I was told that once I served him, it should be straight-forward, and because he didn't contest and didn't respond, it would be a default judgement in my favor. But over the course of the past year and a few months, I've been met with obstacle after obstacle that has prevented the divorce from actually becoming final. 

I'm still legally married to my abuser because I couldn't financially afford to file on grounds, and because of two clerical errors--the process server in his country failed to provide a physical description of him (which is understandable, since my husband is famous in his country--it's likely that the server didn't think it was necessary given that fact). You dismissed my papers then, and said that I could resubmit if I got my husband to sign an affidavit stating that he was, indeed served. So after many months, and much effort on my part and on the part of my lawyer, my ex finally signed the affidavit and got it notarized at the consulate. He had been holding on to control, and he finally relented. I was thrilled and thought that it was finally going to be over. However, when you got the affidavit, you dismissed it AGAIN, saying that the notary failed to date page three. Despite the fact that his signature was consistent. Despite the fact that his signature was notarized and dated on other pages. You dismissed it. And my case is now essentially dead in the water as my ex refuses to appear for an inquest, and I can't afford trial fees, anyway. So that's it. 

My lawyer explained that your ruling was "for my protection" because my ex could claim down the line that he "didn't know" I wanted a divorce. He's given numerous interviews to the press about how "he filed" for divorce (he didn't). About how it was a "mutual decision" (it wasn't). We have discussed it over email and in text messages. He has a new girlfriend who he is parading around on red carpets and posting plentiful pictures of on social media. There is more than enough proof to show that he, indeed, knows very well, that I want a divorce. You, for whatever reason, will not allow it.  

I'll likely never know your reasoning for dismissing my case. Maybe you were having a bad day. Maybe it's just a number to you, and you've lost sight of the fact that there are real people with real lives behind the case filings. Maybe you hate immigrants or women, and this is your way of sticking it to them passively. But let me remind you what your dismissal of my case has done, in real life:

I am still tied to my abuser, legally. Mentally and emotionally, it feels like a dark cloud that I can't get rid of. I have no closure on the relationship whatsoever, as he abruptly blocked me and stopped talking to me when I caught him in his affair. I never got an apology or acknowledgement from him of what he did, and now I can't get a legal end to the marriage. The process has brought back PTSD nightmares, as I've had to text him and communicate with him. My therapist advised me to stop communicating with him immediately, for my own mental health, yet my lawyer's retainer has been exhausted, so understandably, any more work she does on my behalf is essentially pro-bono. If I am to proceed in any way, it will be on my own, and I will have to be in contact with him and his lawyer. I am still financially responsible for him, should he choose to come back to the United States. 

I knew that marriage is a big deal, and it was one I was fully ready for at the time when I married him. But I was conned. He was a fraud, and not who he presented himself to be. I knew that a divorce wouldn't be easy, emotionally, but I didn't think it would be virtually impossible logistically. I had no idea that there would be no lenience on typos and innocent omissions, especially given the language barrier and the fact that the case crosses international lines. I had no idea that I would spend thousands more (in addition to the tens of thousands I spent throughout my marriage) trying to get rid of my abuser while getting nothing back and asking for nothing. I had no idea it would be this difficult, and I don't understand why it is. 

So here I am, over a year later, thousands of dollars poorer, and with absolutely nothing to show for it. I'm back at square one. I now either have to refile here and start a new case (and thus, spend more money do that) or allow him to file in his country, on his terms, in a language I do not speak. If I do the latter, I have to sign my power of attorney over to his lawyer, who will "represent us both." I lose all of my rights, and lose my voice. Allowing him to have that power is exactly what he wanted, and he thrives on that. It re-victimizes me, and continues the exact patterns I was trying to get out of in filing for divorce in the first place.

While this may have been just another case number to you, this is my life. I feel unable to move on. It feels like the biggest mistake of my life that I just cannot erase, no matter how hard I try. It's exhausting, mentally, emotionally, and financially. And all over a notary at a consulate in a foreign country who forgot to date one page of a document. 

Judge, I know you will not read this, and I know that this letter changes nothing. If you had wanted to grant me a divorce, you would have. But, for whatever reason, you didn't. I just hope that you understand the life behind the case number, and understand that your dismissal is allowing spousal abuse, even from afar, to continue. 

Sincerely,

The Plaintiff 

Invisible Red Flags

I've been thinking a lot lately about all of the red flags I missed (or worse, chose to ignore). They were there from the very beginning. Looking back, it's very clear that he was only ever using me to help his career. Of course, hindsight is 20/20, but perhaps sharing these subtle (and glaringly obvious) things I overlooked will help someone else to see clearly.

The Business Meeting 
When I was introduced to my now soon-to-be-ex-husband, the VERY first thing he said to me was "Oh, you're American? I love Americans!" I was on vacation in Europe, and used to being the strange American who spoke only English, so to hear someone say that, in English, was refreshing and immediately intriguing. But what I now realize is that the reason he "loved Americans" was because he wanted to be one (I realize how American-centric and patriotic this sounds, but I assure you, I'm one of the least patriotic Americans out there. I don't think we are the center of the world, and I don't think that everyone wants to come here to take our jobs...but in this case, he had made it his plan to come to America YEARS before I met him, unbeknownst to me, and I was a shining opportunity for this to happen for him). When I was doing his greencard application for him (naturally--he wouldn't do it himself, after all!), I kept coming across interviews he'd given to magazines talking about how much he wanted a career in America, how his dream to was to work in Hollywood, and how his dream vacation would be a roadtrip across America. As our marriage was crumbling, one of his acquaintances from acting school confided in me that when he was studying in London, he was unconcerned with mastering the British accent and solely focused on learning the American accent, because he was determined to work in America.

What's more, our very first conversation established that I was in a position to be able to help him. I introduced myself as a writer, director and producer and that I worked in entertainment business management (all of which was true). He was an actor. It was like I was handing him a golden ticket to what he wanted for his career, and since all narcopaths are completely self-serving, that alone was enough to make him pursue me with vigor. In hindsight, it's no coincidence that his discarding of me began at exactly the same time I began interviewing for jobs outside of the entertainment industry. If I no longer had my professional contacts, I was of little use to him. And it was one month from the time I started my new job (in the tech industry) to when he left me, saying we had "nothing in common, and no future together." Curious timing, isn't it?

As we got to know each other more in the days and weeks that followed, his conversation was focused on how much he wanted to live in America, and how he'd been thinking of moving there. Of course, I was smitten, so I was thrilled by the prospect of him moving to my country! He asked me if I needed a roommate. I said we could figure something out. He was outright telling me that he was looking at Masters degrees in America because he wanted to be here so much, but I thought that maybe I had been the catalyst to make him want to be here because he wanted to be with me.  It's sickening now to realize that THE ONLY REASON HE WAS WITH ME WAS TO HAVE A CHANCE AT ACTING IN AMERICA.

Three months into our relationship, we were already discussing marriage, and he came to visit me. On day three of that visit, we got into an argument. I don't even remember what it was about, but I remember saying something to the effect of "I don't feel good about this." There were warning signs going off in my body. I felt uncomfortable somehow, but couldn't pinpoint it. I just remember feeling off. This set him off (it was the first time I'd ever seen him get angry). He said he would just leave. I didn't want him to leave--I wanted to talk about whatever it was that was upsetting me. Naturally, that didn't happen, and I thought I should just let it go and it would blow over. The next day, he told me that the night before had "set us back" and that "all future bets were off." This was his way of keeping me hooked. I begged for us to go back to the way we were, sure that we could get past whatever it was. Once I did that, things were fine. His plan was back in motion.

His final words to me when we were at the airport for him to go back to his country were "I came here to see if I should take this to the next level, and I think I should." Very businesslike for someone supposedly madly in love with me. It struck me as odd, and as if he'd been planning, but again, I was madly in love, and just excited that he wanted to take it to the next level with me! And after he DID move here, and had a number of unsuccessful auditions and wasn't making any money as an actor (and was unemployed totally), I think he realized that working as an actor here was going to be harder than he'd realized, and he immediately accepted a job on a soap back home in his country. That was when our marriage really fell apart, because now he had his fame ego boost back, he was working in his career--I and our marriage were completely superfluous.

General Disrespect For My Time, Needs and Desires
This was always present, in forms ranging from subtle to blatant. It started, subtly, with what I call "The Patience Test" (something I only realized was a thing after briefly dating another narcissist last year who did the same time). He would keep me on Skype for HOURS while he did whatever he pleased, yet I just had to sit there at the computer and wait for him. He would play videogames, cook dinner, spend hours laughing to himself at YouTube videos he was watching, all while he was on Skype with me. I now realize that it was to see if I would sit there and wait for him. And I always did. I played into the game. If I said something like "Why don't you call me back when you're free?" or "Let me just go do this thing while you're doing that," his answer was always "No no no! I'll be done in just a second. I'm sorry! Thank you for waiting!" and then he'd continue doing what he was doing.

Another great example was our wedding. We got married in a civil ceremony at the courthouse in his city in his country. I needed a translator, since the ceremony was in his language. I asked my friend Mary* to translate for me, since she was literally the only person I knew in the country aside from him, and she and I had been friends for 9 years. I trusted her. The morning of the ceremony, he called his friend Sophie and said "How's your English?" I asked what he was doing and he said she was going to translate. I said that no, I would rather have Mary translate because I knew her and trusted her and he got angry and said "Ok, fine!" Then, when we got to the courthouse, he listed Sophie as the translator. Sophie, a woman I didn't know, and who, unbeknownst to me at the time, turned out to be HIS EX-GIRLFRIEND, translated my wedding ceremony. Mary sat in the audience as my "witness." (As an aside, his other witness, Susan, also turned out to be ANOTHER EX-GIRLFRIEND. Fun fact, he had no friends aside from ex-girlfriends. Of course, I didn't know any of this when he first introduced them to me. He called them his "sisters.")

Probably the biggest example of this was when he accepted a job in his home country, a week after getting his greencard here in the US, without asking me how I felt about it. Naturally, I was devastated. He had JUST moved here to be with me, FINALLY, after a year and a half of us being long distance, he had JUST gotten his greencard, we were FINALLY going to be able to start our life together as husband and work, with him being eligible to work...and he was leaving. He pretended to ask my opinion about it, but when I said "Well, this is not ideal..." he made it clear that if I said no or protested in any way, I would be "blocking his career" and he would "resent me forever." So I really had no say, and he'd already told his agent he'd take it before he talked to me, anyway.

Overarchingly, I had no say in anything. It was what he wanted, when he wanted it. Whatever worked for him was expected to work for me, and when it didn't, I was "dramatic" or "needy" or "unsupportive."

Really Obvious Stuff 
These ones don't even really need explainations. They were obvious signs of abuse and signs that he didn't care about my feelings even a little bit:

• He was consistently rough with me, even in intimate moments. Beyond that, he was downright violent at times. Though he never technically hit me, he would grab me and leave bruises, throw things (including a full suitcase, once) at me, slap my butt HARD out of nowhere, make sounds so loud into my ear that it popped my eardrum (even after I told him it was too loud...and then once my eardrum did pop, he got upset at me for crying because my eardrum popped and I literally couldn't hear and was in pain), which leads me to...
• Sex was consistently terrible. Terrible. It was all about him and what he wanted, when he wanted it, at all times. This probably deserves its own post, actually. He was rough, and even our very first time, he said "Wow, I'm actually making love! I can't believe it! I'm MAKING LOVE TO YOU! I never make love. I prefer to fuck." His idea of "making love" had no love or tenderness in it whatsoever. I remember thinking "Seriously? This is making love to you?!" but didn't say it. 
• He constantly criticized my weight/breast size/any other imperfection he could find. But then when I would get upset about his words, he would say "Well if you're so self-conscious about it, why don't you change it?!" Just go on a diet/get a boob job/whatever else he wanted me to do to 'fix' myself. He never understood that it wasn't that I was unhappy with myself--I was unhappy with his criticism of me. Unfortunately, it did take a toll on my self-esteem after awhile, but thank goodness, I always retained enough inner strength to recognize, deep down, that it was him who had the issues and not me. 

There's much more, and I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot, but this is a start. If you recognize any of these things happening in your relationship, take note. These are not things that healthy people do to people they love. These are things that users and abusers do.

PS - If you haven't already seen this video about emotional abuse in relationships, it's required watching.

*names changed to protect privacy

That time I apologized for having a migraine

Today I was looking for something in my email, and I fell into a rabbit hole of reading old emails I sent to my (almost ex)husband. It made me think "When did I first notice that something was off?" And the answer to that was 3 months in.

We met while I was on vacation, and were long distance for the first year and a half we were together. The first time he visited me was three months after we met. I was already in love with him (thanks Skype), and in his third week of visiting me, we took a road trip so I could introduce him to my family. His first impression on my sister and her husband were basically worst-case scenario. He and my brother in law got into a drinking competition, and he ended up throwing up ALL OVER my sister's house, repeatedly. I had never seen so much vomit in my life. While my sister and I were cleaning it up, he literally came out of the bathroom, looked at my sister, laughed, and said "Clean it, bitch!" and then went back to bed. I quickly apologized to her on his behalf (a theme that would only continue) saying "I'm so sorry...I think he's still drunk. He's not like this!" Except, as it turned out, he WAS like this. That was just the first glimpse of the real him.

Since I didn't sleep at all that night because I was up all night cleaning up his repetitive vomit, I got a pretty terrible migraine. I let him know, repeatedly, that I had a migraine and just wasn't feeling well. We headed back to my apartment, and he was blaring his heavy metal music the entire time we were in the car. Every time I would ask him to turn it down, he would say I was boring and no fun, and would gradually turn it back up.

When we got back into the city, we were on the escalator near my apartment. I still had a raging migraine, and he proceeded to slap me, hard, on the butt (playfully in his mind, painfully in mine--also the first time he touched me a little too hard and then got angry at me for reacting to that). I turned to him to give him a look to say "Not now," because I was hurting, and when I have a migraine everything hurts more. When he saw the look, he FLIPPED HIS SHIT, right there in public, threw my suitcase at me, and yelled "FUCK YOU! CARRY YOUR OWN SUITCASE THEN!" and stormed off in front of me. I began to cry, and I was "being a baby."

Here was my first ever email to him (the first of many) in which I tried SO HARD to explain how I was feeling, and how I never meant to upset him, and ended up apologizing for my own suffering. It was a pattern that got so much worse, until I realized what was going on and stopped apologizing (which is when shit REALLY hit the fan).

"I want to talk about this tonight, but I want to get out what I was thinking this morning, both because I need to get it out of my head and I also don't want to make you wait all day and for you to wonder what I'm thinking/think it's worse than it is.

Last night scared me. You apologized, and I accept it, but it scares me. I get migraines a lot. Less frequently than I used to, but still, more than I would like. I hate how they make me feel and how they interrupt my life, but if I don't catch it with drugs fast enough (as I didn't this weekend--it actually started on Sunday but I let it go because I thought I was just tired/hungover) they can really ruin my day and, at worst, a few days thereafter. When I have one, I try my best to function normally, but I can't always do that 100%. Everything becomes more sensitive--everything is too bright, too loud, and overall overwhelming. All I want to do when I have one is close my eyes and withdraw for a bit until it goes away. Yesterday that wasn't possible. I was trying my best to be normal, but I guess I wasn't doing as well as I thought because you said I was being bitchy and treating you badly all day. I didn't know I was doing that and I'm sorry if I did. 

I honestly got emotional on the train because I was thinking how much I loved you and how nice it was to have you with me and taking such good care of me and how I just didn't want that to end. I am so appreciative everything you were doing for me, both yesterday and always. I loved that you were there for me to lean on, and that you were massaging my head and holding me, and when it started to really hit me that you're leaving on Friday, and I got really sad and teared up. A couple of tears came out when I had my head on your shoulder. I was trying not to cry as we got off the train and went up the stairs to the escalator because of that, and then when you smacked my butt, I wasn't angry--I really wasn't. In my mind, I just shook my head to say "not now" because I was holding back tears as it was, and then I was completely blindsided with the escalator stuff because I legitimately didn't know what had happened and what was in my head was not at all what you thought it was.

Point is, my not feeling well is not and will not be an isolated event. If you didn't like me yesterday, and if what you thought was a look I gave you out of disgust? whatever it was that you thought I was thinking? caused you to get angry enough to go up another escalator and stop taking care of me in the way that I was so appreciative of, I'm afraid that I'm going to have to constantly walk on eggshells, which is really hard for me to do when I have a migraine.

I just don't want what happened last night to happen again, and the fact that I do get migraines at least once every month or two scares me. Like I said, I try to go on as normally as I can when I have them, but I don't always succeed, and if you don't like me when I have one, then I'm afraid you're not going to like me. And if you react the way you did last night when I'm feeling that way, I know for a fact that I can't deal with that. So it scares me. 

I love you. I love having you with me. I love the way you take care of me. I don't want you to leave, period. But when you offer to sleep on the couch/get a hotel/leave, which is the LAST thing I want, and it hurts me when you do that, too, because I think that means that you just don't want to be around me. I'm guessing that it's your defense from what happened in the past, but it hurts me a lot when you offer to leave because it makes me think that it's what you want. It's not what I want. Please get that into your head. It. is. not. what. I. want. I want you with me. 

And yes, a phonecall would be better, but I don't want to get emotional on the phone at work and have everyone nearby hear me and wonder what's happening. And I want to talk about it in person, but I also want to be completely clear so you can see it and not read into/guess about how I'm feeling. 

I love you."

When we talked about it, he said that it made him want to take three steps back and cancel all plans of our future. He threatened to leave. I now know that he did this to control me--any time I would stand up for myself, he would threaten to leave me. And that worked on me for awhile.

When I look back on the "good times," this was firmly during when I still thought things were perfect with us. But they were not. This was a huge, huge red flag, very early on, and I thought it was my fault because he just didn't understand how much pain I was in because of my migraine. What I didn't realize was that he would NEVER understand, because he's not capable of empathy. 

How I knew it was time to go

There are many listicles out there giving readers "20 Signs You Are Dating a Narcissist" or "10 Ways to Know You are Being Abused." I can say with certainty that I read essentially all of them over the last three years, yet I wasn't really to fully accept them until I started to create my own list.

One night in June 2015, I stayed in a hotel after I'd discovered what I believed was my husband having an affair (which turned out to be true, even though he never admitted it). That night, I stayed up, alone, in my hotel room, writing out every reason I could think of to leave him, and every reason I could think of to stay.

I came up with 29 compelling reasons to divorce him and only one reason to stay ("1. I love him").

Here's the incomplete list of reasons I decided to leave. I urge anyone in a similar situation to come up with their own lists...and let me know in the comments if any of these hit home for you:

1. He lied to me time and time again, while looking me in the eyes, sometimes while crying. He is an excellent liar, and does it with no remorse.
2. He ignores me over and over again because he's out with other women
3. He tried to gaslight me and make me feel crazy and guilty for asking questions about the other woman (which would have worked, if I hadn’t snooped.) I CAN NEVER TRUST HIM, EVER AGAIN.
4. Things have started to get more physical. When we got into the first argument over the other woman, and I told him I didn’t want to be with him, I asked him to please pay me for his cell phone, since I had been paying for it and he had been using it to have an affair. He said he wasn’t going to pay a penny because the divorce wasn’t his idea. So I said “Ok, I’m going to turn your phone off right now then.” As I sat at the computer to do that, he threatened to throw the monitor. “It’s expensive,” he said. I told him to do it, and he’d go to jail, because I would call the police for abuse. I really thought he might do it. The following week, we weren’t fighting, and things were ok, but I was sitting on the couch. He took his lighter and flicked it three times in my crotch. I yelled and told him to stop and it wasn’t funny. He got angry at me for that, because “How did I burn you?! You can’t even feel it! You’re being a child!” A few minutes later, I was laying watching tv, and he threw his passport at me, hard, hitting me in the face on my cheekbone, just under my eye. I flipped out at him, and he swore it was an accident, and was angry that I was angry. THIS IS HOW PHYSICAL ABUSE STARTS. IT ESCALATES.
5. The sex is not just terrible and unfulfilling, but actually physically painful. And then he tells me how many women he’s been with, and how none of them have ever cared about coming, and no one else has ever complained before, and sex should be all about the journey and I shouldn’t have to come every time (except that I come never--or when I DO take charge and come, he can’t stay hard and completely checks out).
6. We only have sex when he declares it. He'll exclaim things like "Suck my dick," and then get angry if I say no or call him out on how ridiculous it is for him to do that. He doesn’t respond to my advances, denies me, calls me a pervert or a nymphomaniac. And when he wants it, it doesn’t matter if I’m turned on or not. He enters me without turning me on, even when I tell him not to or pull away. He refuses to do anything I like, and then turns it against me saying that I should be “all about giving” and I should just let him do what he wants because it turns HIM on even if I don’t like it or it doesn’t turn me on.
7. I can’t talk to him. I can’t share my feelings with him. My feelings are always viewed as an attack on him, no matter how gently I word things, and how careful I am with his feelings. He then attacks me back. This is the worst when I am crying, being so vulnerable, pouring my heart out, and he calls me “immature” and a “baby.”
8. My friends and family all hate him. Also, he says that I can hang out with my friends, but when I try to, he then can’t believe that I’m not inviting him, that I would leave him alone, that I don’t want to make him a part of my life...which brings me to:
9. He actually uses my own direct words against me, but not well. When I complain that I feel like I’m not part of his life, he will then use those exact words later that day or the next day, but against me, and completely out of context. It’s clear he’s just making shit up to try to get to me, but it doesn’t even fit the situation.
10. He doesn’t want to actually share his life with me. He sees his life as HIS life, and I’m not a part of that. We are only allowed to have “our” life, but that doesn’t involve him sharing any part of HIS life with me (wouldn’t take me on set, won’t introduce me to colleagues or friends, wouldn’t let me mention why he was here when I was applying to auditions for him).
11. The entire time we were together he applied to exactly zero jobs, neither acting or otherwise. He claims he’s depressed, yet he had no sympathy for my own depression but expects me to have it for him.
12. He wants to have free reign to hang out with and make new single, female friends. It’s a huge source of contention. I WILL NEVER BE COMFORTABLE WITH THAT, yet when I express my discomfort, he calls me a "crazy, jealous bitch" and reminds me how much he "hates jealousy."
13. He has not contributed financially, to anything, EVER. The only thing he paid for was my gym bootcamp.
14. He believes that if I’m strong or in control, he is “my bitch” and he gives me attitude accordingly. This is the hallmark of an abuser. HE DOES NOT SEE US AS 50/50. HE SEES THAT HE MUST BE IN CONTROL, OTHERWISE HE IS “WEAK.”
15. He does not know how to be physically gentle or comforting. He tells me he hates holding hands. He never kisses me passionately (and never has). At most he gives a peck. When I literally ask him to hold me, he won’t. Being with him in person is physically not much different than being 3000 miles away.
16. He continues to call me “immature” and “insecure” and says I’m just “afraid of being alone.” He continually brings up my weight and how I should be exercising and how I’m just “bitter about fit, healthy people.”
17. He beats our dog for the tiniest of things, as "punishment," to the point that the dog pees when he sees him come near him. I could never, ever have a child with him, and I think his animal abuse is absolutely appalling and disgusting.
18. He will always do whatever he pleases, regardless of how it affects me. He will leave and come into my life when he pleases, despite how his leaving affects me and our life "together." He would be (and is) a father who leaves his children.
19. I feel constantly stressed, tired, drained around him. He disrupts my sleep (literally, he comes in and shakes me awake, just to wake me up, and then laughs and leaves the room).
20. He is violent in his sleep and hurts me.
21. He says he wants nothing to do with my friends or family, doesn’t give a “flying fuck” what they think, said he would watch my best friend die and walk away from her if she needed help.
22. He went from never giving me gifts on occasions (birthday, Christmas, anniversary--never) to giving me gifts he got for free to giving me gifts which are just awful or ones that HE wanted and then took for himself.
23. He’s not willing to go to therapy. He thinks it’s stupid. “We should just be adults.” And the one time I did get him to go to therapy, he used it to prove that he was right and I was wrong. Didn't view it as a team effort--still viewed it as a way for him to "win."
24. I’m getting physical symptoms from the stress of being with him. Acne, new rosacea, loss of appetite, actually retching and vomiting from stress. I lost 30 lbs because I can't eat.
25. He is not nice. He is hyper critical of everyone. He makes rude comments to everyone. He treats waiters terribly. I’m constantly apologizing for him and embarrassed by him.
26. I need a “safe space to grow.” He is not safe and is not interested in becoming safe.
27. He blames me for everything. No matter what, it’s my fault. He will not take any responsibility for anything.
28. I get nothing out of the relationship--no physical needs being met, no emotional needs being met, no financial help, we disagree on spiritual matters...I'm not being supported in any way.
29. I deserve to have the love I give be returned. I deserve a real partner and a real marriage.

The Other Woman

Today was one of those days where I woke up in a thin tank top, looked in the mirror, thought "I should really put on a bra to walk the dog..." but then immediately countered that thought with "Fuck it, I have nipples. I HAVE NIPPLES. If Jennifer Aniston could get away with it on FRIENDS, I can get away with it for 10 minutes on my street. So it's that kind of mood I woke up in, so seems like as good of a time as any to talk about the Other Woman (why did I capitalize her? she doesn't even deserve capitals).

Like the good textbook NPD Narcissist he is, my husband lined up new supply waaay before he and I were done. It's now the end of July, he left because I told him I wanted a divorce two weeks ago, and from what I can tell, he started his relationship with the other woman somewhere around January, when I actually thought that we were getting back on track and were going to work things out. Oh, me and my eternal, delusional hope.

I didn't believe she existed. I actually trusted him, and defended him at every turn to, well, EVERYONE who said "There must be someone else." I really, really didn't think there was. I didn't think he would do that. I even had a truly gifted, famous tv psychic tell me there was someone else, and I didn't believe him. He was right. Everyone was right. After he left me out of the blue (known as the "Narcissistic Discard") in March, and then came back after a string of excuses which went through most of April, all of May, and he finally moved back in in June, it didn't make sense to me why he had to leave me to "close doors" and "get his head on straight." Now I know that the door he needed to close was to the bedroom of the other woman who was paying for his flights.

I'm sort of unhealthily obsessed with thinking about her at the moment, but not in the "What's she have that I don't have?" way (the answer to that is easy: she has money). There is part of me that wants to warn her, but I know that she wouldn't believe me anyway, and I would just come off looking like the bitter wife who doesn't want anyone to be happy. That couldn't be further from the truth, actually. I wish so much that my husband could be happy, but I know that he won't be unless he decides to work on himself...and that will never happen, because he truly believes that everyone else is the problem, and that he has no issues. And I wish for her to know the fresh hell she's about to get into with him.

I know she's in love with him. I remember that euphoric, fairy-tale phase myself. I saw her facebook messages and her emails and her love poems to him (not so fast, she's not creative...she copied and pasted poems by well-known poets and sent them to him). But I know that he's only using her, just like he used me, and he's not capable of real love. She has fallen deeply for his charm and stunning good looks (because damn him, he IS stunningly handsome--I guess a life lived without feeling even a shred of guilt or remorse helps to fight the signs of aging as much as any anti-wrinkle cream). She's already paid for round-trip flights for him to leave his bitch of a wife. She described herself as his "lifeline" and handed over her credit card to him so that he could use it whenever he wanted. She's in deep. And, where I had no real money to spend on him, but spent my life savings on him anyway, she DOES have money, and from what I can tell, a lot of it. When I confronted him about her, he tried to prove his "love" for me by actually saying "Being with her would solve ALL of my problems. She is the perfect escape because she is fucking loaded and I would never have to work again!" (followed by "But I came back to YOU!", you know, as if he was doing me a favor by big, important, famous him coming back to poor, little old me--it was a sneaky backhanded compliment/put-down sandwich, with a side of guilt-trip sauce, which he excels at).

So what I'd really love to say to her is:

"Sweetheart, GOOD LUCK. You will need it. You will also need a lot of money, because in the three years we were together, he paid for exactly one bill. One! Oh, and he also paid for my fitness bootcamp, because he hated the way I looked (more on that in a moment...) Despite the fact that he was working and making a good salary, and was getting a lot of press and fame from his work, I saw none of that money. He will use you, until you catch onto the fact that using you is precisely what he's doing. Then he'll be shocked and hurt that you could even SUGGEST that or think of him that way. It took me a really long time to figure that out, but lucky for him, he already had you taking care of him (though I was still paying the rent and buying the groceries and paying for the wifi and the cell phone he was using to call you).  

I know you're trying to move mountains to get him a job. I did that, too. My GOD the mountains I moved. If I had applied that kind of effort to my own career, I think I would have won a Tony by now. But I did it for him, just like you are. He'll seem to be a little bit grateful, but it will never be enough, and at some point you'll wonder if all you're doing is worth it. It's not. I assure you, it's not. You're gonna come out of this depleted, exhausted, and significantly poorer than when you started. You'll struggle to figure out where it all went wrong because it was SO PERFECT in the beginning and no one had ever said the things he said to you, or swept you off your feet the way he did. No one had ever made you feel more beautiful or more special or more important. It was blissful, yes, but it was calculated on his part. He got you. You couldn't help but fall in love. We all have. Another pro-tip: get on some good birth control. His ex didn't, and he left her with a baby and empty promises of paying child support. Luckily for me, I got an IUD early on in our relationship, and he only left me with a dog. He even bought one bag of dog food, one time.  

You will also need more strength and confidence than you ever thought you had. He will never stop talking to and hanging out with beautiful, single women. Even if you're not the jealous type--I wasn't, either--your insecurities will get the best of you and you will start to hate the person you've become. He needs more female attention than any one woman can ever give him, and he will fly into a rage if you so much as ask who his new female friend is. He will tear you down with putdowns, sometimes after he compliments you (Example--"You are so beautiful. You are truly beautiful inside and out. I'm the luckiest guy to have met you...but, what are we going to do about your boobs?"). He will criticize every little bit of you that he once claimed to love, because he hates himself and has to project that onto others to feel better. He thinks he's fat and ugly and his nose is too big, and guess what--soon, he will be telling you that you are fat and ugly and your nose is too big. Literally, the last thing he said to me, on multiple occasions, before getting on a plane would be "Make sure you go to the gym every day. Promise me?" Not I love you. Not I'll miss you. Go to the gym. And then the first thing upon getting off the plane when I greeted him at the airport was "Ohh, I see someone has put on a little belly." Yes, HE had gained 30 lbs in the two months since I'd seen him...I had stayed the same. But according to him, *I* was the one who put on a belly, and shouldn't get angry at him because he was just joking, and I'm too sensitive, and if I'm going to act like that, he was just going to leave me now. 

Don't think that he'll ever return your empathy or validate your feelings. He won't. Your feelings are a threat to him, and he'll wish that you just didn't have them. He'll dismiss you, and if you dare express something to him that he doesn't agree with, he will scream and yell until you are the one apologizing for feeling or saying anything. Nothing you say or do, or think or feel will ever be right. And when you let him know that his screaming at you is not ok, he'll say it was nothing, he was joking, and you take him too seriously. It's a mindfuck. No matter how many times you try to explain yourself more clearly, and without emotion, and as gently and carefully as possible, he'll still explode and he will never "get it." 

Oh, also, hang out with your friends and family NOW. Because though he will encourage you to have friends and family, he won't actually want you to talk to them or correspond with them in any way, because he thinks you'll be talking about him. And if, let's say, you DO get near-suicidal and decide to reach out to your best friends and closest family for support, that will be your biggest, most unforgivable mistake to him. The irony is that even though you'll try to go to him first, he won't hear you, and if he does, you will be made to feel guilty for being sad, because it brings HIM down, and it means that you are being unsupportive of HIM. But he'll make it very clear that though he doesn't want to hear it, you are not, under any circumstances, allowed to go OUTSIDE of the marriage with your feelings. So you will be alone. Utterly, devastatingly alone. I can't prepare you for the amount of alone you will feel. If you want, at that point, you can reach out to me. Please reach out to someone before you start Googling what kind of pills you can overdose on to end the pain the fastest. Thank God, I did. I went against his wishes and told my friends and family, and got a therapist. You should do that, too. 

I know there's more I'm not thinking of right now. And there may be things that will be new to you that he didn't even do to me. Just...good luck. Bolster yourself. Your world is about to blow up."

I'm sorry you're here.

If you're here, I assume it's because perhaps you, too, accidentally married a narcissist. Or maybe you're dating someone who was SO AMAZING but is now critical and blames you for everything. You're worried something is off, so you googled, and you ended up here. I can't tell you how many times I googled, and how many red flags I ignored. And I still married him.

So, welcome. You're in good company, but I'm sorry you're here.

I bet people warned you, didn't they? They warned me, too. His dad even warned me. He always asked me if I was ok, and if his son was being "gentle" with me. He wasn't, but I lied and said he was. His friends all told me to have patience with him, because he's "a child who will never grow up." I didn't listen. I married him anyway.

I thought I could change him. The worst part is that I thought I was over thinking I could change people. I thought I'd learned my lessons, and I just KNEW that he was the right person for me, my soulmate. . I really, truly believed that. I never even believed in "the one" but he made me believe it. I knew that our love could overcome anything

But then I realized it couldn't.

Then I realized that he was not capable of loving me...not in the way I loved him, anyway. He literally couldn't hear my feelings without getting defensive and flipping things around on me, blaming me for feeling sad, for crying, telling me how fucked up I am and how many issues I have to solve. Because nothing was ever his fault. And I believed him, for awhile. But then I stopped apologizing for myself, and stopped trying to explain my feelings for the 72323883849th time, because I always thought that "No, THIS TIME, if I just say it THIS WAY, he'll understand and stop yelling at me." He never understood. I could never make him understand.

And now it's over, or at least in the beginning stages of being over. I contacted a divorce attorney. I just have to pay her, and send the agreement, and then he gets the papers. I'm not so naive as to think that he'll let go without a fight, but all I know is I want my life back. I want my friends back. I want my family back. I want to think about something other than him. I haven't thought about myself or what I want in so long. It's strange.

I can't even identify some of the emotions I'm feeling. I go from sad to angry back to sad almost every other minute. I'm hurt. I feel used. I feel stupid. I think "Maybe I should just keep trying! He was SO CLOSE to changing! I saw hints of vulnerability and he seemed to really hear me now!" but then I realize that I've been stuck in that cycle of hoping and waiting for three years, and I can't do that to myself anymore. It's all awful and confusing, and the only way I know how to deal is to write.

So here I am, and here you are. I'd love to hear from you. Let's help each other.